Hi everyone,

I started what I thought was a simple bit of maintenance on a Washburn EA16TS for a friend. The guitar has been stored in a case in the loft for a number of years and the brief was to check out the electrics, give everything a clean, do a setup and get it back in a playable state.

First problem, the guitar seems to be receiving a signal from the pickup, the tuner works and is pretty accurate measured against a clip on tuner. The output through the jack socket is mostly noise and I haven’t got a suitable XLR out connector to test that output. I’ve had the control/preamp and the output/battery box units out and sprayed contact cleaner on the PCBs and connectors and still mostly noise.

The second problem is that on removing the strings, the end of the E6 string appears to have permanently attached itself to the bridge pin!! I can pull the pin out about 4mm but it wants to pull the string and ball end out with it, jamming everything. The string won’t push back in to the body cavity and I can’t get a grip on the ball end inside the body to pull it free. I’ve never seen this happen before, usually a wiggle of the pin or the string frees everything. I don’t want to use the age old adage of brute force and ignorance in case I cause irreparable damage!😂😂

I’d really appreciate any advice anyone cares to offer on how best to deal with these problems🤔🤔😃

Thanks,

Brian😃🎸🤔