welcome back to the channel and my lp build from the fretwire.com i built a thinline
telecaster from fretwire in previous videos that turned out pretty great
i will leave a link up there so in this video this is where the fun begins
well mostly as i'm not a massive fan of soldering but this is where it all comes together at least
i found a great couple of videos online that helped me with various parts of the wiring
so i'll link those below for you guys i do recommend also reading the documentation
that the fret wire provide this is a great start to the build so let's get into it
i've actually done this with all my guitars i've used this copper tape
that i got from amazon it's really really good and i don't know if shielding the cavities is
going to help on an lp style but i did read it on some forums and to be honest it can't
really hurt so i decided to give it some extra shielding in there by just adding the copper tape
i also had to watch some youtube videos as well to figure out how to do the wiring on this guitar
the fretwire.com does give you an excellent wiring guide and the pamphlets and the pdfs
that you can download from the fret wire are actually really good reads so it's definitely
worth reading those before you get started this particular video i saw they came up with a jig
so you actually do all of the wiring outside of the guitar which does make things a lot easier
the grounding or the ground wires that you put between the pots
are pretty straightforward i just put a little bit of solder onto the top of the pots and of
course you bend various legs back and make sure that those particular legs on those
particular pots are grounded and then you can just run the wiring all the way around the pots
some people just use one continuous piece of wire which seems like a good idea i didn't have that
so i had to cut individual pieces of wire to go around and ground all of the pots together
the wiring diagram i used or at least the wiring diagram i found on youtube
was a 50s wiring diagram i'll be absolutely honest i don't know the difference between a
50s and a modern wiring diagram and i don't know the difference that it's going to make
but i'll definitely leave the links below so that you guys can check it out as well
if you're attempting to do this the reason i used this particular video and this method of wiring
is because it made the most sense to me i could follow it really easily
this is where i wire the output jack now if you were to zoom in on the video you will notice that
i wired the output jack round the wrong way so if you're going to do this where i solder it on
to that particular pin don't solder it onto that one
sorry onto the other one so i got that wrong so just a little lesson learned there
so full disclosure the pickups that i'm going to put into the guitar
are epiphone pickups and they were sent to me by a guy that follows the channel thanks brad if
you want to hear the original pickups they can always check out my thinline telecaster build
where you can hear those pickups they do sound amazing as well i just want to let you guys know
all in all soldering isn't my most favorite thing to do because it does take a lot of
thought you have to keep looking at the diagram and making sure that all your wires are going
into the right places making sure that when you do do the wiring that you're hot and ground wires
aren't touching any other hot and ground wires so it is a something that you really do need
to concentrate on not my favorite thing but i can do it i can get it done it just takes time
next thing to do is install the switch but i did find that the wire was too short from the
fretwire.com i'm assuming that that piece of wire that i had was the correct wire for the switch
to go into the cavity so that in mind i decided to make my own wires up i had some spare wire
anyway from a previous build the only issue here of course is that i have two red wires and two
black wires so when i feed them through and have a look at these four wires poking out of the cavity
i'm not going to be sure which wires which coming from the switch so all you do is just grab the
end of one wire from the cavity like that one wire from the switch cavity and just pull them
to identify which wires which in an ideal world you'd have four different color wires but i didn't
this is where my ideas for this particular build come into play i decided instead of
the cream rings and instead of the cream poker chip and the cream switch tip that i would swap
everything out to white i did go through various different styles of knobs with a white top
and a gold surround the gold knobs but i eventually decided that white knobs will
look pretty unique on this guitar so i changed everything out to white and that's when i also
sprayed the back plates uh white as well i just got myself a white spray i already had some
clear lacquer so i clear lacquered them as well just to give it a little bit of a unique look
one important thing here as well is don't forget about the bridge ground wire
that goes through the cavity where the pots are and comes out a little hole by
the bridge so just make sure you've got a really good connection there
probably should use a rubber mallet to do this but i decided to use a bit of cardboard and the hammer
that i already had so that i wouldn't mark the top of the tailpiece pins and the bridge pins as well
and when you tap those down you can hear a clunk which gives you a good indication that
you've gone far enough just make sure that you keep them straight as you hammer them down and
don't hammer them too hard just keep going until you hear that clunk and until they're fully seated
for now i'll put the gold knobs on just want to test the guitar out make sure everything's okay
because the white knobs hadn't turned up yet these were some of the headstock logo
designs that i came up with because i i wanted derrick paul model because on
gibson's it says les paul model so i just wanted a little cheeky design on there
and i decided to put my logo at the top of the headstock as well because that was circular
and it sort of matched the the curves of the headstock perfectly so all that was a good idea
headstock decal was nice and easy i used this decal paper from amazon it's water transfer paper
so i put a couple of coats of lacquer onto the headstock then the decal and then another couple
of coats of lacquer and what that does is it hides the outline of the decal on the headstock and
gives you a really nice smooth finish and a really professional look on your decal on that headstock
i really enjoyed this build frustrating at times but as part of the learning process
and the thing i feared the most was the setup at the end but as it turns out it was really simple
no different really to an s or t style guitar and once i'd finished the build and played it
through my amp for the first time i had a massive smile on my face it plays and sounds absolutely
fantastic i was over the moon with it my first lp style guitar i think i might just come to love it
it's also worth noting that the fretwire.com also has parts of really good prices
as well as bodies and necks and a gallery of customer builds so it's well worth checking out
i want to thank the guys again at the fretwire.com for supplying the kit for the build
i really appreciate that but what did you think let me know below and links to all the kit all
the parts stains and the gear i used below also for your info we'll see you guys in the comments
cheers