Dinkenstein, Part II

If you recall from an older post, I had previously worked on a recurring project guitar dubbed "Dinkenstein". The guitar made it back in my hands again for another round of surgery, and this post will tell you all about it. The first post I made about this oddball guitar can be found here.

As a quick recap - this guitar is comprised of an older 80s HSS configuration Dinky, mated with a Jackson Kelly (KE3) neck and bridge. The fact that the neck meshed with the body perfectly has made this the ideal project guitar, and of course yielded the appropriate name of "Dinkenstein". In the previous post, the guitar was fitted with a single Dimebucker, and I had also mentioned fret problems as well. In this session, the electronics went through another change, as well as other fixes here and there.

Dinkenstein, in its current configuration. Can you spot the differences from the last post?

1) ELECTRONICS

The guitar was equipped with a single Dimebucker at the time of the first blog entry on the guitar. But now, the electronics were changed completely. The owner wanted to make the jump to active pickups. He had a spare EMG 85 in his parts stash that he wanted to put to good use, so we started with that. I had a single-coil EMG that came out of an old-school set of 89s... the old type with hardwired connections, unlike the more modern solderless connections that EMG utilizes now. So, the single coil was installed in the neck, with the 85 obviously going to the bridge.

Close-up of the installed, different-era EMG pickups.

On the inside, a single 25k volume pot was installed, with a 3-way blade switch - nothing else. No tone pots are used, like before. A 25k pot was utilized for volume, as that's the idea rating for EMG active pickups, as opposed to 250k/500k pots commonly seen with passive pickups. This allows for a hotter signal from the guitar, and since this guitar is set up for metal playing, that's ideally what we want.

Gut shot! Not the cleanest wiring work I've done, but there you have it. The battery easily nestles underneath the wiring, with just enough room to spare. Later model Dinkys came with bigger control cavities, but I managed to make it work just fine with this smaller cavity.

Conclusion - the guitar sounds killer! The EMGs brought it back to life, and it can thrash and bash with the best of 'em.

2) HARDWARE MODS

By request of the owner, several hardware components were swapped out, and ideally mixed and matched for a unique, two-tone look. Luckily, this was possible because both he and I happen to have spare parts for the same style of bridge, which will be covered in detail here.

The bridge installed on this guitar (which came out of a KE3 Kelly) is a low-profile bridge - meaning it's a low-profile Floyd Rose licensed bridge. Low-profile Floyd bridges sit and feel differently than the regular Floyds that most players are accustomed to. The main differences are the saddles - the LP bridge has its string locking screws on top of the saddles, unlike the ones underneath on a regular Floyd Rose. The base plate is also much flatter, made possible by the different saddles. These features allowed a much slimmer, lower profile compared to the standard FR, at the cost of weight/mass reduction, which does contribute to its feel. Some players testify that these bridges are more comfortable in comparison, however, these bridges don't have a very good reliable track record. Based on my personal experiences, anyway.

If you remember, my red Jackson DK2M (the one guitar that I talk about way too much, probably) also came with the low-profile bridge - a JT580LP, to be exact. Same style bridge as the one on Dinkenstein. I have since swapped the bridge on my guitar with a standard licensed Floyd, so I had my LP bridge laying around for spare parts. For the record - the swapped bridge performs much better than the LP. I didn't make a blog post about it, however I did briefly discuss it on the CGW Facebook page back in April.


The JT580LP bridge, with swapped parts.

Since my old LP bridge is black, and his is brushed nickel finish, he had the idea of wanting to make it two-tone silver and black. I ran into some minor but interesting problems with swapping hardware between these two bridges.

The Jackson-stamped nickel bridge is made by Takechui, and it was found on certain older Jacksons, Yamahas, Washburns and certain Ibanezes. It looks like a TRS-Pro bridge, although it's not stamped as such. While it's the same style as the Jackson JT580LP, a bit of modifying had to be done in order for the parts to work.

The goal is to use the brushed nickel base plate, and the black saddles from my JT580, thus creating the sleek two-tone look. After disassembling the Takechui, I discovered some interesting problems.

The saddle inserts (for locking the strings down) were these funky L-shaped inserts, which I have never encountered before.


Takechui saddle insert, compared to the regular style insert.

