wiring a self built Les Paul

[Johnspex]

Can anyone help an idiot with this please?
I built a Les Paul (style) from a kit. I bought a pair of pickups separately I cannot fathom how to wire the pickups.
Does the earth wire just clamp under the tailpiece?
Sadly not very good with diagrams and the diagrams aren't very good.

Thanks.

[gazza285]

The earth to the strings is usually through a small hole into where the tail piece insert sits, when you push in the insert you should already have installed the earth wire, so the insert traps the wire. If the wire is insulated, then you need to strip the insulation from the part sticking out into the insert hole.

[Johnspex]

Thanks. I'll give it a good look at Xmas.

[macdaddy11]

It's worth Googling your setup to see what needs wiring where. I'd imagine you have 2 humbuckers, plus a 3 position switch, make sure you find the diagram that matches. There are plenty out there for help, and you will notice they all have the same theme.

Earth everything, each pot needs earthing and maybe the switch - I can't remember. To do this, the bodies of the pots are all connected together, then one of them is connected to the earth point on the jack. The bridge will need earthing as well. I've soldered mine and it seems to work fine. Make sure you use the proper solder - acoustic solder is 60/40 tin / lead.

If you can upload any diagram that came with your pickups I don't mind having a look for you.

Ally

[Johnspex]

Thanks.

[gazza285]

macdaddy11 said:

Make sure you use the proper solder - acoustic solder is 60/40 tin / lead.

What on earth is acoustic solder?

[macdaddy11]

Lol, apologies, this was how it was described to me when I was first learning. I don't think 'acoustic solder' is an actual thing; the important bit is that the tin / lead level is right. I think it is something to do with signal quality.

[OldSkoolRS]

I agree with the comment about the wire in the base of the bridge insert, otherwise the strings won't be grounded and you'll get buzz.

You can buy braided metal screened wire from places like Axecaster, Axesrus (yes really!) and NorthWest Guitars. You just need to be careful that the shielding doesn't short out and signal connections; I've done that a couple of times when the output jack slightly touched the braided wire and I got no sound.

You'll need a decent soldering iron with a larger tip to help solder the screen wires onto the back of the pots: If you use a small/low powered iron then you can damage the pots by having to keep the iron on them too long. I also use the 'old fashioned' 60/40 solder with lead and flux in it that I have left over from a previous job about 25 years ago as the 'lead free' stuff is rubbish IMHO.

This was my Epiphone Les Paul after I replaced all the wiring and pots with new (previously changed the pickups for decent Bareknuckle ones). After 25 years it was getting a bit crackly and the pots were never all that good to start with. FWIW I used a 0.022uF tone cap on the bridge tone control (500K pot) and a 0.015uF tone cap on the neck tone control. This gives a more gentle control of the tone so I can roll it off slightly rather than an abrupt on or off.

Edited by OldSkoolRS on Wednesday 15th December 20:33

[Sporky]

macdaddy11 said:

Lol, apologies, this was how it was described to me when I was first learning. I don't think 'acoustic solder' is an actual thing; the important bit is that the tin / lead level is right. I think it is something to do with signal quality.

The solder shouldn't be carrying the signal - it's more like glue for the connection. The conductors should have a good physical connection.

There's lots of nonsense talked about leaded solder, the only noticeable difference between leaded and lead free in this context is that leaded is a bit easier to work with; in particular it requires lower temperatures. The trick with lead-free is to buy the really skinny stuff, then it's not really any harder work than leaded.

I built a few hundred effect pedals over several years a decade or so ago, all but the first six were with lead free solder.

There are lots of guitar people out there who are lazy (or scared of lead free because so many people have told them it's hard to work with), and want to carry on using leaded solder, so they make up all sorts of silly claims about it sounding different. It doesn't.

[macdaddy11]

Top advice, thanks very much. I'll bear that in mind for my next build.

[coppernorks]

I struggled for years with a fixed-temp. iron, fine for single wire to pot lugs but useless for earthing a pot with braided cable.

You need much more heat for that, so if you plan to do more guitar work then invest in a soldering iron with a temp. control.

[Sporky]

coppernorks said:

You need much more heat for that, so if you plan to do more guitar work then invest in a soldering iron with a temp. control.

Definitely. And a selection of bits - something fine for the more delicate work, and a great big spade bit if you're going to be an awful person (overstatement for comedy effect) and solder anything to the back of a pot. In which case, for pity's sake, lightly sand the pot back first, lots of them have a coating that solder simply won't stick to. Much better though to stick a screw into the cavity somewhere and run all the grounds to that.

Also get some tip cleaner, and don't use a wet sponge, get one of the things that looks like a brass brillo pad, it's much better for the tips. The below are examples (I think they're what I've used for years), don't get too hung up on exactly which one.

Tip cleaner:
https://www.rapidonline.com/multicore-loctite-7063...

Brass wiper - stab into it, don't wipe on it:
https://www.rapidonline.com/xytronic-460-brass-woo...

[OldSkoolRS]

Sporky said:

There are lots of guitar people out there who are lazy (or scared of lead free because so many people have told them it's hard to work with), and want to carry on using leaded solder, so they make up all sorts of silly claims about it sounding different. It doesn't.

Not so much that I'm bothered about it sounding different (I never knew that was a thing to be honest). Just that when it came in and we started using it at work (end of the 90s?) it just didn't seem to flow as well as the regular 60/40 rosin cored stuff we had used before. I kept a couple of reels of the older stuff, so that's just what I've used ever since. I have heard that the lead free stuff can be more prone to dry joints over time though, but don't know how true this is.

Definitely agree with the choice of tips too; I have a wide range for my Weller, though it doesn't have a temperature control for the jobs I do it works fine just swapping to the most appropriate tip.

I would suggest soldering the back of the pots though: Otherwise it's hard to get a reliable connection to the pot body just using the washer connecting to the guitar body (assuming some kind of copper or conductive paint has been applied). If the pot body isn't connected to ground then noise issues can result, especially at higher levels used at gigs, etc. You need all the help you can get with stage lighting, etc causing noise issues.

[Sporky]

OldSkoolRS said:

I would suggest soldering the back of the pots though: Otherwise it's hard to get a reliable connection to the pot body just using the washer connecting to the guitar body (assuming some kind of copper or conductive paint has been applied). If the pot body isn't connected to ground then noise issues can result, especially at higher levels used at gigs, etc. You need all the help you can get with stage lighting, etc causing noise issues.

I'd go for properly shielding the entire cavity but that can be a faff. Soldering to the pots isn't inherently Bad And Wrong, but I've seen a fair few people manage to melt the innards (mostly on cheaper pots) or just not have a grunty enough iron to make the connection work.

I do not disagree about noise - as you say, especially at higher levels (and higher gain levels).