Shreddy Mercury
Well-known member
Maybe you guys remember my post the other day about an MJT relic superstrat I bought a few weeks ago and was having issues with the switch, I wasn't getting to use the single coil in the neck. I took the pickguard off and actually paid attention to what was underneath it....here it was:
Anyways, yesterday I finally got a bunch of new pickups in. I got a dubbel kreem AT1 for the bridge and Cruiser Neck and cleaned up that garbage wiring. I forgot to take pics before I put the pickguard back on, but I ran the single coil wiring down the middle, over to the bottom of the bridge and ran both wiring harnesses across towards the volume pot. I trimmed back the sheathing and snipped the wires to length, ran the hot wires that ran to the mini toggle through some heatshrink tubing and shrunk it down. I got nice mechanical connections on the pot lugs and toggle lugs and THEN soldered them in place rather than just holding it against the side and hoping solder would hold it.
While I forgot to get those pics, I figured you guys might like to see the godawful butchery that was in this new PRS I got. Keep in mind, I don't know if the guy that sold it to Music Go Round (whom I bought it from) is the guy who did the work, or bought it from the guy who did, or whatever.
Anyways, let me frame this for you: in 2003, someone paid $3400-3999 for this guitar. At some point, someone sent it to a custom refinishing shop to be stripped down and refinished. That had to be several hundred dollars in itself. Then they swapped the bridge to an adjustable one, and locking PRS tuners instead of the original non lockers. Then they spent nearly $200 on a Lollar pickup for the neck, and $150 for a Duncan 78. They also put a little into a new set of push pull CTS pots. This is the work they did...
While I don't think I EVER want to install series/parallel wiring in a guitar with rather cramped electronics space again, it was doable by taking my time. It was a pain to make all the connections on the small vias on the pot's circuit boards while trying to connect everything else, remember to run grounds to the sides of the pot, install stuff and make measurements and then pop it back out to make final soldering joints. Test fitting over and over, making tweaks, and putting it back in was a bit of a pain. I did run into an issue with the volume pot not working, but that was ironed out. You may notice in the "after" pics a distinct lack of wire nuts and whatever the fuck was holding the pickup wiring harness to whatever it was "soldered" to. There were about 3 or 4 ground wires halfass "soldered" to the bridge ground wire. There were treble bleeds on both pots, ground wires going to nowhere, a .047uf cap on the tone instead of the traditional .022uf for the humbuckers....it was a mess.
It was easier on this job to have the electronics out of the guitar and wire routes planned, snipped to length, and soldered in place with fly leads for the humbucker wires rather than trying to fit the wire from the pickup straight to the circuit board on the pots that was going to be blocked once installed anyway. I made good use of my new 55ft rolls of heat shrink tubing in 2 different sizes to clean up the electronics the best I could with limited experience, and my new hot air rework station to shrink the tubing so I didn't have to try and fit a lighter in there.
I much prefer on pickup installs to leave 100% of the lead length so in case I pull them later, or someone buys the guitar later and wants to swap, they can be resold with full length lead. On these 2 installs, I HAD to trim the leads down to get stuff to fit properly.
And just for shits n' giggles, here are the 2 guitars with their new, far superior DiMarzio pickups. The AT1 and Cruiser in the Strat and Fred/PAF Pro in the PRS.
Anyways, yesterday I finally got a bunch of new pickups in. I got a dubbel kreem AT1 for the bridge and Cruiser Neck and cleaned up that garbage wiring. I forgot to take pics before I put the pickguard back on, but I ran the single coil wiring down the middle, over to the bottom of the bridge and ran both wiring harnesses across towards the volume pot. I trimmed back the sheathing and snipped the wires to length, ran the hot wires that ran to the mini toggle through some heatshrink tubing and shrunk it down. I got nice mechanical connections on the pot lugs and toggle lugs and THEN soldered them in place rather than just holding it against the side and hoping solder would hold it.
While I forgot to get those pics, I figured you guys might like to see the godawful butchery that was in this new PRS I got. Keep in mind, I don't know if the guy that sold it to Music Go Round (whom I bought it from) is the guy who did the work, or bought it from the guy who did, or whatever.
Anyways, let me frame this for you: in 2003, someone paid $3400-3999 for this guitar. At some point, someone sent it to a custom refinishing shop to be stripped down and refinished. That had to be several hundred dollars in itself. Then they swapped the bridge to an adjustable one, and locking PRS tuners instead of the original non lockers. Then they spent nearly $200 on a Lollar pickup for the neck, and $150 for a Duncan 78. They also put a little into a new set of push pull CTS pots. This is the work they did...
While I don't think I EVER want to install series/parallel wiring in a guitar with rather cramped electronics space again, it was doable by taking my time. It was a pain to make all the connections on the small vias on the pot's circuit boards while trying to connect everything else, remember to run grounds to the sides of the pot, install stuff and make measurements and then pop it back out to make final soldering joints. Test fitting over and over, making tweaks, and putting it back in was a bit of a pain. I did run into an issue with the volume pot not working, but that was ironed out. You may notice in the "after" pics a distinct lack of wire nuts and whatever the fuck was holding the pickup wiring harness to whatever it was "soldered" to. There were about 3 or 4 ground wires halfass "soldered" to the bridge ground wire. There were treble bleeds on both pots, ground wires going to nowhere, a .047uf cap on the tone instead of the traditional .022uf for the humbuckers....it was a mess.
It was easier on this job to have the electronics out of the guitar and wire routes planned, snipped to length, and soldered in place with fly leads for the humbucker wires rather than trying to fit the wire from the pickup straight to the circuit board on the pots that was going to be blocked once installed anyway. I made good use of my new 55ft rolls of heat shrink tubing in 2 different sizes to clean up the electronics the best I could with limited experience, and my new hot air rework station to shrink the tubing so I didn't have to try and fit a lighter in there.
I much prefer on pickup installs to leave 100% of the lead length so in case I pull them later, or someone buys the guitar later and wants to swap, they can be resold with full length lead. On these 2 installs, I HAD to trim the leads down to get stuff to fit properly.
And just for shits n' giggles, here are the 2 guitars with their new, far superior DiMarzio pickups. The AT1 and Cruiser in the Strat and Fred/PAF Pro in the PRS.