Because of this strange design, these saddle inserts evidently caused stress on the bottom side of the saddles, which resulted in the bottom of them swelling up and eventually cracking apart. Likely from years of string changes and applying tension to the inserts.


Underside of the Takechui saddles, clearly showing swelling and damage on all six of them. Some of them may be hard to tell due to the camera angle, but they all were showing these signs of failure.


The worst of the bunch, clearly.

I thought this was very interesting, as I've never encountered this before. So it's definitely a good thing that the saddles are being swapped over!

The saddles do share similarities, but they have their own subtle differences - including little nubs on the underside of the Jackson saddles that were clearly intended to only work on the Jackson base plate. Allow me to demonstrate:







You can clearly see some differences between the two brands. Obviously, this isn't a big surprise, as we all know different manufacturers do things their own way. I simply find it interesting to examine these fine details between two uncommon bridges from different manufacturers. These low-profile Floyd bridges aren't seen very often these days, as the standard Floyd designs simply seem much more reliable. Getting a close-up examination between the two bridges was a neat experience, and now I am sharing my findings with you, the readers.

As you can imagine, the base plates had some exclusive design differences as well, as you can see here:


Base plates in low-profile trems. No, the nickel one isn't bigger, I was simply holding it closer to my phone.

If you look, you can see the grooves cut in the Jackson baseplate - that is to allow a place for the little nubs on the Jackson saddles to go. I would only assume this is done as some sort of tamperproofing, but I'm not 100% sure of the reason. And also, you can see the Takechui plate does NOT have these grooves. This of course led into the next minor problem.


Note the nub on the black saddle. Attempt at tamperproofing? That's my theory.

So what happens when you attempt to install the black saddles with its nubs still intact, onto the Takechui plate? Well, look for yourself:



Clearly, the saddles didn't mount flush, so this means the saddles had to be modified to fit. Easy enough - all it took was a rotary tool and a few minutes to file the nubs down smooth.


Jackson JT580LP saddles, now 100% nub-free! 

After that, the saddles fit nice and flush onto the Takechui plate, and can now be mounted up! As a finishing touch, a black bar was used, which rounded off the two-tone look for the bridge.


Stylin' and (low) profilin'.

The contrast between the gloss black saddles and the brushed nickel plate is a very nice touch, and it looks better than I originally imagined.

The only other problem was the tails on the black saddles were longer than the Takechui saddles, which caused slight interference in the routing on the guitar's body. A rotary tool was used there to shave back about 1/8 to make room, and now it moves freely with zero interference. Sorry, I didn't get pics of it. Plans to refinish the guitar are still in the works, so we're not too worried about the shaved wood inside the route - that will all be taken care of at a later date.

But it didn't stop there - parts were also swapped on the tuners as well, to continue the two-tone theme. The owner had the original nickel tuners, and a set of black tuners. They are all the same Jackson tuners, just different colors. Swapping parts between them was easy cheesy, and didn't need any modifying at all, unlike the bridge.




The nickel washers and knobs were used on black tuners, and it's a nice touch to the black reverse headstock. What do you think?

3) FRET WORK

As I mentioned before, the guitar was in need of some fret touch-ups. Nothing major - some spot levelling and crowning was in order. The last four frets were sitting higher than the rest, as well as a few further down the neck. These problems were causing bad, note-deadening string buzz, which also prevented the action from being lowered. Before, the action had to be set pretty high to reduce the buzz to a minimum, and even then it still wasn't good enough. So, some levelling was needed.


Fret levelling under way. The tape is needed to prevent marks on the fretboard, and to also keep metal shavings from sticking to the neck pickup.

The frets were levelled down and checked with a straight edge, followed by crowning, polishing and a full cleaning.




All better! It polished and cleaned up nicely. The fret buzz was eliminated, and the action was able to be lowered closer to the owner's specs. The guitar was strapped up with D'Addario 9-42 strings, and set to good ol' E standard. Obviously intonation adjustments were needed for the changed saddles... and it came out nicely.

As a result - Dinkenstein is back in action, playing and sounding better than ever! The next step of this project will be a full refinishing, but that's for a later date.

For you other Jackson fanatics who may happen to own a Takechui-equipped guitar, you might want to consider peeking underneath your saddles and seeing if yours are cracking. That of course means you would have to re-adjust your intonation, but I feel like it would be worth your while to make sure there isn't anything breaking under there. Alternatively, if intonation is a concern (or you just don't wanna deal with it), you can use some tape and make markings of your saddle positions, and just simply put them back where they were. It'll at least get you much closer to correct intonation, as opposed to just guessing where they were.

