It's getting better all the time!

[Albannach]

For some strange reason I have always shied away from strat style guitars until I bought this S-500 from Evilbay. When it initially arrived it had a horrible top E string buzz that was easily cured by adjusting the saddle. After doing this I was surprised by the quality of sound and sustain from this guitar, it was not what I expected from a ply body and it has grown on me so much that it is the only guitar getting any use just now.

One of the things that was a niggle was the jack socket, it had a terrible earthing issue that I cured but not satisfied with the socket I wanted to fit a Switchcraft unit instead. Only one thing wrong, it had too much thread showing past the locking nut so to get it top fit the cavity I had to enlarge the cavity.

 

So here is the method I used.

 

 

Here you can see where I started from, the excess thread and the rather dilapidated PUs,

 

 

OK. Destring the guitar and remove all the screws for the scratch plate and jack socket. Desolder the bridge ground from the back of the pot and desolder the connections to the jack socket and remove the complete scratch plate assembly.

 

 

Mask off the working area with thick card and masking tape before you do anything. Normally I have a thick wool blanket under the guitar as well to protect the finish.

 

 

Using a Dremel with a ball cutter and a cylinder cutter I enlarged and smoothed off the cavity.

 

 

A trip to the local pharmacy produced an almost match in nail varnish which I used to cover the exposed ply.

If you go this route to cover bare wood make sure that you do not get any on the body finish as the solvents will cut right through it.

 

 

Check fit and placement of the jack socket.

 

 

Before and after - can you see the difference?

 

 

While I had the PUs in bits I cleaned the existing single coils, the difference in appearance is startling, and I threw in a Kent Armstrong HRE-1 as a temporary measure as the existing humbucker vibrated badly with the guitar's resonance. I will be installing a new stock Epi PU later.

 

So what is left to do? The tremolo arm is on order along with the selector switch tip, being a Korean made guitar it is a 6mm thread for the arm. A set of CTS pots and an RS capacitor will be the next additions to it and then I can let it rip!

[Whitmore Willy]

Albannach,

 

Good post!

I love it when someone posts pics of work in progress. One never knows when one might learn something new.

Keep up the good work. By the way, good looking guitar.

 

Willy

[AS90]

Cool!