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Advice on building list :UPDATED:

JimBeed

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Well ive ordered my parts a day or two ago, and well i wanted to see if my building list was correct, in the right order for building it up. (5 string bass, pre finished.)
So here it is:
1. Inspect body for right bridge rout, right pick up routes, etc
2. Insert Ferrules into back of body
3. Mask off a area of the top of the bass and drill for the 3 way toggle switch.
4.Attach tuners to the neck
5.Attach bridge to the body and make sure ground wire is touching. insert string ferrules aswell.
6.Insert pots into position aswell as attaching the jack along with the wires going into the control cavity.
7.Slotting in the pick ups and attaching them putting the wires through to the control rout.
8.Wire up the pots, three way toggle, bridge ground, pick ups and jacks.
9.Fix the neck to the body using a string acting as the B string and G string to check allignment then tighten up the neck to the body
10.Put on the strings and check the inotation and action and other such set up parts (might possibly get old teacher to help me with this part

Does that all look correct? and should i insert all of the pots and such like i was going to, but save the wiring till after the strings are on, so i can do a wire up just loosely attaching the wires and check the wires are correct, then solder them, or is that unnessacery? line6man has helped me put together a wiring diagram and sorted out the labelling on it so that the wiring is correct, so with this should i be able to just wire it up before attaching the strings?

thanks for your help.
 
Make up the wiring loom before you put it into the body.  Trying to solder inside a cavity without burning your body / pots wire / fingers is a nightmare.  Just make sure you keep each wire long enough so that they'll reach between all the pot / switch mounting holes.

Also you can test the wiring by tapping the pickup pole pieces with a small screwdriver or similar to see that you swtiches and pots work as they should.  Otherwise you'd have to de-string and re-string your guitar each time to change or test. Although this is less of a problem if the body is rear routed.

Good luck  :icon_thumright:


 
Yes its a rear routed but ill do that screwdriver thing to check before i string it anyways, and oh right thanks for the wiring advice, but with the ground, pick ups and jack surely they have to done inside the cavity? or shall i just wire as mcuh as possible between the pots and toggle then put them in, and wire up the pick ups and jack, but also would the wiring kit from warmoth include enough/more than enough for doing this? as i ordered one of them and its coming with all the other parts.
 
From one Jim to another  :icon_biggrin:

I'm not familiar with the warmoth wiring kit, and I'm writing this on my iPhone right now, so I can't really check, but I'd be surpised if the kit didn't include everything you need to get your build going.

I think I recall you mentioning you are in the uk (might have my wires crossed - pun definitely intended) so if you are anywhere near the London area, you're welcome to take a look at my build. And see how it all goes together. I gather your build is a bass but the principles are the same.

What I would do is put ALL of the wiring together on a bench for testing before you get it near the wood. Then once you are clear on how it goes togther you can simply unsolder the relavent parts you need to mount through the body such as the Pups, bridge ground, jack socket etc.
It's a bit of extra work, but it gets you clear on what goes where and it's a damn sight easier than burning your fingers in a cavity. Trust me, I have enough burns on my hands from soldering.
This is the way I did it and it worked for me. Just my opinion.
 
it says 1ft each of black,red and white wire and 3ft of coaxial wire, whatever that is hehe.
and yup im in england but in stafford, so bit  of a trek hehe, well ill go with that idea then, sounds like a good idea for checking everything, so ill do that cheers for saying what you did :D
well its first time so im gonna take opinions on how to wire hehe :)

 
I'll just say wiring is easy. So are the mistakes in wiring. It's normally as simple as soldering to the wrong lug. Grab some solder, practice soldering. I think I had it down after 5 or 10 minutes. Practicing on the wiring on my tele, of course.  :toothy10:
 
Cool.  You'll enjoy it if you take your time, but max is right. Wiring is easy, but so are the cock ups.
I recently rewired my Les Paul new pots and switches, the lot. It buzzed like mentalist when I tested it. Took me ages to find that I'd missed a simple ground jumper wire between two pots. But , that's why you test on the bench and not inside the guitar.

Best of luck and let us know how it goes. Post pics and ask questions if you get stuck.  
 
After inspection of body, like making sure it's the right bridge route and every thing, I would insert the ferrules first before anything else is put on the body.

Also, I would tighten the truss rod a hair because it is shipped loose with relief in it.

As far as checking the pickup wiring before stringing up, since it's rear routed it can be changed without destringing.  To avoid scratching the pickups with a scewdriver tip, most anything electric will be pickuped by a pickup.  A cell phone, an electric razor, a remote control, most anything.  Just keep the amp volume low,
 
Thanks for some great tips. I’m already implementing some of them, and am checking into displaying the total number of comments.
 
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