I hope you enjoyed this lengthy post, and I hope you learned something new from it, which is always my goal. I have learned several things during the course of this undertaking, and I anticipate going even further, as I always do.

Check back soon for more posts! And as always, you can reach out to me through my FB page, listed below.

- Kyle Caldwell

Caldwell Guitar Works


Obligatory glamour shots:

Washburn G-2V

Several months back, while I was still operating in Nashville, I was given the opportunity to work on this intriguing specimen - a Washburn G-2V guitar from the 1980s. This was months before I had started this blog as well, but I knew that as soon as I started these write-ups, I HAD to make mention of this guitar. This guitar was one of the most unique guitars I've ever had the chance to work with, or play.

My bounds of Washburn guitar knowledge is very small, for the record. Prior to this red G-2V coming along, I had never owned or played a Washburn guitar. I never really thought about checking them out over the years. Nothing against them, of course, it's simply unknown territory for me. From what I do know about this particular model, it was produced in Japan in the 1980s. There seems to be a split production among these, as some of them came with the T600 Floyd Rose-licensed trem, and the others came with the Kahler Wonderbar. This particular guitar is equipped with the latter. Some of them also came with pickguards, and others didn't. I didn't think to grab the serial number when I had it in, so I'm gathering basic data with my magic Google powers.

This rare specimen from the 1980s has a certain charm to it.

The first thing I noticed on this instrument was the gigantic tremolo. This is a Wonderbar system made by Kahler, and stamped with "Washburn 2001" on the upper portion of the block. I've owned guitars equipped with Kahler Flyers in the past, and this tremolo feels like two Flyers put together. The most noticeable thing about this trem is its sheer size - it's almost like an engine block strapped to the body! Serious chunk of metal there.

When you pick the guitar up, you can feel the definite weight of it. Quite a significant difference between a Floyd Rose guitar and this one. The thing about Kahler trems is that they don't require any body routing, whereas a Floyd Rose-equipped guitar has full through-body routing done to it. The demand for the Floyd Rose's routing shaves a considerable amount of weight off the body. So apply that knowledge and combine it with the Wonderbar's size and sheer weight, and you've got a fairly hefty instrument at your disposal.

Everything on this guitar is excellent, overall. It's been very well maintained - a very small amount of noticeable blemishes and dings. The frets had little wear on them, and the 24.75", 21-fret neck played smoothly. The fretboard was in excellent condition as well. It had a neck profile similar to an older BC Rich NJ series or an ESP - not quite as thin as Jackson or Ibanez, but still comfortable to play. 

The ol' Washburn getting ready for some doctoring.

The electronics were the main cause for concern. This guitar is equipped with a humbucker, two single coils, tone pot, coil tap, and an old-school 5-way switch. This guitar had two failed pickups and some less-than-par connections in the circuitry, so that's where it needed the most attention. The owner brought some nifty replacement pickups for installation - a Bill Lawrence 500XL for the bridge, and a Dimarzio Super Distortion single coil for the neck position. As it turns out, the original middle and bridge pickups have failed. What I did was install the 500XL in the bridge (of course), and installed the Super Distortion in the neck. The original neck pickup was functioning, so it was moved to the middle to replace the faulty pickup there.

And of course, a full rewiring was done to ensure solid connections on the coil tap and the rest of the circuitry.

Before shot of the cavity. It's difficult to tell in the picture, but there was some iffy connections in there. A full rewire was imminent.

After shot, after the full rewiring and pickup install. Nice, clean connections everywhere with new wire and fresh solder joints.

I wasn't able to hear the original tones of the guitar, due to the faulty pickups. But the new pickups breathed new life into this G-2V. The owner had intentions on using it in a heavy metal project, so the 500XL he opted for fit the bill quite well. The coil tap adds an interesting dynamic with the 500XL, and it sounded fantastic. The Super Distortion single coil was a great fit for the front end, providing some snarly neck position tones. The middle pickup doesn't hold its own in comparison to its next-door neighbors, but it sounded alright in its place. The owner wasn't too concerned about middle pickup use, so it stays stock.

Back in action with some hot new pickups at the helm.

