Next Page:  Body Assembly
Electronics Repair

Replacing Volume 1's 100K Potentiometer
Next Page:  Body Assembly
PLEASE NOTE:  These webpages are under construction and their meanings incongruent until finished.
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.
In this camera angle you can see that the 'gator clip heat sync is actually 2 clips ...to ensure that heat doesn't get into this very difficult to find pot.  Even though it's carbon pile resistance race and phoenolic plate are no good, it's other parts might be able to be used to rebuild another difficult to find pot in the future.  Most vintage equipment techs doesn't throw anything away that might be used in the unforeseen future.
This camera angle shows that the original wiring was not gathered.  Since wire ties had not been invented yet back then, a piece of string probably gathered the wires but has since deterioriated and fallen off (a common occurance).  I gathered the wires into a wire tie as shown further below.
When the soldering repair job was finished, I gathered the wires and mounted the harness on cardboard to minimize it's movement in handling, and to hold it while system checking the harness with test equipment.  Movement during testing will inject noise that can interfere with testing.  What appears to be discoloration on the back of the electronics plate, is the shadows of my head and hands while taking the picture;  The plate cleaned up very nicely and is not discolored.

The Scorpion's venom checked out OK and ready to go into the guitar.
Note that the new V1 100K pot's code is HM2749 100K 137 6439;  Same model pot as original but made in the 39th week of 1964.  This would be an era-correct pot since it would be plausible in 1967 to reach near the bottom of the pots bin and find one from 1964.  This is the reason that a guitar cannot be dated other than after the latest date of pot installed in it.