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Main Description
This is a "loaded plate" - a pickguard, for a Fender® Stratocaster®, with the volume pot, tone pots, and switch all installed and wired up, ready to have pickups connected.
You're getting everything you need to build the plate up - the knobs and switch tip are on there, the pickup covers are in there in the same colour as the knobs, your getting the mono socket, the pickguard and pickup screws, the height springs, everything you'd need.
The only thing that's missing - are the pickups!
The control loom is wired up with CTS pots (as standard, 250k Vintage audio taper a 5 way Oak Grigsby Switch and a 0.022 Cornell Dubillier cap on the tone, and a Switchcraft mono socket.
And, functionality is as standard, master volume, neck tone and middle tone on the 3 pots, switch running Bridge, Bridge + middle, Middle, Middle + neck and Neck in the 5 positions. Its all about as standard as it comes.
The pickguard is the 11 hole modern pattern thats been in place, give or take, since the 1960s.
Fender®, Squier®, Stratocaster® and Strat® are registered trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and Axesrus has no affiliation with FMIC
No Pickups?
I cant stress this enough - No pickups are supplied with this loaded plate.
I'm aware its a little confusing because the swatch images show poles in the covers (which ARE supplied), so it "looks" like there are pickups, but that is purely to make everything look normal. To repeat myself - NO PICKUPS ARE SUPPLIED.
As much as i'd love everyone to buy into what we do at Axesrus, and go for our pickups, I understand entirely, that you might want to go in a different direction on that front, and its not really my style to hold anyone to ransom over their pickup choices - you can still have an Axesrus wiring setup without Axesrus pickups (in most cases, atleast. There are a few exceptions, such as the Craggy Mod setup - not that i'm overly protective over the circuit (its fairly simple!), but its a little too specialist to support as a "DIY" project (which i'll come back round to)
The entire purpose of this product, is for you to install whatever pickups you choose - reap the benefits of CTS pots, Oak Grigsby switches, switchcraft monos, absolutely rock solid soldering, and a fantastically relaxed warrenty - but, ultimately, use whatever pickups you like!
This does, however, put Axesrus in a potentially sticky situation, because these looms will only function once the pickups are added, and that means they must be installed correctly! Ensuring that you install pickups correctly, is not the responsibility of Axesrus (UNLESS, Axesrus has supplied the pickups)
The "problem" with this, is (unfortuantely) your pickup manufacturer may have a similar stance (although, honestly, its unlikely, due to the nature of their product), but, there is some logic to our position in this.
With pickps, there are countless variables that alter how they function. Some have specialist requirements on pot and cap values, some require power, some simply aren't designed to work on 5 way switches in a way your expecting... theres alot, and, sadly, i cant know what pickups you've got, or what they're expecting from the wiring loom if we've not supplied them. Even to the point where i wont know the colour codes on the wiring.
So, go in eyes open - these loaded plates are great, but they do presume a little extra knowledge then a "fully loaded/with pickups" assembly.
As a general rule - you'll spot pretty quickly if theres a fault with the loom (which is, essentially, what this comes down to) rather then a fault with the pickup install. Pickups behaving "weird" (thinner sounding in certain positions, quieter, not working what so ever) is, usually, a fault with the pickup side of things. Anything "in all positions", (so, crackling pots, noisy switch, intermitent signal) will be the loom - its not a hard and fast rule, but, it'll usually get you speaking to the right person. We can help with the loom, but we cant do much about the pickup install i'm afraid.
Sizing
We're supplying covers and bolts for pickups here, and, even that is a tricky one, because i dont know what pickups your using - so, for completeness sake.
The covers are 52mm pole spacing (centre to centre, E to e) and the height bolts are 6-32 UNC - this is, honestly, fairly normal nowadays, but there are exceptions (50mm pickups, M3 bolts... we're back to "I dont know your pickups" unfortunately)
These sizes are covered under the "Technical specification tab" above if you need more details, but, its worth nothing that not all pickups fit the covers, or accept the bolts.
What is an Assembly?
This is something I’ve been a little lax with over the years, because the photos were a little self explanatory, but because we’re putting out more and more information on the products nowadays, it’s a nice opportunity to actually explain what an Assembly is.
In short, its all of the electronics, all wired up and working, mounted onto a pickguard, and ready to drop into a guitar. It’s a VERY easy way to completely overhaul your guitar, without having to do an awful lot of soldering, or, frankly, really understanding what’s going on.
