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Tatter75

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I recently bought a beautiful 83/84 Tokai Breezysound off ebay, which sounds fantastic, however when you turn the volume down the sound gets really thin and trebly. When i had a look inside i noticed it had 1 meg pots installed, i'm pretty sure this is wrong. As i'm not experienced with a soldering iron, does anyone know of anywhere i can buy a prewired telecaster kit that i can install with minimal fuss? I know Torres make one but that has 500k pots and a five position switch, i'm not sure if that is what i'm looking for.

Also when i touch the scratchplate below the neck pickup, i get a weird static noise which is a bit annoying!

If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated, thanks
 
250k is standard for singlecoils.

Guitar electronics is pretty simple stuff. It'd be a good learning experience to DIY and there's lots of help available on the web. Heck, if I can do the jimmy page mod in my LR then you can definately rewire a tele.
 
Hi Tatter ? agree with Paladin....soldering a few spots on a couple of pots is very easy?.don?t pay someone else to mess up your guitar with a complete new control kit :-? .

Static noise is usually due to your hand rubbing against the plastic pick-guard....try cleaning the guard with an anti-static spray/cloth?a different guard made of stiffer material may solve the problem completely, or try sticking aluminium foil on the back....but most buzzing noises are due to poor shielding & grounding (easily fixed) - http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/tele.php

250K pots will give a smoother tone & smoother taper, but 1Meg lets through more natural highs.....cap values also make a difference. See TDPRI Forum for much discussion of all this (inc. static, shielding, buzzing etc)
http://www.tdpri.com/ :-? .

Ian.
 
Thanks lads, still not too confident about doing it but i think i'll give it a go. I'm going to need replacement pots (250k) wire (?) and the component that goes between the two pots (whatever that is). Any suggestions on where to get these bits from UK.

The only things i've ever soldered are 2 speakers and my finger!
 
You need 2 250k audio taper pots, a capacitor (not sure of the value) and you may want to replace the switch and jack for good measure.

most of this stuff can be had from www.pincotts.com

Look for 250k audio CTS pots,
Switchcraft 1/4" jack,
3 way tele switch,
And orange drop capacitors (http://freespace.virgin.net/vyse.co/orange_drop.htm)

I think that's everything. You could use any thin wire for the job, but don't use that single core stuff, it's really brittle and breaks easily. Use stuff with lots of strands inside.
 
Hey Tatter, Paladin is shooting you straight( no pun intentded) on the components, CTS pots, Switchcraft 3-way switch. These are original parts for vintage teles, and are the best available. The capacitor value should be .022 mfd. The rule on caps is the higher the value, the more the highs are bled off. So you tailor you sound somewhat by messing around with different capacitor values ie.. .01 mfd will have more highs and a .047 mfd will be muddier sounding. Check your ground wires, that maybe whats causing that annoying buzz that you mentioned. Later, 8)
 
This was an afterthought that came after my last posting(hence "afterthought") to ease the trials of soldering try using the "for electronics" liquid flux i dont know if you have a "Radio Shack" store over there in the UK,if so its a good place to pick this stuff up. All you do is dab a little on what your soldering to and the flux draws the solder onto it drawing the two pieces together, making soldering a lot easier. I use it for pick ups and pots all the time. Give it a try. 8)
 
Tatter ? try this for wiring a vintage Tele http://personalweb.sunset.net/~barron/wiretele.jpg (Fig. From Ole Fuzzy on TDPRI ? search there for lots of ideas from Fuzzy) :-? .

Ian.
 

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