Ibanez Artcore Semi Hollow – Electronics Fix

Every once and a while, there is a DIY project that just doesn’t make the cut. This was one of those.

The customer redid all of the electronics from scratch, from the pickup swap to the re-wire. And did a fine job at that, with the exception of trusting the advice of the internet and utilizing a problematic “vintage” style wire.

The problem with this wire, was each strand included a cloth/wax coated lead wire, surrounded by a thin layer of bare shielding. Seems legit, right?

The problem was, no matter how delicate, how careful he was (and me for that matter) the shielding wires were always severed when stripping the wires for soldering. They were simply too thin. And on the grand scheme, it only takes a single time removing and reinstalling the electronics of a semi-hollow guitar to realize how much of a pain in the ass the process is.

The thought of vintage style wiring in your guitar is a romantic on indeed, but make no mistake, it’s never the wires that give you the “vintage” tone. The wires are there to carry electric current – not voice it

To make a long short short, all the blue wires pictured were replaced with a fine and dandy 16 gauge stranded copper wire. Just the right kind to fulfill its duty and this guitar wired up perfectly to sing another day.