And that’s about it really – just a case of adding your own pickups to the loom, and your ready to drop it into the guitar.
Now, with our assemblies, we cut no corners. Its CTS pots throughout, Cornell Dubilier caps, 22 AWG cloth covered wire and a Switchcraft mono socket. Theres some variation in the switch we use, purely because certain switches don’t fit certain guitars, but we always use the best switch available to us for any given job (so, with Strat assemblies, its always an Oak Grigsby, and with guitars designed to take a shallower switch, its always a Pat Pending PBC switch)
We don’t connect the mono socket to the assemblies, but this is because on 99% of guitars, you’d only have to remove it to thread the wires through a hole into the sockets cavity, and, we obviously cant connect the ground wire to your bridge/trem claw to earth the strings.
So, whilst not completely solder free, what soldering you do need to do, is pretty minimal (and we’ll even throw in a little solder and heat shrink to do the job – purely to save you any extra expense)
You will need a soldering iron I’m afraid, that’s unavoidable, because of the way most guitars are designed, but beyond that? It’s a dream job installing assemblies frankly. Very little to go wrong, very little to actually learn, and it opens the door to making a huge modification to your instrument.
Why Upgrade?
This ones been rattling my cage for a few years, so I figure this is a nice opportunity to get everything written down in black and white.
Why do it?
There are 2 (very good!) reasons to fit a completely new wiring loom to your guitar (without factoring in pickups)
- You want a completely new look – so, new covers, pickguard, knobs, Screws, Bolts, washers! Whatever colours you want? All factory fresh and perfect? Absolutely brilliant – if your anything like me, its like a new guitar. We’ve got you covered.
- You want reliability – new, high quality parts, all soldered up perfectly, tested, working, and covered by a warranty that really upsets our accountant? Great! That’s what we offer.
And that’s what we do with these loaded plates (and every wiring loom, control plate, assembly and pickup!) – everything’s new and shiny, and everything is top of the shop in terms of quality.
Generally speaking, CTS pots, Switchcraft sockets and Oak Grigsby switches, measure their lifespans in terms of decades rather than years – everything is point to point soldered by hand, when heat shrunk (where possible/sensible) to ensure a good mechanical fixing, as well as protection from ground – and that’s, really, what you want from a wiring upgrade. Reliability.
And that’s it really – loaded plates, at this end of things? It’s a full cosmetic overhaul, backed up by wiring that not only works, but is VERY unlikely to fail any time soon.
I think, all that’s fairly obvious really - HOWEVER (and the reason I’m typing this) – there are a few “myths” when it comes to guitar electrics that may be colouring your decision to replacing your wiring, so, if you’ll indulge me – let me go on record.
The mis-belief (and the half truth)
If I had a £1 coin for every time someone has proudly boasted to me that they’ve “completely replaced the wiring with CTS pots/Fender switches/Gibson caps, and can most definitely, hear the difference!” – I’d be a very rich man indeed!
I say this, openly and honestly – change pots, or switches, or mono sockets? In the hunt for “tone” – probably isn’t doing anything what so ever. They are, in most situations, completely passive components in the circuit. They aren’t, really, affecting how your guitar sounds.
Pots - Resistance isn’t futile
That, in itself, is a complete lie – at least with pots – pots DO affect how your guitar sounds! The volume pot more than tone in fact. In a very brief overview – think of your volume pot as a high pass filter (to ground, which actually makes it a low pass filter to live… but bare with me here!) – the higher the resistance (or impedance, depending on what you call it) the higher the cut-off point is – so, a 1 meg pot allows only the highest frequencies to pass/be lost, a 500k allows a little more lower, a 250k, a little lower again… you get the idea. Bigger pots, brighter guitar (usually with darker pickups), smaller pots, darker guitar (usually with brighter pickups)
And, we, generally, hear pickups, wired in parallel with a volume pot, so we’ve come to accept how that sounds (so, the whole “humbuckers need 500k pots, single coils 250ks etc” has absolutely no basis in science – its purely down to what we’ve heard before – but its true, a humbucker on 500k pots sounds familiar and nice, a single coil on 1 megs sounds really bright and scary – so, in that regard? Pots are affecting your tone!
