These instructions will serve to easily replace the strings ground wire in the future:
9-10-08
As said in other parts of this guitar's report; This guitar was produced without a ground wire to the strings. There is no cavity nor tunnel in the body to route a strings groundwire. There is no angle that a tunnel can be drilled to the tailpiece which is the only hardware that would communicate ground to the strings (and I cringe to think of drilling into this pristine all-original very rare guitar to proved the strings ground the new owner desires). Searching / thinking long and hard I have finally come up with the best non-destructive solution so far, that would make a ground wire the least noticeable:
The pickups mounting plates are not perfectily flat, ....leaving some places with just enough space to slip a strand of wire under the grounded bezel and make contact with the bezel / ground. The bezels and pickup casings are each grounded at all times even when the pickup is turned off; Voila, an external ground source.
First we have to have a very small strand of wire. I got that by pulling a single strand from a proper cut length of stranded hook-up wire. A single strand of hook-up wire will pull out of it's insulation if it's not longer than 10" or-so, by stripping back enough to grasp a strand with needle nose pliers jaws in one hand while holding the hook-up wire's insulation tube straight in the other hand:
(The green wire in this pic is not part of the guitar but is simply displayed on the guitar for this picture): |