a Yamaha electric guitar for $ 20. The picture looked a bit vague, but I thought for the price, I'd take it. When I met the guy, I had to hide my laughing inside when I saw how someone tried to repair it. The blade was missing from the 5 way switch, and they put next to it a switch identical to the one I used for a kill switch on my riding lawn mower! Next to that, was a small push button switch. I paid the guy and he said this goes with it. It came with a nice stand and a bag of cords and a cheap tuner.
I got home and looked closer. The jack was not in sight, but wads of electric tape, folded and screwed to the lower edge of the guitar. I didn't even try to diagnose anything, I fired up the soldering iron, cut the wires going to the two bogus switches, and unsoldered the pickup leads and the rest of the wires from the original switch which was in fact still in the guitar.
I then removed all the switches leaving the pickups, volume and tone controls. The "lawnmower" switch left an ugly irregular hole which is still there for now. The other added switch, luckily was a small neat round hole.
The next step was to take Ohm resistance readings on the pickups and pots. They all seemed to be alive. I found three used switches in a parts drawer which I could use; a 3 way Tele (or Vintage Strat), an import YM-50 5 way switch, and a new Stew-Mac Super Switch with 4 poles, 5 lugs to a pole. I did not want to use the Super Switch on this baby. The used Tele switch would limit my pickup selections so I opted for the used YM-50 switch.
I tinned all the wires and in some cases, cut back and re-tinned. After wiring up the new switch, it hummed, but the pickups were not working. I again took readings with the multi meter and it should be working. I was guess'n the used switch of mine was bad. There was still one thing I could try with the switch. I was only using 1/2 of the switch, the other 1/2 would be used to run wires to tone controls. This model Yamaha, had a single volume and single tone control wired off the volume, not the switch as is the way with a Strat. I decided to wire the pickups to the other 1/2 of the switch. Bingo! Everything worked. I now had a functional three pickup guitar wired to a 5 way switch. Now, what could I do bout those two extra holes in the pickguard? Again, I dove into the parts box and found a mini push-pull pot, and a mini On/On switch. I decided to use the mini switch to wire the neck pickup to as well as the main 5 way switch. That gave the guitar two more selections or tone options. With the original switch, the neck pickup can be selected alone or with the middle pickup. The remaining 3 positions were to select the middle alone, the middle and bridge, and the bridge alone. In those remaining 3 positions, I now can add the neck pickup too. That gives the option of using the neck and bridge together or even all three together. The only part I needed now was a jack plate. I got a football shaped one for $ 4.50. I might as well install a new jack too. After I strung her up, I could see the neck needed a truss rod adjustment. The vintage tremolo system had been screwed down tight making the bar useless. I got it adjusted nice and shimmery loose and it stayed in tune pretty good. As for the ugly hole left by the "lawnmower"switch, maybe I'll put in a doll googly eye!
