Well peoples, I've started playing some leads at church and the last Sunday I played my guitar acted up and I had to switch to my acoustic.  (A Gibson J88 for those who are interested.) So, I decided to rebuild the electric with some more reliable components.  However, I didn't really want to change anything more than the easily removable parts because my electric is a 1964 Fender Mustang.



I was having some problems with the tuning drifting.  In part due to the tremelo and partly the tuners.  So the first thing I did was to replace the tuners.
Before:                                       After:



Next I replaced the old pots and output jack.  This is my wiring job.  The control plate is original because the new one is still backordered.

  

Body minus trem-plate



Without the pickguard.  Notice the black insulating material along the left side.  That keeps the switches from shorting out against the brass shielding.  It also broke the wires from my new pickups the first time I put the new pickguard on.



Trying to get the new pickups in the body without routing out any more holes proved a little frustrating.  The humbucking pickups I used were just a bit bigger than the single coils I took out so a little finagling was required.  I also ended up sanding out the pickguard just a little to get the bridge pickup to fit.



The pickups on a Mustang are wired in parallel but the switches have a unique position that allows them to operate "out-of-phase".  When both pickups are used it provides a rather twangy sound.  Used with just one pickup you don't really get the effect.

I forgot to take pictures after I wired the new pickguard but before I had it installed.  I'll try to remember to take some pictures the next time I pull the strings off.

The finished product.  New tuners, tremelo, bridge, pickguard, switches, pots, jack, wire and pickups.
Running with 250K pots and a 0.047 mfd capaciter.  Neck pickup is a Seymour Duncan Duckbucker.  Holding the guitar looking down, the center position is off, left position is correct polarity and the right position is reversed polarity.  Bridge pickup is a Seymour Duncan Lil Screamin Demon.  Center position is off, left position is coil-tap with the right position as full humbucking.

I put a picture of my new ax in the blog a couple of posts ago.  That guitar really sounds and looks nice but it has a bit of an attitude problem.  So, within the next couple of weeks I'm planning on ordering a new bridge and nut and finding someone who will install them for me.  Just thought you would be interested.

Time marches relentlessly forward,
Each beat counting our time on this earth,
So what better thing to do,
How do we choose to spend our time,
Registering for classes at the local community college.

Yep, Dani and I are signed up for sign language class.  For now we are pursuing an associates in sign language interpretation.  That may change depending on the stresses on the family but that is the goal for now.  It should be a lot of fun.  Dani has been working with me since we got married and I can now communicate with pigeon sign language.  (You know... hunt and peck.)  I just hope the instructor doesn't fall over from laughing at me.  I'm also supposed to take a college prep math class.  I really think that the reason I didn't place higher in math was because it's been 11 frickin' years since I was in high-school.  (That and I didn't study before the test. )  Oh well.  It should be fun.  I've actually not ever taken any classes at a college.  I don't count the classes that I was a TA or helped to proctor.  There was one class for MS Access that had few enough students that Brack and I didn't really have anything to do but learn the material with the class... sort of.  I think we skimmed the first 3 chapters of the book during the lecture and just started playing with the software.  While the class was learning how to build a table we were already programming drop-down boxes; that and playing chess.  Heh, heh... good times.  Then there was the time that we each had 2 computers connected to the same chat room and we tried our best to mess with everyone in the room.  Everything was going great until Brack realized that I was also targeting him.