Seymour Duncan Woody Repair - Sparkies help required please!

skinnyboy

Hi there.  The cable on my Seymour Duncan Woody has pulled out (poor design if you ask me!). It seems to be designed to be as irreparable as possible but I thought I may as well give it a go.  I've drilled into it with the Dremal and have found the connector wire which seems to go to the pick up top.  I'm wondering if someone can advise as to where I should connect the ground/earthing shield wires to?  I can only see the one open wire where the I presume the main cable core goes?

Any help appreciated.

[URL=http://s1300.photobucket.com/user/skinnerooony/media/IMG_1584_zpsxgypv27b.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag84/skinnerooony/IMG_1584_zpsxgypv27b.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL=http://s1300.photobucket.com/user/skinnerooony/media/IMG_1583_zpss2wzkxnc.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag84/skinnerooony/IMG_1583_zpss2wzkxnc.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

skinnyboy

Image links here,
http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag84/skinnerooony/IMG_1584_zpsxgypv27b.jpg
http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag84/skinnerooony/IMG_1583_zpss2wzkxnc.jpg

ICBM

Hard to tell. Is that some shielding foil to the left of the wire on top of the coil? If so, connect it to that.

If not, then you'll need to cut more of the wood away and find where the cable shield was attached.

OilCityPickups

Damn ... fully epoxy potted by the looks of it ... tricky to fix

Phil_aka_Pip

It's not as if they're particularly good pickups ...

ICBM

Phil_aka_Pip said:

It's not as if they're particularly good pickups ...

That is true too. I find them quite weak output-wise, difficult to get a perfect string balance and with a poor signal to noise ratio, even with the humbucking one with adjustable poles.

To be honest I don't like any of the soundhole pickups with a captive trailing cable like this, because if you stand on the cable there's a good chance of damage - to the soundhole rim of the guitar as well as the pickup. When I had one I fitted it with a phono plug and line socket a foot or so down the cable to make sure that would always be the point of least resistance if it got tugged - even though I always looped it through the strap as well. Can't be too careful with a valuable Gibson acoustic.

Phil_aka_Pip

ICBM said:

Phil_aka_Pip said:

It's not as if they're particularly good pickups ...

That is true too. I find them quite weak output-wise, difficult to get a perfect string balance and with a poor signal to noise ratio, even with the humbucking one with adjustable poles.

Yes. The o/p is negligible without some outboard preamp - it won't drive the i/p of an acoustic amplifier properly, and is also very difficult to record. My money was way better spent on a Washburn SBF-80 that records nicely and sounds good through a bog stock acoustic amplifier. I know ICBM doesn't like the AS50D much, and I'm sure his reasoning is sound, but I've never had trouble with mine and it has always sounded good.

skinnyboy

Hi folks, thanks for the replies. Remarkably after some further excavation I've managed to fix it. But boy, it aint pretty... 

The epoxy looking stuff is actually more like hard gluey jelly and can be scraped out with some patience.  Inside I found two white wires joined together and a small black wire. After some experimenting I worked out the little black wire needs to be soldered to the copper wrap around the pick up. The joined white wires need to be soldered to the central core of the guitar cable. Finally I grounded the outer shield cables by soldering them to a different point of the copper wrap, covered the joints in electric tape, secured the cable by jamming it in the slot and then 'Sugrued' the hell out of it. A masterpiece it is not. Working (for now) it is. I'll be gentle.

I got the Woody cheap from a friend ages ago. Admittedly it's not great but it does the job at the moment. Always worth having a go at fixing things just to see how they work. Sorry for the bad photo's.

http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag84/skinnerooony/IMG_1587_zpsdlusoman.jpg
http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag84/skinnerooony/IMG_1588_zps6opdcm0w.jpg

TTony

Nice work @skinnyboy

ICBM

Given the sheer difficulty of working on these things - especially at the first attempt, not knowing what you expect to find inside or how to get to it - I don't think you've done badly at all.

Perfectly acceptable on something that would otherwise have had to go in the bin.

Phil_aka_Pip

I admire your patience and tenacity, Sir!

Have a Wow