Hum reduction on a Tele

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!

Repairs Rock Prices

REPAIRS ROCK PRICE LIST


$ 30.00 Basic Set up: Electric, Acoustic, and Bass Guitars:
Set up includes: truss rod adjustment, tuner adjustment, fingerboard cleaning, saddle height
and intonation adjustment, tighten loose hardware, re-string, pickup height
adjustment, test, clean.

$ 40.00 Set up with Floyd Rose Trem

$ 15.00 Jack replacement on most electric guitars & basses

$ 30.00 Jack replacement on acoustic-electric instruments

$ 30.00-50.00 Pickup replacement on most electrics *

$80.00-100.00 Re-glue bridge on acoustic

$75.00 Complete re-wire Les Paul (parts additional)

$50.00 Complete re-wire on Strat or Tele (parts additional)

$60.00 Copper shielding on electrics to minimize hum

• Custom work, such as routing body for over-size pickup install, custom pickguard mods, and other irregular modifications is subject to $ 40.00 per hour.


TELE MODS
The 4 Way Switch Drops in original slot and adds the two pickups on in Series. The other three positions stay as original.
Parts, Labor $ 60.00

Volume Control Closer to the fingertips. By re-mounting control plate 180 out and switching volume and tone control position, and turning the switch 180 out, you get from left to right, Volume, Tone, and Switch.
Way Cool for Swells!
Labor $ 30.00

Bigsby B-5 Tailpiece $250.00

Satisfied Customers


Tom Briggs Insurance Agent
tbriggs2@rochester.rr.com


John Stiles Professional Musician
jstiles@rochester.rr.com


Joseph F. Laubacker Engineer
jflaubacker@verizon.net


Albert Pacete Chaplan/Deacon
apacete@aol.com

The Broken Bauer

A friend in Lyons brought me his old George Bauer Bowl Back Mandolin, with the neck coming off and top, smashed in. I wiggled the neck a bit, and it came off, with a bit of the top still holding onto the edge of the fingerboard, which also crumbled off the bottom. It looks as though all the pieces are there but restoraton to playable condition is pushing the bar.

George Bauer was in Philidelphia, Pa and putting out stringed instruments in the late 1880's. He later joined forces with Stuart Banjo and took that company over in the early 1900's.

Our poor broken one is called model Monagram, and I see that model in later instruments too and considered entry level. With it's beautiful top, Brazilian Rosewood bowl strips, I'd hardly call it entry level! The neck joint is one I've yet to see. Not the dove-tail joint that we're used to encountering, but a crude, hand carved asymetrical joint.

Well, after consulting a luhier here in Rochester, he brought to my attention, that the neck was previously re-glued, using Gorilla Glue. The urethene glue has already satuated the wood fibers, rendering hyde or other wood glues not effective. So, at his advice, I cleaned up my joints and reglued the neck with the Gorilla Glue.

The next serious issue, is the left top bout where the fingerboard and top meet. The top is smashed down over 1/8 inch. I cut a scab to glue under my seam, and jacked and glued the left top section to the fingerboard.

A new Tele Mod

Being a Tele kinda guy, myself, I love it when a customer has a new request for a mod on a Tele. Yesterday, a great player and new friend to me brought in a Tele for a pickup replacement job and a request to move the controls around on his Tele. He asked that I turn the control plate 180 out, so that the switch was on the other end of the plate. He wanted the volume control to be on the left side, closer to the picking hand for easier reach. It sounded like a great idea to me. He claims that guys in Nashville started doing this.
This required, turning the control plate around 180. The switch, also had to be turned around 180. The volume and tone controls had to be switched in their respectave positions also. With the guitar strapped on, looking down, the controls now were from left to right: Volume, Tone, and Selector Switch. The volume could now be much closer to swell and adjust. Genious!

Those Darn Baggage Handlers

Ya really gotta be carefull traveling with your guitar. I've seen it happen many times, many ways, but with all the string tension on your baby, if it takes a spill, it could mean a broken headstock, even in the original hard shell case. Our repair here is from not loosening the string tension and attempting to have airline baggage folks handle the instrument.

First step was to remove the tuners from the headstock. I used a two part epoxy to make the repair. Brushing it on lightly, both pieces, I reunited the headstock with the neck. Clamping it prooved to be a challenge; as I applied clamp preasure, the two parts wanted to slip off allignment. I had to loosen my clamping preasure so the two parts stayed put!

