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

http://www.facebook.com/caldwellguitarworks

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

caldwellguitarworks@gmail.com