Installing the Buttons, Making a Pick
The following steps are only for people building the electronics into the guitar:
- Find a place on the guitar’s face plate to install the ‘+’ and ‘-’ buttons. The spot must have enough free clearance below it to handle the entire button, as well as the circuit board you’ll be adding.
- Using the proper sized drill bit, drill holes in the face plate for the buttons.
- Measure out enough wire to connect the buttons to the circuit board. The ground wires can be connected together.
- Solder the wire to the buttons.
- (Optional) Solder the other end of the wires to connectors.
- Insert the buttons into the holes in the faceplate and screw on their nuts.
Next, you’ll have to make a wired pick – we’re didn’t know until PAX East that they made metal picks, but we’re looking into getting a bunch of them – if you’d like one, e-mail us, and we’d be happy to mail one out to you!
To make a metal pick with foil tape, we’ll be basically cutting a pentagon of foil and wrapping that around the tip of the pick, sandwiching a wire into it. Here it is graphically, cutting from a wide piece of tape. If you have thin pieces, you can wrap it around the pick’s tip.
With the wired pick, it’s important to make it such that the tip is metal, but there isn’t metal exposed where you’re grabbing onto it, since your body will ground it out and trigger errant strums. Use tape to cover it up more if you care to – on a metal pick, it’s necessary.
Now all the hardware is installed; the only thing left to do is add the circuit board.