But, we’re not talking about swapping out 500k pots for 250k are we? Its more the “blind upgrades” – swapping out Alpha 250k pots for CTS 250k pots – in those instances? Pots aren’t really doing anything different in terms of signal generation/filtering – for all intents and purposes, it’s a 250k resistor in parallel to the pickup… and I doubt many of us would be fretting over it if we found a fixed resistor in our guitars from a brand we didn’t hold in high regard (I wager, not many of us even have resistor brands we have opinions on!)
So, this idea that “I’ve fitted CTS pots, they’re so much better sounding!” – is nonsense. I’m sorry, but when a pot is not in motion (and that’s semi-important), its simply a fixed resistor, and unless you’re changing the value of that resistor? You’re not changing the frequency range that its filter. And if you’re not changing the range its filtering, then you’re not changing how the guitar sounds.
Tapering off
However – there is an argument that when a pot is in motion, that it is no longer a fixed resistor in parallel, but is, in fact, a changing “combination circuit”, (A resistor in parallel, AND a resistor in series) – which is true! When you turn the volume down on your guitar, you lower the value of the resistor in parallel (increasing the frequency range, making the guitar darker) and you increase the resistance between the pickup and live (the load).
There is the potential, for a bit of a balancing act between load resistance and parallel resistance – with one pot brand having a different balance to the next, and as such, having different filtering effects as the volume decreases – this is known as the taper
Now, let’s be honest – when people claim “my guitar sounds better after new pots”, they don’t mean “My guitar sounds better when I turn the volume down to 6, and there’s this magical sweet spot between resistive load and high pass filtering” – so, it still doesn’t exactly glue the legs back onto the idea that pots affect tone all that much, but, it is worth considering to a certain extent.
Taper usually affects most of us at a very early stage of our guitar playing, when we realise that the pots on our first few guitars, don’t actually work all that well – that, is caused by the taper. Unresponsive linear volume pots are a huge bug bare for me? tone pots that feel useless after the first few notches on the dial? Not so much sonic considerations, but, what I’d call “quality of life” sticking points
So, really, taper is capable of affecting your tone, but, we’ve so little control over it, and so little information recorded about it, that, I doubt anyone’s ever really considered it as a serious “issue” in the signal chain. But, its worth keeping in mind, just because having a nice taper, so the volume control feels responsive and smooth when in use, can be one less headache.
Back to resistance
Ultimately, this all boils down to resistance. A 250k pot is a 250k pot (a 500 a 500… you get the idea!) – if you don’t like how your pickups sound with 250k pots, swapping for another 250k pot which boasts a bit more of a heritage, isn’t going to change whats happening in the circuit. Chances are, I’ll last longer, feel nicer when you turn it and look shiny and new… but its probably not going to make you sound any better or worse.
Pickups
Really (and I promise, this isn’t going to be some hard sell aimed at getting a set of Axesrus pickup in your shopping cart) – the electric guitars tone, begins, and ends, at 6 (or more… or less) bits of steel, wobbling around above some copper coils. Strings and pickups have a massive effect on the signal your guitar is producing.
If I was (and I am!) tasked with ironing out the niggles on a guitar, the first place I start, is the strings, and then the pickups. I will, obviously, make certain that the pots are the correct value, and that they’re functioning as they should, but, frankly? It they aint broke, I don’t replace them for the sake of it (that’s another lie, cheap pots usually only last about 5 years, so I generally do swap them out, but, that’s not a tone thing, that’s ack to reliability!)
I just want that to be known – If you’re here looking at a loaded plate without pickups, hoping that it’s the missing piece to the puzzle in your quest for tonal perfection? It might not be. It is, really, only a mechanical switch, a few 250k resistors, and a 0.022uf capacitor. Its not doing much to the signal, and its certainly not doing anything that the same value “no name” parts aren’t.
Sockets and switches
This end of things, is slightly more straight forward. They’re passive components, with close to zero resistance – they’re doing nothing tonally. I think most of us already accept that as the truth too, but for completeness sake, I might as well write it down.
They are, however, quality of life upgrades again. Switches that feel solid under the hand? where the tip doesn’t fall off every 20 minutes? That accept the correct screw thread? That switch silently (make before break contacts!) – probably not going to get you sounding closer to Hendrix and co, but well worth having a decent switch in situ.
Same goes for sockets – a good, solid contact, with no wobble on the plug, and no noise, is about the best you can ask for.
Capacitors
Caps are a bit of a funny one, and it feels a little churlish to include them in this write up, because they are one of those components that does affect how your guitar sounds – and its in quite an obvious way too! They set “the range” at which your tone pot operates. The bigger the cap, the higher the frequencies it filters out when you turn the tone down.
