The connections to be worked on are clamped and held by "Mildred", a brainless robot-wanna-be; She's a 50+ year old military soldering jig my father gave me almost 50 years ago.
With a mechanical de-soldering plunge syringe, as much solder as possible is sucked off of the old Volume 1 pot's connections. The original wire crimps are kept intact to match the other factory solder connections as much as possible when the new solder connections are made. Other alligator clips you will see in the pictures are used as heat sinks that absorb the soldering heat to keep it from damaging wires and connectors by running up them.
Tin foil is placed under the work to catch solder drops.
Notice in the first picture below that the split / splined portion of the Master Volume pot shaft is mashed in. It was also repaired, and mention of handling it's condition in the future is made note of on the Body Assembly page following this electronics repair page.
The pictures below show the new pot for Volume 1 being held in place by "Mildred", with the center wire already soldered into place, ...ready for the remaining 2 wires to be soldered into place.
Several camera angles are provided for both my and your review ....should need be.
Saving the pictures and schematics provided in this work tour is proably a good idea; So that a tech making a repair in the future can have an intuitive look inside without having to destring the guitar and remove the bridge to open up the electronics compartment. It would also be quite handy to show the condition of the inside of the guitar for various future reasons, again without having to do allot of work to open up the electronics compartment. |