Guitar pickups are pretty simple things – magnets, wires, wax, some metal bits and a bobbin to hang it all on. But with all the jargon and mojo surrounding them, it’s intimidating for many guitarists to even consider they could repair or mod one. Covered humbuckers are especially mysterious with everything all locked up in a little box and sealed with those little blobs of solder.
So here’s an excellent video to clear away the fog and show you how to easily get a cover off a humbucker, and just as important, put it back together properly. It was created by Mojo Musical Supply that I noticed sells all the parts for making your own pickups. The tip about the razor blade is gold!
And don’t forget we are still taking entrants for the Chicago Music Exchange T-Shirt. Enter Contest
Recently on one of the many guitar forums I read everyday, someone posted the a links to a few of these videos by Chicago Music Exchange. They were pretty funny, and they obviously ‘get’ guitarists. And as someone who designs and edits video for a living, I liked that they were doing something creative with their ads.
So the videos did their job and I went and checked out their website. The thing that hit me immediately was the 360 panorama of their store. It looked sort of like a hotel lobby with lots of sofas scattered about the center. Except that all the walls were lined with hundreds of guitars. So it seems they are encouraging people to hang out and try out their guitars, nice approach.
I started looking through their offerings expecting the usual gear, which they do carry, but they also carry a large selection of extremely high-end, rare and much sought after vintage guitars and amps. In fact, they bill themselves as one of the worlds premiere outlets for vintage gear. Here’s a very small sampling of the available guitars at the time of this article. (click for larger view)
This is definitely a unique store and I have heard a lot of good things about it online. Strangely, through an unrelated set of circumstances, I was just contacted by Lou from Chicago Music Exchange about sponsoring this website. Since I had already bookmarked their store page for a future article idea, it was an easy choice to agree.
Win a Free Shirt!
As encouragement to learn more about Chicago Music Exchange, we are giving away a free CME T-Shirt. Just use the form below to enter. By entering this contest you are agreeing to opt-in to the Chicago Music Exchange mailing list, though you can opt-out anytime if you wish. I’ll pick a winner in a few weeks and email you to get your size and shipping address.
What better story to follow my “How To Solder” article, then an announcement from Seymour Duncan for a new system that allows you to swap pickups in your guitar without needing to do any soldering. Dubbed the Liberator™, it’s essentially a volume potentiometer with a clamping system to attach the pickup wires to.
Initially there will be both 500K and 250K versions for humbuckers and single coils. All the connections are color coded so hooking up your pickups correctly should put a little less stress on brain cells as well. The colors match Seymour Duncan’s pickup wire color scheme but an included color guide card shows wiring diagrams for other brands of pickups as well. For the old school purists, there is also gold-plated soldering pads which you can use and still give you the benefit of the coded locations. This also means you are soldering your ground wires to individual, easy to solder pads, instead of the back of the pot. A chore a lot of DIY guitarists struggle with.
This seems like a great idea and the only down side I could see is that it looks like it could be a tight fit in small control cavities. They are slated to be released in early 2011 for $35. Eventually, an expanded version of the Liberator™ system will be offered as complete wiring harnesses and loaded pickguards.
Being into the DIY part of guitars means knowing how to solder. From swapping pickups and pots to building and modding stompboxes and amps, it’s an essential skill. And it really isn’t that hard. Soldering correctly is all about the details. If you approach it with the mindset of ” gluing” the parts together with solder , you’re going to fail. Molten solder dripped onto two pieces of solderable metal will not stick. You need to heat the parts you are trying to bond till they’re hot enough to melt the solder themselves.
Another thing that trips some people up is getting the heat from the soldering iron to transfer to your parts efficiently. The key factor here is cleanliness. The soldering tip itself needs to be constantly cleaned and maintained to do it’s job properly. You can keep it clean while soldering by wiping it on either a damp sponge or a brass tip cleaner, which I prefer. And always keep the tip covered in solder as it will quickly corrode without it. Then always dip the tip in some tip tinner when your done soldering. If your soldering tip is all black and pitted and has a hard time melting solder, you need a new tip.