Following the pickup install and rewiring, the next order of business was the restringing and setup. 10-46 gauge strings were provided for a setup in D standard. Setting up and restringing this guitar was pretty straightforward. The strings are pulled through the micro tuners, retained by the string balls - no need to cut them off with this tremolo. They then get fed underneath the main roller, and then over the saddle roller. As you actuate the trem, the strings freely roll forward and back through both rollers. What I noticed about this design - the mechanical nature of it doesn't allow for nearly as severe of a dive, compared to a Floyd Rose. There isn't as much "freedom" in the movement. They are two extremely different tremolos, for sure, but they both work great in their own ways. The Wonderbar trem works great for applying some tasty chord vibrato of some sorts, but doing a soaring divebomb? Not so much. However, the Wonderbar seemed to keep stable tuning after some tedious whammy action, so I'll chalk it up as a success.

Intonation and action adjustments are also easy - each saddle has their own height adjustment screws, much like standard hardtail saddles, or vintage trems. This guitar actually needed very little adjustment after the restring, which is impressive. It wasn't difficult at all to get it dialed in just right.

The result - we have a heavy-set, Japanese-made superstrat from the 1980s, with some interesting features and more modern pickups. The bridge is a bit cumbersome underneath the hand (which will vary depending on your style anyway), but the neck felt smooth and comfortable. The 24.75 scale brings everything in nice and close, so getting around the neck is no issue. The weight of the bridge and the body seems to help reduce the effort it takes to move the neck around... perhaps a very distinct advantage in some cases. Great tone and solid playability overall - and in extremely good condition to boot. It's got a peculiar character about it.

We've all seen the plethora of superstrats that are out there, but I think any player can admit they each have their own charm to them, in some sort of fashion - this guitar is no exception. It's like a very niche, hidden part of the 1980s guitar world that I didn't know existed. I'm grateful for the opportunity to work on it and play it, because I honestly have no idea when I will come across one again. 

I don't know how many of these are floating around, but if you come across one for a good deal, I suggest snagging it before they're gone for good.

One last note - as I have disclaimed before, I know very little of these early Washburn guitars, so if you do have some insight on this guitar, feel free to comment! There really isn't that much readily-available information that I was able to find, so please let me know with any other juicy details about these guitars.

Thanks for reading!

- Kyle C.

http://www.facebook.com/caldwellguitarworks

https://www.instagram.com/cgw_kyle/

caldwellguitarworks@gmail.com

Dinkenstein, Part I

I have had plans before to do a more technical write-up on this interesting project, appropriately dubbed "Dinkenstein". This guitar belongs to a friend, and it's been an ongoing project between us. We have many more things planned out for this unique axe, but here's a good start to documenting the project.

The Dinkenstein is essentially self-explanatory - it was assembled out of spare parts and rendered into a playable instrument. Fortunately, this one has been a pretty straightforward build, since most of these parts are all from older Jacksons.

The body is a Dinky in an HSS configuration (humbucker, two single coils), built in the late 80s, based on the serial number on the neck plate. This body was just sitting in his closet, collecting dust like an ancient relic. As you can tell, it was hand-painted on at one point. It also had a few stickers on it, which I removed. Regardless, one of the next plans for this guitar is a refinishing on the body, and of course I'll be posting about that when it happens.

Outside of the paintjob, the body is in pretty good shape. No cracks anywhere, which is the important part. The screw holes aren't even that worn either, and the threads are pretty preserved - also important, especially for mounting the neck.

The neck is from a Jackson (obviously) Pro series Kelly, made in Japan in the late 1990s. Reverse mother-of-pearl sharkfin inlays and reverse headstock. Standard rosewood fretboard and maple neck construction. Frets are in decent shape, but need a little bit of touching up - I'll elaborate on that a bit more later. The neck bolts on the neck match up perfectly with the holes on the body, since they are both earlier Jacksons. The original neck on the body is also a 24-fret with the same heel, so mounting up the Kelly neck to it was super easy. This saved us some time on the reassembly, since the neck is a perfect match. In some instances of putting parted guitars together, the neck bolt holes don't always line up with the body, depending on which component came from where, and some modification to the wood would be necessary. In this case, it was a non-issue, so we're good there! The original brushed nickel locking nut hardware stayed in place as they were on the Kelly. It had nickel tuners as well, but they were replaced with black ones at some point.

