When I upgraded my 2006 Epiphone Les Paul Standard Honey burst Plain top with two nickel coated Gibson Classic Plus 57 pickups and Emerson Bumblebee Caps, neck-tone .015 and bridge-tone .022, I really didn’t like the wiring a single bit : too lengthy, couldn’t make sense of it, and it looked flimsy. Not my cup of tea.
Step 1 – On my journey of guitar-wiring discovery, I first figured I should just get thicker sturdier wiring, so I got heat protected wiring, and as long as I didn’t make contact between the hot signal and the graphite paint, it seemed to do its job sort of, but it was too thick : it didn’t fit through the switch holes or through the potentiometer connection-holes, so I had to solder it against instead of through. To make matters worse, the thicker the wire is, the better it picks up radio frequencies, so I couldn’t get remotely near my amp.
Step 2 – Checking the Internet, most guitars seem to be wired with really thin wires, which doesn’t pick up radio frequencies that easily, leaves more room in cavities, and so forth and so forth. I tried it, but the isolation wasn’t heat resistant and in general it broke easily, so it made contact in places I couldn’t find, running the signal of the bridge-pickup straight into the ground. Bummer. Flimsy, as estimated, not good. It in the vicinity of the amp also still could, especially when standing behind or right in front of it, pick up radio frequencies, which caused noise. Also not good.
Step 3 - I got this : Allparts Stranded Shielded Braided Wire. It’s a bliss. It’s sturdy, when I accidentally touch it with my soldering iron, I don’t have to replace it, which happened by default with the flimsy wires. The radio shielding is terrific. I have to hold my guitar pickups or control cavity within a radius of about ten centimeters for the guitar to even pickup minor noise, which means it’s pretty much noise free and it doesn’t seem to pick up any noise through the ground braided wiring.
It’s a lot easier to work with than you’d imagine. Make sure you have your shrink wrap ready to make sure the outside braided shielding, which is also your ground wire, doesn’t touch any hot contacts. Other than that, you don’t seem to have to worry much about solder getting through the fabric between the ground and the signal wire. To my experience, (not 100% guaranteed) you can just solder it.
My guitar is now pretty much in optimal electrical condition with premium pickups and caps. The rest is in the setup.
