It’s done! She’s alive! She has ‘live’ running through her veins (well, strings) but the birth has finally happened. My gorgeous Telecaster that has taken nearly the length of time for the tree to grow from which it started off, but she’s worth it. I was at a loss of what to do today as my new central heating system was being installed so I thought I may as well give it a go!!
The first thing to do was to strip all the wiring and start again, it was shit! I don’t do soldering, or’Soderin’ as the man on YouTube called it. I looked at the diagram I had, lost it, then looked it up in line, not a bad first attempt, apart from I soldered meself to most of the switches and one time I picked up the wrong end of me gas iron, FML that hurt! Not to worry though, I still had nine fingers left. Eventually I found a British site that used the exact same set up as me! That’s when I realised I couldn’t understand wiring diagrams with TWO FUCKING COLOURED WIRES ONLY.
I got rid of it and did (step by step) what the fat Brit said. I even turned everything in the direction he said! Mind you, at one point I couldn’t understand what the fuck the chubby fingered bacon scoffer was doing, but I paused and rewound at least ten times until I realised I was watching the wrong bit. (Give me a fucking hammer any day) if you own a gas iron, get rid of it, they are shit and all they do is burn you at 90 degrees from the blade!!! Bastards!!
Three, yup count em, THREE wires coming off the both pickups! The diagram tells me I only have TWO, I smiled, then cried, then took a walk. A few texts and whatnot later, I had an idea. Another YouTube clip. This time the guy was a tad less chubby so I could see his fingers working properly. With ALL the wiring in place, it was time to stick it all in the body! ”Twas at this point I realised I had no idea how to do this, guess what! YouTube is a fucking miracle. Everything ‘soddered’ and screwed down, now all I needed was the neck
What I didn’t want to do was string it up while the workmen were around. I just didn’t want to plug it in and go up in a blue light or deafen meself with a faulty connection. I waited and waited and eventually I thought I would just get ONE string on, seven later (yup, the high E snapped cause it was SHIT) however, I KNEW I wasn’t going to plug it up when others were there! TBH, I shouldn’t have worried really. Not a buzz, no crackling, nothing. Tuning was shit (and still is, I have to get the intonation (guess where I’ll get that from?)) but at least I got her living.
Been a bloody long journey, but she’s a beauty! Name ideas would be fantastic people 🙂
Dec247h 