DIY solderless pickguard/control plate

Like many of you, I enjoy experimenting with different pickups in my guitars, as well as winding my own. Constantly soldering/unsoldering from pots/switches becomes a pain. I decided to make a DIY solderless pickguard for my Strat and a solderless control plate for my Tele. This is really easy to do.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-SNxGG3STpdc/UA2myOu6eNI/AAAAAAAABzc/wyx8U-kVLFY/s800/IMG_0612.jpg

Go get a handful of these 2-position PC board screw terminals from Radio Shack:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102861

The spacing of the solder legs on the terminals is perfect to fit over the lugs of CTS pots. They have a little "key" that allows you to clip multiple ones together to make one unit.

For the input/output on the volume pot, I soldered one of the terminals across lugs 2 and 3 of the volume pot. I ran a bare wire from lug 3 to the back of the volume pot casing. The terminal on lug 2 will be the "hot" to the jack, the terminal on lug 3 will be ground to the jack and bridge. This really isn't necessary; you're not really going to be soldering/unsoldering the jack. I did this in case I make another pickguard like this, and I can swap "loaded" pickguards in and out without soldering. This is not necessary for a Tele.

For the pickups, I clipped 3 of the terminals together and superglued this unit it to the back of the volume pot. That will give 3 terminals for each pickup hot, 3 for each pickup ground. I ran wires from the switch to the solder pins of the terminals for the hots, and jumper the 3 ground terminals together and run a single wire from it to the back of a pot.

It works great! I've been able to swap in and out pickups really quickly without soldering.

You can do the same for a Tele on the control plate, and like I said earlier, you don't really need the terminals on the volume pot.

i like the idea, but i dont change enough to need to do this! also some control cavities might be a bit too cramped to fit these....got any other guitars youve tried this to?

If you position the terminals correctly, you should be able to fit it in any traditional Strat route. Fits great in my '50s RI Strat and Squier Affinity Tele.

Here's what it looks like in my Tele. Fits great.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-DUMrbTqKpvA/UCxNfP0T3uI/AAAAAAAABzw/mqaXQ10OowE/s800/photo.JPG

I used these solder-less blocks to connect the pick ups and pot wiring in my kit tele - way easier than soldering for a beginner especially.

I have been using the guitar hard for several months with no signs of any problems. Once the wires are properly inserted and the screws on the connectors are tightened down, they are going nowhere, and they are noiseless.

If necessary the blocks can be split into smaller, even one-to-one sections to fit better in the control plate cavity - and unlike solder these joins won't dry out over time.

I await the outcry from solder-loving traditionalists !

If I did a lot of pickup / pot swapping I would go that way, but I don't change stuff too much these days.
Thanks for the cool roll your own solution, and I'm sure the wires will stay in place just fine.

simple solutions are always great, thanks for posting!
it may come handy one of these days :)

I like this, and will investigate this stuff. Not for the final product, but for the tweaking/experimental stage. Thanks!

On my strat recently I have used a different, more crude method, using test clips & taped-down foil covering everything (foil is grounded for a good shield; dead-quiet results), with all the PU leads coming out the holes, with no switch connected; one pot in there to try things. So, I can lift up the tape & patch PUs etc. like using an old-style synth.