Luthier advice (Page 2 of 2)

I'm still getting the hissing, and there aren't any loose wires. I think I might need to replace the jack.

Right.

The guitar is an Encore electric with one humbucker. It's about 14 years old. For most of that time it has been stored somewhere around the house. All of the metal parts have at least a small layer of rust on them.

The hissing noise only comes when I'm not touching the strings. It's strong enough to get through the noise reduction on my G2.1U.

I'll have a look at the wires tomorrow, I think I've got a soldering iron somewhere.

It might be less of a hassle with your 'hissing' guitar to just gut it and replace all the electronics.  At least then you can be reasonably certain that you don't have rust inside something, preventing a connection.

I should let someone else with more experience answer your second question first, but I'll take a stab:  If you have the tools and confidence, probably not too difficult.  You will need to take off the pickguard, remove all the electronics, make some routing patterns based on your desired pickup dimensions and orientations, and then rout the body (and expand the holes in the pickguard) to fit.  With the coil taps, you're also going to have to replace the regular five-position switch with something that will handle whatever combinations you want for the pickups.  Before that, you'll have to come up with a schematic and wiring diagram, so you'll know what goes where when the time comes to put it all together.

If you're goin to go that route, check out www.stew-mac.com and you can order the pick guard with the pickups already ready to go, just solder the jack wires and ground wire and you're done. I think they run around $50 US

Looks like I'll have to do that know. I've found out that the rust has damaged the pickup as well. I've also found out that the guitar body is made of fibreboard, so I might have trouble adding single coil pickups to it.

Yes you can, just seal it with an acrylic clear gloss as well. You can't mix acrylic with nitrocellulose.

Thanks, that was kind of what I have in mind.

By way of an update, my current project is replacing the pickups in a Gretsch 5120 archtop.  Since I don't really have a workshop, I'm having a real luthier replace the tuners for me.  Once it comes back from the shop, I'm going to pull the strings, replace the tune-o-matic with a 'rocking bar' bridge (no big deal), and then replace the stock pickups with some TV Jones models that I ordered.  After that, I get to decide whether or not to change the stock linear-taper pots out for 'audio-taper' ones.  At which point, the only original hardware left will be the frets and the (licensed) Bigsby.

So far, the total outlay for this guitar, parts and labor, is $982.  If all goes well, it should sound almost identical to a $4000 Setzer Signature model (without the dice knobs).

Update to the last update:

Well, I finally got the replacement for the replacement for my black Gretsch 5120 last Thursday, and I spent Friday evening and a chunk of Saturday morning replacing the stock pickups with TV Jones replacements.

I had to pull the individual volume knobs, and the Master Tone knob to do the soldering; I used plastic tubing over the pot stem (which fit through the hole in the body) in order to be able to pull them back into the proper position when finished.  I had to take a dremel tool to both pickup holes to fit new pickups, and drill and refill two screw holes for each of the pickup rings.  I also need a bigger soldering iron, my little 25-watt iron doesn’t work so well with those big pots.

All went back together smoothly, and the final product looks professional if I say so myself.  I restrung and set the pickups to the manufacturer’s suggested height, and plugged her in.  It sounds <jazz hands> FABULOUS!! </jazz hands>

I elected not to replace the linear taper pots; I’m more of a ‘set ‘em and forget ‘em’ sort of guy where guitar knobs are concerned.  If I decide to do it down the road, well, I can.

Final cost breakdown:

    Gretsch 5120 (black) ……………….....$595
    Customized Pickguard ……………......$   0
    .11 guage strings w/wound 3rd......$   7
    TV Jones pickups, rings, shipping...$270
    Grover locking tuners installed………$121
    Total cost:                                   $993

I forgot to bring my camera to work today so I can upload the photos to webshots; I will do that tomorrow and post a link.

Hi dguyton ,
   I owned a small music store
and I can tell you from experience that setting up and repairing solid body electrics will be a small part of your business volume . As far as the repair part goes , untill you can make a name for yourself setting up electrics , the bulk of your repair business will be accoustic instruments , ie. guitars , violins and such. Neck resets on guitars , repairing sound board cracks,
parting a violin to repair cracks and or rebuilding a crashed violin . I've done my share of resets and violin rebuilds successfully , but I
was always nervous when these instruments were valuable . If you get to that
point be sure you do not take on any repair job that you're not sure you can do well . It's better to send the job elsewhere than to mess it up .
   A music store or shop also means setting up dealerships with suppliers and when it comes to musical instruments
there aint no such a thing as floor planning , everything is paid for when you get it or within thirty days . That's where the problem comes in for guitar dealers if you're small , even the distributors who handle the cheap stuff expect you to buy a certain volume per year , and the big name stuff will want you to buy twenty to thirty instr.
per year , whether you can sell them or not . I don't want to discourage but do all your research and know what your getting into . I still do instrument repair along with other things and I love it  . And I don't have to deal with all the other crap .......