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Hi, Folks--

Here's a question that I don't think has ever come up before, and I hope that some of you experts out there can provide some opinions and guidance.

How much difference does the wire itself make in an electric guitar? I'm working on a little project that started out as a Tokai Telecaster clone. The body is wonderful and the pickups sound great. The neck was not so great. It looks to me like a 9-1/2" radius, jumbo-fretted Warmoth, and it is finished in poly.

I ordered an AllParts neck that is an exact duplicate of an early 1950s Telecaster neck: 7-1/4" radius, teeny vintage frets, nitro finish.

I also ordered a Wilkinson compensated Telecaster bridge for this guitar. When I was fiddling with that today, I noticed that at least the bridge pickup has thin plastic-insulated wiring. There are some cloth-covered wires in the control panel, but I don't know yet what they are connected to.

Anyway, does the wire matter? Should I go to the trouble to find and install heavier, cloth-insulated wire for this guitar? I have a feeling that it will be a great guitar that will get a lot of use, and if this is an important thing, I'll figure out how to get it done.

Thanks as always--

--Jim

I default to good quality shielded wire in my guitars, especially for any long runs, and good multi-strand, coated wire for the short links. Cheaply wired guitars, especially those with single-coil pickups, can pick up a lot of static from the environment. I actually had a situation years ago on-stage where my guitar was picking up the local AM radio station! Shielding the wiring cavities is also very helpful in reducing "outside" influences on your sound.

In an environment free from interference, you would not likely be able to hear the difference between a well wired and a cheaply wired guitar, but I haven't found that place yet!

Thanks, olrocknroller; I was hoping that you (and Danny, and Mel and the other talent around this place) would chime in.

Good answer; I have been harassed by those Bud Lite signs in some of the fine establishments I've played in and it is a helpless feeling.

My wiring harness search begins!

--Jim

How does this look, fellows?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/51-52-Tele-Tele ... _500wt_721



--Jim

To me the most important thing to shielding is the body cavity when using single coils. I use the same method fender uses for there modern american standard fenders. shieding paint on all the inside cavities and then run a metal screw into the inside of the body. attach a wire to the screw and make sure it is making contact with the shielding paint. then attach that to the guitar grounding. another thing that helps is to twist the hot and ground wires when ever it's possible. personally i perfer using old style cloth wire on everything, but that's just me. 22 awg is the standard size, but I've used smaller and larger gauges with no issues. there's also something to be said about using pure silver wire over copper because its more conductive, but it's more expensive and not always easy to find. if you cant find it, copper will work just find as its been used in guitars since the beginning. hope this helps.

http://www.stewmac.com/shopby/item/0029 ... 2012-02-gp

Thanks for the info!

--Jim

[quote="JimPage"]How does this look, fellows?
Looks like a decent wiring job to me, and it should perform, so long as the cavity is shielded, as discussed in the previous posts here. Once again, I prefer shielded wire for long runs, with the wire shielding grounded to the cavity shielding, and to the strings. My guitars are regularly used in recording studios with no "noise" issues... just music!

Thanks, olrocknroller!

As it turned out, a fellow forum member, whom I trust implicitly to create a great wiring harness, offered to make one for me, and I didn't buy that one on eBay.

This person will make one that is probably light years better, so I am very pleased and honored. Not certain that it's okay to mention who it is, so I won't, but this is just another example of why this is the best guitar forum on the Net!!!

We all look after one another and that is special to me.

Take care--

--Jim

Whoever does the job, be it yourself or somebody else, make sure there are no cold soldering joints. Cold soldering joints will cause you more problems than you can imagine. I know others have said it but shield it to death and make sure the grounds are good and secure.

Thanks for the great advice, one and all! I'll get the shielding tomorrow!

The person doing the wiring harness is a master at this stuff and I have absolutely no qualms about his soldering abilities! Good info, though!

--Jim