Wiring Les Paul Guitar

[Kim Strode]

Hello All,

I'm trying to help my son build a Les Paul as a school project and I'm a little lost with the wiring. The wiring diagram shows a connection called 'ground to bridge' - what is this?

We're using a hard tail bridge on this guitar and I assume the'ground to bridge' connection means there a wire required which connects to part of the metal bridge. Is this connection necessary?

The guitar is actually a box with a large Rice Bubbles pack wrapped around it!

Thanks

[Kim]

Kim,

This wire is your main earth and really is very important. On an LP body there should be a capillary or small hole running from the bottom of the tailpiece post hole closest to the cavity, into the control cavity itself.

The wire, preferably good quality single core, should be stripped at the ends and fed through the hole from the cavity into the post hole. Once an end is in place in the post hole, you drive the post home being sure that the bare wire is held firmly by friction. The other end inside the cavity now forms your common earth.

I recommend to avoid any snap, crackle, pop, or hummmm, that you first shield out the cavity with copper foil and then, after soldering the common onto a small copper washer, secure the washer to the shield via a brass screw. This forms what some call a "Star Earth" to which all pots are then soldered. But you can probably stick with standard schematics for the rice bubble box

Here is an image of a standard LP twin HB wiring lay out. This is standard Gibson stuff and some say that with HB's no shielding is required. I must have some Geordy in me cause I like to Phil MacKavity with foil




Here is a link to lots of diagrams and stuff:

http://guitarelectronics.zoovy.com/cate ... ndiagrams/

Oh, if you have not fooled with electrics before it should be noted that "Shielded" wire is used for those bits where it says "Solder Braid Here" on the diagram. (Dick Smith's) The "braid" they are referring to is metal braided shielding wraps around the central core or cores. This shield of fine platted wires is stripped back, twitched into a single core and soldered into place where indicated.


Cheers

Kim

[kiwigeo]

Where abouts do you attach the 240 volt wall plug?