Righto, well this won't be
quite as extensive as what some of you lot are planning, but nevertheless, my CS336 needs some attention, so it might as well go under this banner.
It's barely being played of late because the switch and at least one of the pots are knackered. Not wanting to do a re-wire on a compact semi ever again in my whole life, I've also decided to get new pickups, which I'm told are waiting for me at the local post office, so it'll be a comprehensive replacement of all electrics. And since Stewmac had a blowout on Tonepros Klusons I also have a set of those that will be installed while I have the strings off, once I've worked out how to make them not look brand new.
I also just remembered I also have a new switch tip for my Jazzmaster, but I think that's too basic even for me...
Comments
If you can make it sound good too ...
I really don't like plain topped bursts or the real tight symmetrically-flamed stuff as the former is super-dull and the latter usually looks false, but the combination of the wavy grain across the wavy flame is brilliant. It's the only flametopped guitar I've ever had.
Incidentally, the CS certificate actually lists it as a plain top - presumably it's not enough flame to keep the stripe-obsessed collectors happy.
A5 felt a bit much for a relatively polite guitar, though if these go well I fancy an LP Custom with something grunty installed
First the strings came off. Bridge and tailpiece kept aside for safekeeping
At this point I also had the foresight to measure the bridge height to give me a head start when putting it all back together.
Gave the frets a quick polish. A couple of grades of micromesh and a bit of elbow grease
Shiny first fret. Not so shiny second fret
Shiny all frets!
The old machineheads also got replaced. These things are ok, but the keys are a bit snot-looking and never had a very precise feel.
SNOT GREEEEEN
New ones are Tonepros Klusons, on sale at Stewmac a while back. I already have these on an SG so it was an easy choice. But they're a bit shiny for a 16-year old guitar
Knobs off. These were the hardest knobs I hunk I’ve ever got offa guitar. There was some weird glue stuff left on the pot shafts, which seems unnecessary.
And even more impressive, was that one of the knobs is actually broken - it’s been on he guitar like that for at least the 12 years I’ve had it, and presumably from the factory. That’s the kind of cost cutting Gibson should be proud of on a several-thousand-dollar product...
And so so we come to the Point of No Return...
Tubing on the pits, everything detached, and loom extracted. This was really tough. The smaller body and edge-mounted jack socket meant I could get a finger in that way to help push, but there's also less wiggle room depth-wise due to the smaller body once again
On the plus side, the tenon here is actually pretty well cut. Though the bridge pickup rout is quite messy - you'd think they'd empower someone on the production line to chuck a bit of sandpaper around the rough wood, at least on the bits that might get seen during the guitar's life. I didn't take a specific picture, but you can just see it in the one above.
Old loom. Interestingly I email Gibson about the pots values ages ago and they swore they were 300k. They are all 500k...
At this point the guitar was set aside so as not to get solder on it, but remember to keep the neck pickup with the guitar and not solder it into the loom outside the guitar
Your guitar still looks great though.
Fully wired loom. Just needs the neck pickup and bridge ground wires attaching before inserting everything back into the guitar. I went for push-back cloth wire rather than the braided stuff, mostly to maximise flexibility for getting it back into place later.
No photos of the reassembly, mostly because I forgot. But basically the neck pots first, then the bridge pots then the switch. And a lot of swearing, particularly once I realised I’d wired the switch backwards. Thankfully that does fit through the f-hole so it was pretty easy to switch the hot wires around, being careful not to get any solder on the guitar’s finish!!
The finished guitar... looking very much like it did before, just a little shinier, and playing and sounding quite a bit better. Lots more top end, and also seemingly a bit more range on the tone pots, which I’m surprised by considering they’re the same values (+/- 15k based on measured values) and cap values. I guess these orange drops are a slightly different value than the old ones despite both being 223 rated.
Im not 100% happy with the switch angle but the neck volume pot is in the way of rotating it further. I think that’ll annoy me into having to take it out again to get the Switch right, but I think I can probably do it without removing the hole loom. I hope...
The knobs went on ok though, which is great. No glue or picture needed, though I did have Tom splay the split post out just the tiniest fraction on one of the tone pots.
And finally, here’s Max helping to play test. He’s quite an odd cat but also my best buddy
It is... not fun. At last count I've done 2 Casinos, one Epi Dot, one big-box Gretsch and now this one. All have different things that make them relatively easier or harder. The Gretsch was easier in terms of wiggle room inside the body but harder because of the switch on the bass side and master volume by the treble cutaway. The full-hollow nature of Casinos makes the relatively easier since the bridge pickup hole is huge, but one of the Casinos had a push/push pot, which was really tricky to get into place.
This is by far the tightest cavity to work inside and f-holes that are too small to get fingers into, but has a big hole on the edge for the jack socket, which means you can get another angle to poke at everything from. That said I have been putting this off for about 18 months, and with good reason..!
This took about 5 hours from strings off to fully complete, which isn’t too bad considering I did it while watching The Grand Tour and with a beer in the middle. The tubing is essential. I don’t know how guys do it with string or thread.