This tip needs to be replaced
The parts your soldering need to be clean as well. The easiest way to ensure this is to use rosin core solder. This is solder that has some rosin flux running through the center of it. The flux dissolves any oxidation on the metal, which the solder won’t stick to. It then briefly acts as a barrier to oxygen, preventing oxidation from taking place as you solder. You can also by flux separately usually as a paste. I like to spread some of this on more difficult to solder items, like the ground wires you need to attach to the back of your guitars volume and tone potentiometers. I’ve heard so many people complaining how hard this is and that you need at least a 40 watt iron and heavy chisel tip to do it. I have no problem doing this with a 25watt iron and pointed tip because I flux the back of the pot and the wires. You also always want to pre-tin your wires, which is simply melting some solder on the end of the wire you are about to solder. It helps the heat transfer more quickly.
Here’s a really good demonstration on how to solder I found on CuriousInventor.com. This guy explains everything you need to know. Pay attention to all the details and soldering will go from an intimidating task to a skill to help in your quest for your ultimate guitar tone.
So, in the last episode we were left with an uneven, lemon colored lacquer finish. I mentioned that I came up with a ‘great’ way to fix this, ‘great’ being a relative term here. I bought an air compressor and a spraygun. I actually have a lot of experience mixing and spraying lacquer from a past job. So I knew investing in a real spray set up would get me the control and flexibility I really wanted. Spray cans are convenient but do not lay down paint very smoothly and you’re at the mercy of the manufacturer’s choice of colors.
Having a limited budget for this, I went right to Harbor Freight. And after a little research, went with this one. Only $99, along with the gun for about $15, some hoses, fittings and air filters I ended up spending just under $200. If you think you will be finishing more then 1 guitar, I highly recommend making this investment. Not to mention compressors are useful for many other tasks.
So I went to a local woodworker supply store and found a quart of Behlen’s stringed instrument lacquer. Supposedly this formula is more flexible and less brittle then typical nitrocellulose lacquer to account for the flexing of the thin wood used in acoustic guitars, violins, etc. I also ordered some Mixol universal tints to color the lacquer. I bought white, oxide yellow and tobacco to make the pale cream color I was going for. I added the white to the clear until it looked more opaque then transparent. I didn’t want to try and get it perfectly opaque as that would have required a lot of toner which could have interfered with the lacquer curing correctly. To then turn the white to a ‘vintage’ white I only needed about a drop of the oxide yellow. I didn’t use the brown at all as it just made the color too beige.
So now the color was perfect and was going on smoothly with my cheapo spray rig. I then began the clear coating process of 3 passes a day, 3 hours a part. It too was going on nice and smooth and I was loving the extra control a spraygun gave compared to the rattle cans. All seemed to be going well…
So I’m spraying the clearcoats in my badly lit, makeshift stairwell “spraybooth”. I was several days into it when one night I was admiring my work as it hung to dry and I noticed a few specks, then a few more…lots of little bits of lint. It almost looked intentional there was so much of it. I deduced that the stairwell I was spraying in, instead of blocking blowing debris, was small enough that the pressurized air from the gun was stirring up dirt from the steps. Steps that are only a few feet away from the dryer vent. Doh!
Luckily lacquer strips pretty easily. I donned my respirator and got a bucket and a brush, took the guitar outside and started scrubbing lacquer thinner over the finish till it was almost all gone. It then just took a bit of sanding to get back to a paint-able surface. Now, I didn’t necessarily have to remove all that finish. I could have just resprayed the color coat right over the speckled clear and it would have been fine. But around this time I had been reading a number of discussions on several forums about water based guitar finishes. Through various past jobs I have breathed more then my share of toxic dust and fumes so the idea of something more health and environmentally friendly was appealing. I’l cover that saga in the next episode – stay tuned!
, which I prefer. And always keep the tip covered in solder as it will quickly corrode without it. Then always dip the tip in some 
when your done soldering. If your soldering tip is all black and pitted and has a hard time melting solder, you need a new tip.
to color the lacquer. I bought white, oxide yellow and tobacco to make the pale cream color I was going for. I added the white to the clear until it looked more opaque then transparent. I didn’t want to try and get it perfectly opaque as that would have required a lot of toner which could have interfered with the lacquer curing correctly. To then turn the white to a ‘vintage’ white I only needed about a drop of the oxide yellow. I didn’t use the brown at all as it just made the color too beige.
