Guitar-ness
Well, I decided it was time for me to put some new humbuckers in my Gibson SG. I don’t know why, but I had never really considered the possibility of changing them out and after a little research and suggestions, I decided to change out the Gibson humbuckers with a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates in the bridge position and an Alnico II in the neck.
The next decision I made was to solder them in myself which was new territory for me. Hoover Music said they’d do it for fifty bones but I figured the learning experience of doing it myself and saving fifty bucks was way worth it.
So, I started on my Squire (the brightly painted guitar on the left. I took THAT guitar apart first, then soldered it back together to make sure I knew what I was doing. As you can see, my room was a mess at this point because I had all of my supplies surrounding me.
After I was sure I could solder well enough, I disassembled my Gibson.
I put the new pickups in and ran into a few snags in the soldering. At first I couldn’t get the wires to stick to the backs of the pots so I researched online of people having the same problems. Most of them suggested intentionally scratching the backs of the pots to create some crevices that the solder could grab on to. So, I did just that. I scratched the pots with a screwdriver and the solder held just fine. After I had “finished” it, I needed to try it on an amp besides the crappy squire one in my house. I drove to the church, where I keep my relatively decent amp, and tried it on there. The problem is, the guitar was buzzing and that amp buzzes slightly. I then took it to Hoover to try it on a really good amp and it was still buzzing. I realized I had made a stupid mistake. I had soldered the red and white wires together and then to the backs of the pots when they are only supposed to be wrapped together and then wrapped with tape and NOT soldered to anything. So, after fixing that, it works as well as it should I’d say. We’ll find out this weekend when I play.
All in all, a great learning experience and I know how to solder now.
Photo Credit: Alexandra Crowder