In case you're wondering, the original neck was removed years ago because it sustained some significant fret wear. The guitar was subsequently retired, given the cost of the work to repair it. The original neck now serves as a piece of decor on a wall. It had basic dot inlays and a regular headstock, compared to the reversed fin and reversed headstock deal on it now. Same scale and fret count, but entirely different character.

Now we shall move on to the next part - the guts! Time to hit the bench.

The Dinkenstein, ready for some surgical procedures.

Pretty straightforward procedures, outlined below:

BRIDGE REPAIRS

The trem posts and inserts were replaced. The original ones were in absolutely awful shape. The threads in the inserts were bored out so there was substantial movement in the posts.

The upper post was the worst of the two. You can see how far forward the post moves, and the huge gap in the threads in the insert, right behind it. This is a good 5mm range of movement from one end to the other. Definitely a no-go.

The play in the lower post isn't as bad, but still too much. Either way, they get replaced in sets by default.

The extreme movement in the posts was causing the Floyd Rose trem to sit in the route at awkward angles. In the past, a bit of modification was made to the trem route to accommodate for the movement that occurred over the years. Not to mention, tuning stability problems as well. But now with the brand new inserts and posts, those are all eliminated. The new inserts were a very snug fit into the body, and the new posts have much better tolerances. These parts were genuine Floyd Rose parts, via the magical StewMac stork.

All new! We went with simple black posts, that contrast nicely against the brushed nickel Floyd.

With this portion of the work, I also inspected and cleaned up the knife edges on the trem. Remember in my previous post where I discussed the knife edge conditions on my DK2M? Same exact concept here. It's all part of Floyd Rose maintenance. The knife edges on this guitar's trem were still in pretty good shape, so I only did minimal filing to bring the edges back.

The knife edges didn't exhibit much wear at all, and required only a little bit of cleaning up.

There we go. After a touch of filing, it cleaned up nicely.

And lastly, I replaced the old springs with a fresh set of matched springs, to restore the rebounding tuning stability. That basically addresses all the deficiencies in this guitar's trem. On to the next part - the circuitry!

ELECTRONICS

I'll shed a bit of light on this guitar's history. I have worked on it before, which involved a pickup and pot install, and cavity shielding. Before, it had a Seymour Duncan Invader installed, wired up to just one regular 500k pot for volume. The Invader has since been repurposed in another guitar, and the Dimebucker wasn't being used - therefore, the Dinkenstein got Dimed. I also replaced the regular 500k pot with a 500k coil-tap pot. The coil tap's purpose is to allow you to run your humbucker with both coils activated, or just one for a single coil tone. Since the guitar's original single coils aren't present, it was only fair.

The guitar's simple circuit remained - just one pickup, one pot, and the jack. The tone pot was removed, and the guitar's original single coil pickups were also omitted. You can tell this by the obvious holes that remain in the body. We have plans for these in the future, as part of the refinishing portion of the project.

The guitar's current circuity, with the Dimebucker and the coil-tap.

A sinister-looking Dimebucker and a realigned, smooth operating trem with a pair of new posts. Ready to rock!

Setting up the guitar was pretty smooth, given the nature of the project. The guitar is strung with 10-46 strings, set in D standard tuning. The Floyd Rose and the neck of the guitar both came off of the same Kelly, which saved some time in the setup. Intonation was already right where it should be. There are some small issues with the frets, which will be corrected later. The higher frets don't show as much wear as the lower frets (lots of rhythm playing in the past), and it's causing some minor buzzing issues on the D string up in the 15th fret range. It will need to be taken care of eventually, but the guitar is still quite playable. Neck relief is good as well. The action is currently compensating for the buzzing issue, but once it's taken care of, the action will be able to be lowered a bit more.

There you have it - the introductory post to Dinkenstein! It currently rocks a peculiar fashion sense with 3 different hardware colors - brushed nickel trem and locking nut; black posts, micro tuners, regular tuners and knob; and a shiny gold trem arm. No chrome found anywhere, unfortunately, but we got three other bases covered!

It's an unfinished project, of course. There are several more things planned for this unique guitar, and you'll get to read all about it here. Dinkenstein will return!

