Guitar repair
Not only is the Guitar Builders’ Group (GBG) about making guitars, it has given me the skills to repair my guitars.
After a short vacation in one of the local Medicine for Profit Factories a couple years ago, i got interested in electric guitars. Being retired, i bought a cou8ple cheap ones, and when MakeICT started the GBG, i was thrilled. Joined MakeICT, Joined GBG. Not talking about my guitar building projects here though.
One of the cheep electric guitars stopped working. One of the pickups went silent. While the guitar is probably still under warranty, i decided to try and fix it myself. There was no obvious problem, but i had a suspicion that one of the the cheap control potentiometers was the problem.
And of course replacing potentiometers is just like installing new ones in a guitar build, with the added step of removing the old ones. To avoid future issues, i replaced all the potentiometers and all new wiring.
There were a few misteps along the way. I found out about linear taper pots and logarithmic or audio taper pots. I changed the circuit slightly to a 1950’s circuit. Supposed to be “better”, lol.
Carefully checked continuity regularly as i added components. Looked for grounding issues. When it wascomplete, i plugged it in and it made noise! Glorious overdriven noise, exactly what i hoped for.
Best, i can fix it if it fails in the future.
