![]() Once all the frets are polished with the wet and dry paper – I fine polish each with four, progressively finer, grades of fret rubber. A metal fret shield helps keep the abrasive away from the fingerboard finish. ![]() Once the rough fret ends are filed round, I polish all of the frets with three grades of fine wet and dry paper. There aren’t too many rough edges as it stands – but I might as well make it as comfortable and slick to play, as I can. This is a Fender Mexican neck, and the quality’s not bad. That said – it’s wise to go slowly and methodically. The very edges of the file are rounded, and the filing matrix is smooth along these edges – so that there’s little danger of scratching the fingerboard when filing over and around the ends of the frets. A special fret file – triangular in section, and with curved, tapering faces – like a really long pyramid – is used to file and round any rough edges. I’ve noticed a few of the frets seem a little bit sharp and unfinished at the edges. ![]() A definite “clunk”! I can finally screw down the cover plates and begin to make final adjustments and set up the guitar. With the insulation tape in place – I check the circuit again, and all seems well. To make doubly sure, I pick away a small area of copper foil back to the wood first – so that if the electrical tape does comes adrift over time, there shouldn’t be an unexpected, (and potentially untimely), recurrance of the problem. (Good old-fashioned “Gaffa” tape, will do the job too). A piece of electrical tape is cut to stick over, cover and insulate the area. In this case – there’s not much more to play with – so I resort to a more basic solution. Sometimes there’s a washer you can lose to gain a couple of crucial millimetres. Sometimes you can adjust the switch socket to move the entire jack spring contact part, a little further out. When I check inside the cavity, I can see that the copper lining is slightly ripped, and the side of the cavity is slightly indented. It’s a stupid design flaw – easily avoidable – and it becomes a problem especially when the “boat” shaped plate is located more towards the back of the rout, than the front. ![]() In doing so, it flexes back a little but, in this case it’s just pushing against, and shorting onto, the sides of the copper-foiled interior of the jack socket rout. When the plug goes into the jack socket – the “hot” terminal acts like a spring – to retain the end of the jack plug. The jack plug seemed particularly stiff, and it was quite hard to push the jack plug in for the last millimeter of travel. In this particular instance however, I noticed something suspicious when I plugged the guitar in. If everything checks out – the last thing to check is, usually, to make sure nothing is moving and shorting when the scratchplate is placed in position. If it is – then double check every joint to make sure the solder is clean and shiny, that there’s actual metal to metal contact, and that there’s no tail ends shorting anywhere. Now it’s always possible that something’s not wired in properly, or a stray wire end is arcing through to ground somewhere – so the usual thing to do is to go through the entire circuit – every solder joint in turn – to make sure the circuit is correct. If a guitar circuit is totally silent – then it’s most likely a short to ground somewhere. There’s usually some sort of signal – even if you’ve messed up pretty bad with your soldering. Nothing.Īnd immediately, I think I know what the problem is. Usually, the pickups “clunk”, and all’s well, or there’s buzzing and it isn’t. Any wild buzzing or crackling tells you something definitely isn’t right, and it’s time to retrace your work – checking for cold solder joints, and making sure that every wire is soldered in at the correct place. You can also tell a bit about how well the guitar is shielded, and if the components are soldered together correctly, by listening to any general circuit noise. You can even get a basic idea of how the pots are working by repeating the test whilst operating each, in turn. A reassuring “clunk” tells you things are, (more than likely), hooked up correctly. ![]() To perform a basic test, just connect the guitar to an amp, turn the volume up a bit, select one of the pickups with the 5-way switch and then touch one of the poles on the selected pickup with something metallic. Of course, to test it properly, you need to string the guitar up, but that’s not necessary at this stage. But it’s wise to check the wiring first – if only at a basic level. With the wiring complete, it’s tempting to screw down all the covers, front and back, and admire the look of the finished job. ![]()
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