- Kyle

http://www.facebook.com/caldwellguitarworks

https://www.instagram.com/cgw_kyle/

caldwellguitarworks@gmail.com

Rewiring and Shielding Basics

One of the services I offer through CGW is a full rewiring and shielding of the control cavity on electric guitars. This post is to give you a bit of insight behind the ideology behind that.

If you have been playing electric guitar for any considerable amount of time, I'm willing to guarantee that you have come across a guitar with questionable electronics. Excessive noise that responds in various manners to your touch on the strings or bridge, cutting in and out at the jack, scratching noises in your knobs, so on and so on. There are many reasons that will cause these concerns. Sometimes, it requires replacement of a part or two. Often times, it requires a solder joint repaired somewhere, or a better ground to be established from somewhere. In alternative not-so-uncommon occasions, you'll come across a guitar that has its wiring tampered with before, by someone who didn't quite know what was going on in there. At any rate, we've seen it all before.

This is where the full rewire and shielding comes into play. The name essentially says it all - it involves completely gutting the guitar of the electronics (except for the pickups, unless they are being replaced), applying a shielding to the walls of the control cavity, and reinstalling and rewiring the components with all new wire, and fresh solder joints. Of course, the shielding is optional, but I have gotten exceptional results out of the shielding, in addition to the full rewiring operation. If you have questionable wiring among the components of your guitar, that needs to be addressed with the rewiring. The shielding isn't absolutely necessary in the instrument's functionality, but it will strongly improve the signal from it.

The wiring and shielding work I've done in my red DK2M - the same guitar from the previous post.

For the sake of this post, it is essential to know that your guitar's body serves as a grounding point for your electronics. Without complete grounds, the circuits would be open, and you will get bad or no noise, period. Some cheaper model guitars simply rely on the contact between your components - like the potentiometers (also known as "pots", aka the thingies you turn to alter volume and tone), switches, and the like. Some other guitars with a step up in build quality will sometimes come with a dedicated screw with a small grounding point attached to it, screwed into one of the walls inside the cavity. In other cases, typically found in custom-shop guitars, it will all be shielded already. This shielding material serves as a much more solid ground for everything inside your guitar, and here's why:

The shielding material is copper tape, with a conductive adhesive on the back. This conductive adhesive essentially provides continuity from the tape itself to the body, making the surface of the tape your new grounding source. So with this new grounding source, I create a solid ground bus out of the tape. It serves as a central point for all grounds to be soldered, with the ground bus carefully soldered to the shielded wall. Each component inside the cavity also gets ground wire across one another, and then grounded to the central bus from there. 

What this does is provides the absolute best grounding possible inside your guitar - you can't get any more grounded than this. This cleans up the guitar's signal going into the amp considerably. Largely reduced humming, and a more clear, purified signal. This works exceptionally well for players who utilize a lot of gain. I primarily play metal guitar, so I tend to run a pretty good amount of gain. The shielding and ground bus has helped quite a bit with signal clarity through the rig, while using those high gain tones.

Ground wires from several components are attached to a central ground bus like this. These are the grounds coming from the series of pots, pickups, switch, and jack. Then I carefully apply small bits of solder to the ground bus itself, and the shielded wall. In most cases, the bridge ground is routed to this as well, but the bridge ground was routed to a pot on this particular guitar. Results will be the same either way, with the entire improved ground circuitry.

The magic stuff. It can sometimes get a bit pricey to stock up, but it's well worth it.

The other distinct advantage to copper shielding - and essentially the very reason for its existence - is that it provides a shield against electromagnetic interference from outside sources. The copper shielding reflects a lot of those outside signals, keeping the signal more pure and uninterrupted. Mostly, you would see interference from computer monitors, lights, and any portable devices that could possibly put off a signal. Keep in mind that this does NOT stop the pickups from picking up crazy noises you get from your phone, or a TV remote, or a power drill (if you're Paul Gilbert). Typically, those instances are intentional anyway. But the shielding simply provides a block from unwanted interference from the outside of the instrument.

On those two pictures above, notice the copper shielding applied to the cavity covers as well (with my fancy professional handwriting, notating the time of service). With the cover installed, this completely encases your cavity inside a fully shielded chamber.

Some guitars will come with metal-braided wire. The metal braiding is a form of shielding, and also serves as a ground. I find these wires to not be the most reliable, with sub-par shielding capabilities and grounds. With a fully shielded cavity, and proper grounding, these pesky shielded wires become obsolete.

