Today, I'm working on a Squier Telecaster. The stock pickups were noisy and wimpy and the customer acquired a set of stacked Bill Lawrence Tele pickups to install in the attempt to reduce the 60 cycle hum. I installed the pickups a few weeks ago, but the customer claims it's still as noisy as ever!
Back on the bench it goes and this time, we're going to install copper shielding to the pickup and control cavities to reduce the hum.
The neck must be removed before the pickguard can be removed on this model! Off with the strings, off with the neck, and now we can get the pickguard off. All the electronics have to be un-soldered and removed to work on the shielding in the cavities.
The channel for the neck pickup wires was originally a tunnel leading to the cavity for the bridge pickup. I decided to route an open passage so I could apply the copper shielding in that area also.
With the copper shielding cut and glued in place, the next step is to re-mount the pickups in their cavities.
I thought it best to replace the original switch, volume and tone controls, wiring, and jack with new.
I used a switch for the Fender American Standard Tele.
Well, there we have it. All back together and strung up with D'Addario EXL-110 strings.
After a set up, this baby should quack like a good Tele should!
