50s wiring issues for les paul

[blindopher]

Hi,

 

I'm about to rewire my 2005 GO 1960 plaintop to 50s wiring.

 

1. Why, as a matter of fact, do I need to insulate the cap leads? You don't see that in an amp build. And if I must, how do I heat sink the cap if it's got plastic on it? Then again, do I realy need to heat sink when i'm soldering the cap? I'm pretty fast and confident with the iron, (though still, of course, a nooob.)

 

2. And whilst on the subject, i'm also about to build a rangemaster clone (now that I've finally finished the cursed sourcing of all components) - and once again I see many builds with heat shrink on the transistor leads. A must?

 

3. Any recommendation for bumblebee style OIP cap? I've got the unbelievable Gibson spit-in-your-face fake bumblebee, and I still can't get over it.

 

thanx!

[Mr.Grumpy]

1) You don't need to insulate tone caps' leads with heatshrink tubing, nor do you need to use a heatsink when soldering in a cap. Only transistors need to be heatsinked when soldered in. The insulating tubing you may see on some component leads probably isn't heatshrink, but an earlier product that I know of by its informal name, 'spaghetti'. I've never seen heatshrink nor spaghetti used on a cap's lead inside a guitar myself. Normally the cap is soldered to a pot lug and the other lead soldered to the back of the pot. Unless there's a problem with un-insulated wires touching or grounding out on things they aren't supposed to, there's no reason for it.

 

2) The tubing on transistor leads is to insulate them electrically to keep the bare wires from touching each other. People are often reluctant to trim the leads on their rare NOS transistors, so they leave the leads long and put heat shrink or spaghetti on them. The long leads provide some protection from soldering heat, but for your rangemaster I'd recommend using a transistor socket and then there's no worry about overheating your transistor.

 

3) There is no significant difference among types of tone caps of the same value. If you have to spend twelve dollars on a tone cap, Stewart-MacDonald has them. MojoTone also has a nice selection of oil filled and film caps.

[blindopher]

thanx! BTW here's one of MANY cavities I've seen with insulation on the caps...(?)

[blindopher]

ok I realize the leads are very long, so I guess they needed that protection, but here's one of many that I see no justification for. Weird isn't it? Actually If I do an image google for les paul control cavity I get a lot of this.

[Mr.Grumpy]

Some techs are just a bit OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) about wiring. I suppose if you're going to use those 'big' tone caps then it's not a bad idea to insulate those leads since those caps could shift and potentially a wire could touch where it's not supposed to.

 

Here's a wiring harness I did for my Aria ES-335 copy, I used cheap polyfilm capacitors that I bought locally. The lead to the center terminal of the tone pot is probably less than an inch long, and it looks like I used some hotmelt glue to affix the caps to the back of the pots as well.

 

[WRGKMC]

thanx! BTW here's one of MANY cavities I've seen with insulation on the caps...(?)

 

That pic is a job poorly done. They should have just shorten the leads and you wont need all that extra insulation tubing nor the tie wraps. If a component is heavy, just use some hot glue and tack it to the pot can. Short unshielded hot leads minimize hum. That should always be taken into consideration in an unshielded control cavity.