Personally, I feel like the extra solid grounding is equally as important as the purposes of the shielding, if not MORE important. Grounding issues are extremely common, and plague many guitars who haven't seen any real time under a tech's care.

My Jackson JS32 King V on the bench, getting ready for a shielding and rewiring. I told you I'm a Jackson fanatic!

The V, after a full shielding and rewiring.

For my wiring, I use 22ga tinned copper wires, in various colors. I had a large stockpile of this wiring when I started pursing this line of work, and I've gotten fantastic results with it.

Now to take it a step further,

For those of you who may have some keen eyes, perhaps you've noticed the pots in my two guitars, posted above. If you caught it, you will see that the two pots have switched places. This is a result of modifying the original circuit in these guitars. This is merely based on my personal preferences, and here's why:

As I said before, I play a lot of metal. I'm not much of a jazz player (although I love listening to it), and in my entire guitar-playing life, I have rarely ever used the tone knob for anything. Ever. So, what I do is I simply eliminate the tone pot out of the circuit. Removing the tone pot out of the equation actually "frees up" a very noticeable amount of high ends in your guitar's tone. With that tone pot no longer inhibiting the rest of the circuit, this brightens up your signal a bit. For metal players who are seeking a bit more of a cutting aggression from your guitar, this can make a night and day difference. On top of that, it's a very simple mod, and easily reversible if you choose to resell your instrument, or simply prefer otherwise.

The con is obviously you lose control of that pot - it simply becomes an inert knob that turns for no reason. On my guitars, I switch places between these two pots. I have a bad habit - thanks to my questionable playing techniques - where I tend to unintentionally turn myself down with the volume knob while I'm playing. With the tone pot bypassed, and the volume relocated to the bottom, this solves that problem. I leave the tone pot intact in the guitar, however, because otherwise there would just be a hole in the body. This is a common mod that I do to most of my personal instruments. I have done this simple mod for other players as well, but it all boils down to personal preference for your guitar's tones. There is nothing wrong with keeping your tone pot(s), of course! It's simply a component that I never use personally, so why not free the guitar's circuit from its burden?

To address a question I get a lot about this pot mod - volume swells? No big deal, I use a pedal for that anyway. If you're a player who does volume swells with the knob, then relocating the knob will obviously make this more difficult. Again, that's all up to you. If you are able to rock out without slowly rolling on that volume on accident (like me), then you're good!

My ideology behind this is simply "less is more". Less components within a circuit; more pure, uninhibited signal. If you're a tone tweaker with all the knobs as part of your equation, that's ok too!

A shot of a rewired guitar, without shielding applied. Note the reversed pots, as I was discussing before. Tone pot is up top, and bypassed, making it an inert knob. Volume on the bottom. Also note the factory, flimsy ground screw on the left side with several ground wires going to it. The ground bus that comes as part of the shielding service replaces that, and provides a much more solid ground contact.

The cavity of a client's Jackson Dinky X series, shielded, and rewired with a simple single humbucker and single volume pot circuit. No neck pickup, no switch, and tone pot removed completely. This takes the concept of a simplified circuit even further. Don't worry - the owner didn't care about the hole from the missing pot. You will see more of this guitar soon!

This pretty much covers the concepts and ideas that I execute for full rewiring and shielding jobs. It's a lengthy process that requires a fair amount of careful, dexterous labor, but the end results are well worth it. I'm certain I will touch more on these concepts in future posts, as I do more of these services. 

If you have any questions about anything I've discussed here, feel free to get in touch!

And now, here is a bit more eye candy of the guitars featured in this article. Enjoy!

The Prince-purple Gibson Explorer mentioned before. DiMarzio Super Distortion in the bridge, and a Gibson 498t in the neck. Full rewire, shielding, and a replaced pickup selector. The selector is a common problem in Explorers, and that was remedied with a smaller, replacement 3-way switch. Ready to rock!

This is my JS32 King V, featured earlier in this post. Full rewire, shielding, and pot mod. This guitar originally came with the stock zebra Jackson-branded Belcat pickups. They were replaced by a Bareknuckle Painkiller in the bridge, and an all-black Belcat pickup out of another JS series Jackson. It was Jackson-branded, but I removed the logo to black it out completely, and match the Painkiller's look. Sleek and deadly.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Check back for more upcoming posts.

- Kyle

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