Andrew Bruce
A software person

I rewired my guitar

Posted on

My Fender Stratocaster, hanging on the wall.

After decades of saying I would fix its extremely unreliable jack output, pots and switch, I finally got around to rewiring my crackly Japanese Fender Stratocaster. It was simpler than I thought, though I needed to relearn how to solder on the job. This is a collection of resources I wished I had in one place at the beginning.

A simpler fix

I could've probably made the thing work by resoldering the jack output. However, I wanted to get better at soldering, and a broken guitar seemed like a good place to start before I started to build my far more complex new 3D printer (build log to follow).

If you're here looking for advice on how to fix a crackly jack, just unscrew it, inspect for loose solder, redo it and you're probably good. The rest of this post is about a full rewire.

Sourcing

I ordered this rewiring kit from Axes R Us. I considered other sites, but they often had too much choice for particular mods I didn't understand.

Replacing the pickups wasn't part of the plan, nor was adding copper shielding.

What I got in the kit:

My mistake: YouTube

YouTube is great for building confidence that you can do things, but it's not always great for showing you how, especially when a project needs precision. I followed a tutorial from someone experienced at rewiring guitars, and had my soldering iron hot while I followed along. It seemed straightforward.

Sadly, once I'd followed everything in the video, there was no sound from the pickups. So there must've been one of these problems:

In retrospect, it was probably the last one.

In my excitement at having persuaded my brain that now was the time to do this repair, I hadn't bothered to study diagrams or to learn how the components I was replacing worked.

Diagrams

For me, diagrams are often far more enlightening than videos.

The official Fender diagram for wiring is OK but lacks colour:

wiring diagram for a Fender Stratocaster

At first glance, it looked like I'd miswired the capacitor between the two tone pots. I resoldered everything to match the diagram, only to realise that it was the same layout with more wire.

In fact, I'd miswired the new Oak Grisby 5-way switch (and also failed to find Axesrus' instructions for soldering the switch, which I only found whilst writing this post). My original, crackly old switch was a cheap thing that was either a replacement or what they happened to put in at the factory in Japan in the 90s. I couldn't use it as a reference, as it's a different design. I believe this is the design they also put into Squier Strats:

my rusty 'import' style switch

But I'd received this:

the Oak Grisby 5-way switch I received

Mistake rectified, with... YouTube.

This video explains with a diagram how to wire these "vintage style" 5 way switches. Taking the time to understand how to wire this thing, instead of blindly following a tutorial, made everything make sense. You need to "activate" the second side of the switch, and the order of the lugs really does make sense. Would labelling them be too much to ask?

All done!

So after getting the wiring right, and desoldering and resoldering several times, and then restringing, the thing made a noise! That is, until I touched the volume pot. Then, permanent silence.

Not so fast

I had a cold solder joint on the volume pot. I redid it and tested the pickups by scratching their magnets with a drill bit.

But... nothing. I think I blew the pot somehow. I replaced it with the original volume pot and things started working again.

My advice: don't buy this guitar from me unless you want to redo my work. However, I'd also recommend learning this stuff if you do play electric, as it helps you understand where tone comes from, and how to change the sound of your instrument for the price of a few cocktails and some lost hair.