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😃🎸🤔
Well, that went well👍😃 I solved the bridge pin problem by pulling the pin out as far as it would come, then cut it with my fret end nippers, which allowed me to knock it back through the bridge into the body cavity. Simple really, don’t know how I didn’t think of it yesterday……brain fog!!🤪🤣
The problem with the electrics remains and I’m not familiar with electroacoustic units. I know there’s not much I can do to repair it, maybe I should look for a replacement? Again any advice much appreciated.
Brian.
Hey Brian,
Preamps can fall, but perhaps see if you can bypass the output from it to see if the output jack has failed or needs cleaning.
I have a jack socket with two crocodile clips wired to it too help test this kind of thing.
Good luck!
@liebe Thanks Dan, the unit was getting power from the battery, the tuner was working (therefore receiving a signal from the pickup) but the output from the unit had failed, or the cable between the preamp and the jack socket was bad. The good news is that I found a replacement on Reverb for under £30, which I’ve fitted and everything is working (only thing left to test is the XLR output cos I don’t have a suitable connector - will probably be able to borrow one). I will probably have another look at the original preamp unit and see if I can identify the cause of the problem but, now that it’s out of the guitar and disconnected from the battery box testing is a bit difficult.
Every day is a school-day as they say😃
All the Best,
Brian👍😃🎸