I always think it helps to think of the tone pot as a volume pot that only controls high end (and how much high end, is set, by the cap!)
To trot out my favourite electronics idea yet again – caps are high pass filters!
Easy! Big Cap, you can turn down the signal right down, and lose frequencies right into the mid range, smaller cap, your limited to only the highest of the highs.
The damning thing about caps (and the idea of swapping caps to really fine tune your guitars sound) – is that, “the norm” is between 0.1uf and 0.015uf… and whilst I’ll happily admit that a guitar with a 0.1 cap is capable of turning down so much of its signals high frequency, that I can barely hear the overtones on the high E string…I cant hear any difference between any of the caps when the tone is on 10.
Further more – we’re back to the fact that a cap, is simply an electronics component – it is little more then its value – a 0.022 cap is a 0.022 cap in the same way a 250k resistor is a 250k resistor – I don’t care if you make one from mylar, one from polyester and one from soft Greek cheese – if the value doesn’t change? The effect on the signal isn’t affected.
Annoyingly (from my point of view atleast) – caps don’t really break either – the voltages being produced by a guitar are so small, they have absolutely no chance of ever damaging the capacitor – so I cant even sit here and say there are “reliability reasons”
So, honestly? Unless you REALLY like riding your tone pot? Caps aren’t much of a consideration when it comes to the guitar. Pick one, set it where you like it, and see what you can make with it there. I like a 0.022, and it’s the usual suspect you’ll find on guitars nowadays, so that’s what we install on the looms. Honestly? No ones ever complained it was too bright… or too dark… or not Russian Military Surplus enough… which makes me thing it doesn’t matter, as long as you’ve got something there.
Interestingly, you notice when the tone pot and cap are removed from the circuit (the guitar becomes brighter) – so the cap is filtering out something, even when on 10, but, I can only assume, the difference between the biggest and smallest cap, isn’t enough for us to really notice is (but the smallest to no cap, is)
Warranty & Returns
In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have to write this section up, and, I really wish I didn’t have to, but, if I’m being honest and transparent about how pickups and wiring looms work, for better or worse, it’s probably worth being honest and open about your rights as a consumer too, and maybe give a little insight into how we actually build these parts.
How we do it
Pickups and wiring looms, at our end of things – are “Custom made” – I cannot stress this enough. When you click the “Add To Cart” button, there is no “thing” on the shelf, no bucket of pre-terminated bobbins or half soldered circuits. It is made, entirely, from scratch using the parts we have available.
This means, if you order a Bourbon city, or a Tele control assembly, or a Texas Blue loaded pickguard, it is made FOR YOU. It is being built to the specifications you have stipulated in the drop-down menus, even the most “normal” design, is still, essentially, built to order.
That entails our pickers collecting the parts from stores, delivering them to the engineers, who then get the tools out, and then the wind, solder, drill, nut and bolt those part, clean it all up and test to the Nth degree… you get the idea.
This is all done “in house” and, obviously, there is a queue, which is first in first out, so “builds” will NEVER be shipped same day. Realistically, it takes about 2 weeks on the more complicated parts, and a few days on the simpler stuff, but we do get busier at the beginning/end and middle of the month, so that can have a knock on effect.
And this is all being done, by hand, on a VERY small scale. At maximum, we can produce about 6 “things” a day (assuming a mix of complexities)
It works wonderfully frankly, because we can make, pretty much, anything you can dream up, and keeping it small scale, means we have an exceptionally high attention to detail with each pickup sold.
Returns
So we have an item, when all is said and done, that didn’t exist until you purchased it, that has cost a lot of man hours to actually manufacture, and has been manufactured to your exact specifications.
As such, pickups and wiring looms come under the remit of “custom work” as laid out under the our terms and conditions, and as outlined in the UK governments distance selling regulations.
This means, in short, pickups and wiring looms, are none returnable, and none refundable.
I understand, in this day and age, that may seem quite the hard-nosed approach, but, sadly, there’s no wiggle room in this. Once a pickup is wound, there’s no going back. It belongs to you. There is no “I’ll test it to see if I like it” or “I’ll return it if I don’t like the colour!”.