I'm a bit new to this procedure; when I removed the clamp after curing, I had overflow from the epoxy, requiring sanding the area smooth, removing my overflow.

Next, was matching the finish to create a blend. It took some oak and walnut stain to get close to the same shade as original. Next, came a few coats of clear laquer

Well, the ole girl's back in one piece; Not invisible, but quite playable.
Amy, I'd leave this baby home the next time you fly!

The resurrection of the Le Brea

Another resurrection of an old friend. Many years ago, while working in a great music store, I sold a Fender LeBrea to a nice man. 20 or so years later, I get a request to repair a friend's guitar, belonging to her father. My friend, I hadn't seen in a dog's age either! It turns out, I did know her dad and indeed sold him the guitar. She got it from her uncle in Kentucky, years later, in stowage. I got it home, opened the case to find it without strings. Further inspection showed the output jack was gone. I found some wires bundled up and tie wrapped to the pre-amp inside the body. After removing the pre-amp, I found the wires going to the pickup and the wires going to the jack were cut, the pickup itself, gone. The jack lead was now too short to go out to the end of the body. My first plan was to unsolder the short wires off the pre-amp and install a new lead of proper length. Closer inspection reveled it would be necessary to completely unsolder and remove the three pots off the pre-amp circuit board. Nah!! Way too much labor. I opted to tack on a length of wire to the existing lead. Ditto for the pickup connections. First, I assembled the entire system out of the guitar and plugged into an amp to test it. Nice, everything seemed to work fine. The original pickup must have been glued somewhere inside near the bridge plate. I had a replacement under the saddle pickup for the repair. I was happy to find out the new pickup was going to act right married to the Le Brea pre-amp! Now to install the new pickup. First, I un-soldered my test connections to the pickup. Next, I had to drill a small hole in the end of the bridge for the pickup wires to feed into the body. Next, I had to re-solder my pickup wires to the pre-amp, install a new jack, re-install the pre-amp, put a fresh 9 V battery into place and tie wrap my wires and secure them out of sight. Now for new strings and the ceremonial test through an amp. It worked fine! Sigh of relief!!! The strings were a bit high off the fingerboard so remove the saddle and sand the bottom and install. Next, the height at the nut could use some adjustment. One string at a time, loosen, move out of the way, and file each nut slot. Replace string, tune to pitch and check. Repeat the steps until the string found it's proper place in the nut slot. Repeat the steps for the remainder of the strings. Test. Nice; I could play this one all night. Tomorrow, a good cleaning and polishing and this baby's ready for Bonnie to play her little pea picken heart out!

Attack of the Teisco Cont.!!

OK, the second and final post concerning the attack of the Teisco!

As I stated in the previous post, my friend passed on to me his first guitar to be restored, an old Zenon, made by the Teisco company in Japan, most likely in the early sixties. These student model guitars are now coveted by many. In the case of this particular Zenon, by buddy just would love to have his first guitar playable once again.

In the previous installment, I stated that half of the tuners were missing, the jack loose, and many years of grunge covered the instrument. I have always kept old guitar parts in storage, to be used or re-cycled as needed. I did manage to have the parts to re-assemble the six tuners! The nut was gone and I did use a new cheap plastic variety, I'm pretty sure Teisco used at the time. I took the pickguard off and checked the wiring. I found a broken wire and loose jack. I spritzed the three controls with WD 40, soldered the broken wire back onto the switch, and replaced the output jack. The tone capacitor was gone and the wiring to the controls altered. I did not want to disturb any more of the circuit than I had to, and decided to leave the tone control alone.

I removed the primitive tremolo system under the tailpiece, and attempted to adapt a Floyd Rose part to accept a whammy bar, but the system is too primitive, so that too I left alone.

I began to string it up after re-assembling and cleaning the area, only to find the strings high off the fretboard. I removed the neck and cut two plastic shims to place in the neck pocket, and replaced the neck. The strings were nicely over the fingerboard, requiring even raising the bridge adjustment wheels up a bit. The bottom of the pickguard, housing the output jack, was broken off. I decided to use the original repaired section, but added three more screws to secure the section. It was time for the test! I plugged it in and started playing. The bridge pickup really honks nicely and the neck pickup warms the tone. One of the rocker switches, is a bit persnickety, but does work. This baby is good for another 45 years, I reckon!!!