Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2011 12:12 am
That's a sweet deal, man. I don't mind the red, and the grain is nice. Painting over binding is simple with the pinstripe 3M tape. I use blue, but I have heard green has a better tack. Some people even paint over it and scrape, but that's extra work.
With practice it isn't the nightmare I once thought. A Jaguar is wide open, but the wiring order is crazy. Train your hands and use workaround tools. You can tape a guitar string to the pot and string it inside and out through the hole. Humbucker holes make it easier because you can fit more fingers. Another tool I make good use of is a long, skinny screwdriver. You can fit that in the pickup hole and use it to push on the pickup from inside. Once the tip pops out you can grab it and don't let go. I put together a Vox Bobcat that had three single coils. I could not fit shit in that thing.
The other thing to your advantage is that the harness is already built. I use plastic zip ties to make it a semi-rigid structure that I can orient it into place. You don't want loose wires getting tangled around each other. I just opened a Mosrite Celebrity that used extra wire and just tied it in a knot to bundle it. That cannot be good for the signal. At least it's nylon, not cloth shielding.
Oh, and you want to watch the ground wire that pops out the bottom at the tailpiece. If you don't have to pull the harness all the way out, then don't. Otherwise you can tie or solder a longer wire to it and pull it through. It's not defusing a bomb.
With practice it isn't the nightmare I once thought. A Jaguar is wide open, but the wiring order is crazy. Train your hands and use workaround tools. You can tape a guitar string to the pot and string it inside and out through the hole. Humbucker holes make it easier because you can fit more fingers. Another tool I make good use of is a long, skinny screwdriver. You can fit that in the pickup hole and use it to push on the pickup from inside. Once the tip pops out you can grab it and don't let go. I put together a Vox Bobcat that had three single coils. I could not fit shit in that thing.
The other thing to your advantage is that the harness is already built. I use plastic zip ties to make it a semi-rigid structure that I can orient it into place. You don't want loose wires getting tangled around each other. I just opened a Mosrite Celebrity that used extra wire and just tied it in a knot to bundle it. That cannot be good for the signal. At least it's nylon, not cloth shielding.
Oh, and you want to watch the ground wire that pops out the bottom at the tailpiece. If you don't have to pull the harness all the way out, then don't. Otherwise you can tie or solder a longer wire to it and pull it through. It's not defusing a bomb.