Warranty
All Axesrus Wiring looms, and loaded plates come with a “5 year” warranty. This is a little stricter then then the “lifetime” warrenty we offer on pickups, purely because wiring looms are more prone to being abused, and whilst we will stand by our workmanship, there is, ultimately, always a chance, that any given part will fail during its lifetime (and, CTS, Switchcraft, Cornell Dubellier, offer absolutely no warranty on their parts, so that 5 years, is purely on Axesrus® )
We’re never going to ask you to register the purchase, stop offering support 12 months after purchase or limit support to the initial customer in the case of second-hand stuff. We are incredibly proud of the wiring we produce, and I’ll help out wherever I can, BUT, I do have to draw the line somewhere sadly.
And with that in mind, it’s worth laying out what I’d consider “realistic” expectations as to what we will cover as part of a warranty.
Repairs and replacements
Whilst we will not accept wiring looms as return for refund under any circumstances, we reserve the right to repair or replace any that develops a manufacturing fault within the warranty period.
Damage vs. Fault
Wiring looms, by their nature, will be subjected to “additional work”, and this is to be expected – I will say, on a personal note – I don’t expect anyone’s solder work to be immaculate. I know these parts are being fitted at home, on a DIY basis – I will never pull anyone up for having less than perfect joints – however, if parts have been damaged during install (and it does happen!) – this will not be covered by the warranty, so whilst I’m happy to turn a blind eye to a bit of burnt flux of an over enthusiastic ground loop, there isn’t much I’ll be able to do if a pot has been shorted by excessive soldering, or parts have been damaged trying to get them into a guitar.
Lead times and cancellations
We do publish the lead times on all of our custom build work, and there is very little we can do to decrease the time it takes to actually manufacture this stuff I’m afraid, short of jumping you to the front of the queue (which is never fair, and we won’t do it)
Be aware that once an order is placed, work beings on your build, and as such, you’ve entered into the contract, and there is no backing out. Coils can often be wound within the hour or the order being placed, parts can be drilled and soldered in preperation, but they will sit in the work queue due to a back log at terminating/testing/cleaning.
Modifications
There are, occasionally, situations where someone buys a loom, installs it, plays it for a while, and then might want something a little different down the line. Maybe a different pot, or switch, or knob, or a cover fitting, or a new hookup wire fitting.
I am happy to carry out this work, and, normally, regardless of the “time since purchase”, this will be done simply for the cost of parts and postage.
However, the “depth” of these modifications, and if we’re willing/capable of carrying them out, is at the discretion of Axesrus. We’re happy to discuss this on a case-to-case basis, but go in eyes open, that its unlikely to be part of the warranty.
“Warranty with initial purchase”
I’m not a stickler when it comes to this stuff, but I will say, we do have to draw the line somewhere, so, strictly speaking, this “relaxed warranty” is, officially, limited to the original purchaser of the product.
That said, I’m not a robot, nor am I a fool. I’m aware that sometimes, a wiring loom is moved on relatively quickly, or is bought by a 3rd party for someone else, so, in these cases, lets just be sensible about it. I’ll carry forward a “true” warranty on a pickup for 12 months after the initial purchase, regardless of who is contacting me in regards to any issue.
However, I will need to know who the initial customer was. Even if it’s just their name and a rough date of purchase.
This goes for technical support too – I’ve no problems offering support on Axesrus products, regardless of “time since purchase”, but I will ask for some proof that they are in fact, Axesrus products.
Modifications to second hand parts, will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis too.
Changes in specification/tolerances
Over the years, we’ve had a few “interesting” conversations regarding specifications, especially when it comes to returns and warranty.
The published specs on components, are with a “within tolerance” subtext, based off of the readings from our testing equipment.
There will, always, be variation between one part and the next, and whilst we endeavour to keep those readings within the tolerances stated, they do occasionally wander outside of the (usual) 10% we stipulate as “acceptable” – this is usually due to temperature fluctuation, or specification changes outside of our control (wire diameter, alloy composition etc.) – any resulting change in readings based on these factors, will result in an updated technical spec on the website, but, as you can imagine, the first we know about an unforeseen spec change, is when the part is soldering in place.
We do not consider these “out of spec” accidents to be cause for a warranty claim I’m afraid, and we endeavour to keep on top of them so the information we’re giving you at point of purchase, is as accurate as possible.
Warranty postage
Repairs or replacement postage cost, outside of an initial 14 day period, is at your cost. I appreciate, in some situations, that this is prohibitive (especially when shipping outside of the UK), but, sadly, we have to impose some restrictions to this.
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