Fuck electronics, soldering, wires, solder and other soldery shit!!!

[Jack Davenport]

I have made the mistake of trying to install Dimarzio pickups into a Epiphone guitar. I need 4 hands to hold the volume or tone pots while soldering the wires. I even had my brother to hold the wire in place while trying to solder, it doesn’t adhere and if it gets hot enough it rolls off into the electronics cavity.

I have scratched and scored the pots in advance and still it does not grab the surface.

Does anyone here have any experience in wiring electronics or specifically guitars?
What am I doing wrong?

 

[Mr. Daystar]

Are you using plenty of flux? Have you considering breaking lose, and paying a guy....a guy that does that for a living?

More importantly, are you wiring them backwards, so you get that "out of phase" sound? Because it does sound really good

 

[Supafly]

I remember my first electric, was a cheap Les Paul copy, with cheap pickups (they even had the nerve to install ones that had the PAF covers, but I found out they were tiny single-coils.

So I bought two Seymour Duncan humbjuckers, but I went the noob way and just wrapped the wires together. Sounded good enough

 

[Jack Davenport]

Are you using plenty of flux? Have you considering breaking lose, and paying a guy....a guy that does that for a living?

More importantly, are you wiring them backwards, so you get that "out of phase" sound? Because it does sound really good

No,I want to wire them in series. I did not buy flux, I am using straight rosin core solder.

Must be my problem.

 

[Jack Davenport]

I remember my first electric, was a cheap Les Paul copy, with cheap pickups (they even had the nerve to install ones that had the PAF covers, but I found out they were tiny single-coils.

So I bought two Seymour Duncan humbjuckers, but I went the noob way and just wrapped the wires together. Sounded good enough

You wrapped single conductor pickups to Seymour Duncan pickups and it worked? Just snipped the wires and wrapped them together?

 

[FreeOnes_Adam]

I had a wire come loose on my headlights assembly on my bike recently and had to solder it back in. At first, it didn't want to stick. We had to remove all the old solder, strip new wire, and start fresh. Letting it cool before you put pressure on it helped a lot.

 

[Jack Davenport]

I had a wire come loose on my headlights assembly on my bike recently and had to solder it back in. At first, it didn't want to stick. We had to remove all the old solder, strip new wire, and start fresh. Letting it cool before you put pressure on it helped a lot.

I’m surprised you just didn’t ban the old solder.

 

[FreeOnes_Adam]

I’m surprised you just didn’t ban the old solder.

I did, but it came back and is bothering me as we speak.

 

[Jack Davenport]

That was a typo.

 

[ChuckFaze]

I agree with TheWhiteDevil ... flux definitely helps. :yesyes:

As much as soldering might seem like can't miss, fuck up proof child's play, it actually is not. For me it comes naturally. But, in all my years, I've seen plenty of vomit bait fucked up solder jobs. The proper amount of heat is also important. Too little heat and you get crap. Too much heat and you start melting wire insulation and fucking up the components in general. You have to get a balance.

Likewise, as FreeOnes_Adam mentions ... sometimes due to contamination, you have to resort to just starting from scratch with a freshly-stripped wire.

But, yeah, try flux, Blue Countach. :yesyes:

 

[Mr. Daystar]

Now that I think about it, I have a pair of DiMarzio paf 36th anniversary humbuckers, in cream, that I bought about this time last year and still haven't got them put in. I got them on sale, but something came up, and I couldn't spend the cash on a hot rod job.


I gotta get that done. I think I'm gonna do the Peter Green thing though, and have them wired out of phase.

 

[Supafly]

You wrapped single conductor pickups to Seymour Duncan pickups and it worked? Just snipped the wires and wrapped them together?

No, I threw away the cheap PAF copies

I snipped the wires from the old pickups, leaving enough in to wrap around the new pickup wires

 

[FreeOnes_Adam]

Well, how fucked up is it now? If it's bad, call out for a musician and have em help.

 

[Jack Davenport]

Well, how fucked up is it now? If it's bad, call out for a musician and have em help.

I took it to a reputable luthier in town. It will be about a week before it is rewired. About 100 bucks.