Watch PG's John Bohlinger take a swing at handshaping an acoustic neck. Plus, learn how Martin's master craftsman reverse engineers the company's gold-standard profiles from their most-heralded instruments.
Instrument design manager Rameen Shayegan leads Bohlinger into the Martin Custom Shop where he gets a crash course in how their team makes neck shapes that are snowflakes. However, the talented crew also divulges how they explore guitarcheology by reproducing some of the neck profiles that are on their most-iconic instruments within the Martin museum. This is one of the process that helped create the company's popular Authentic Series.
Watch the full factory tour here.
Here’s a DIY project for tone chasers: how to turn a $199 single-coil Squier Bullet Strat into a beefy humbucker-voiced 6-string, with coil-splitting in the neck pickup.
If you try this project yourself, you’ll need three Seymour Duncan JB Jr. pickups, a Pure Tone Multi-Contact Output Jack, one .022MFD orange drop capacitor, two 500k CTS potentiometers, a push/pull pot DPDT on/on switch assembly, 60/40 rosin core solder, 22 AWG non-shielded PVC-insulated circuit wire, heat shrink tubing, small zip ties, and a set of your favorite guitar strings. For tools, Dave uses a Hakko Soldering Station, small clippers, small round-nosed pliers, a Phillips screwdriver, a 1/2" nut driver, a strip of painters or masking tape, and a small jar with a lid. A Stratocaster circuit schematic will also come in handy for reference. You’ll also need to brush up on your soldering skills. (Consult “Soldering 101: A Step-by-Step Guide” at premierguitar.com to get on the good foot.)
Step one will be removing and stripping the pickguard, and then cutting wires within the circuitry so the new components can be put into place. Since this is an S-style guitar, much of the work will be done on that pickguard, which helps simplify the process. Installing the pickups—in this case, Seymour Duncan JB Jr.’s—is simple. You might need to do some routing on the pickguard to accommodate the new pots. Duncan’s JB Jr.’s come with about 10 inches of four-conductor circuit wire already attached. Strip off about 3" of that wire’s outer casing. Then you’ll see red, white, black, green, and ground wires. Peel about 1/2" of casing from the tips of each of those smaller, color-coded wires. For the neck pickup, the green and bare wire are tied together and attached to ground—soldered to the top of the middle (tone) pot. Dave carefully explains each step. For a written version with photos, see “DIY: Hot-Rodding a Squier Bullet HT” in the May 2023 issue or at premierguitar.com. There's also a companion video, specifically focused on replacing the output jack. Got a question for Dave? Go to scalemodelguitars.com.
In the video, Dave Johnson of Nashville’s Scale Model Guitars shows you the steps for replacing a standard 1/4" jack, with a boat-style plate, with a Pure Tone Multi-Contact Output Jack.
It has four points of contact, versus the OEM two, and dual tension grounds to hug the cable sleeve in place from both sides, providing more reliable performance and better tone. After explaining how a jack carries mono or stereo signal, and taking a sidetrack to detail how to solve the issue of a loose output jack with a severed ground wire, Dave relates how to remove the two jack plate screws, and then remove the output jack nut with a 1/2" nut driver. And then strip the wire—red is hot, white is ground—to prepare for soldering.
Dave takes a few minutes to teach the basics of soldering, with a Hakko soldering station—his preferred instrument. He also recommends Kester 60/40 rosin core solder, which is 60 percent tin and 40 percent lead, in .062" thickness. (Hint: Look for silver beads of solder, not gray, when soldering!) Before joining the wires to the jack connections, he slides some shrink tubing (from Harbor Freight Tools) on them.
After making the connections, he shrinks the tubing with a cigarette lighter, to preserve the integrity of those connections. A locking nut and the nut driver takes care of the next step, and after a quick test—plug in and hit the strings—it’s time to screw the boat plate back in place. Dave also shares a golden rule for working on guitars: always go slow. Think of the tortoise and the hare—although this entire process can be done in less time than it takes to watch this video.
For an in-depth written version of this jack replacement lesson, with photos, check the June 2023 issue of Premier Guitar or go to premierguitar.com.
