tanks! and way to go, keeping up the slang campaign all these months later
our blissful honeymoon was cut short after a few weeks when the switch disintegrated, and most of it fell into the body where i couldn't reach it! dead in the water, zero sound. way too soon! even though it lasted 45 years...
the toggle half had completely separated from the contact/wiring half!
well, i had wanted to have a look at the innards anyway, so my friend and i went for it.
first things first, though. it was not easy to find a suitable replacement switch from the typical sources.
i was hoping for en exact match but figured i might have to make do with what they use on the current Stars. i only found one source for the switch, but luckily - it was a good match based on their photo (bottom of their webpage):
www.guitarpartsresource.com/electrical_ ... itches.htm
when the switch arrived, i was stoked to see that it was an exact match to the unusual shape of the toggle. when we got the old switch out of the body i could tell that the entire switch is an exact match!
almost like a NOS part, but i guess they are somehow still making them. price was right, too!
pulling the switch out was made easier by these cool RCA connectors on the pickup leads:
and the guitar remains 'more original' since i didn't have to break any solder joints by the pups
imagine my surprise when we found the contact half of the switch was encased in a metal can!
must be a shielding/noise thing. at first i though tit was overkill, but it's no joke - this guitar *is* quieter than the other full humbucking guitar in our current show, even though it's 40 years older.
but i think that may be why the switch broke. there is a nut for the underside to mount toward the body,
but i'm thinking they may loosen up over time, and then when you occasionally tighten the top nut as needed, it eventually starts pulling the top of the switch from the metal can... just a theory.
getting the switch/can back into the bout of the body and toward the switch hole TOOK FOREVER!
we knew enough to wrap some thin wire around the shaft to pull it toward the hole, but we were both stumped for a very long time, until i realized you had to keep the switch/can at an angle as it travels through. the can makes the whole thing so tall that it will not fit in the narrow bout when upright. nor will it fit if you try to slide it through sideways. you have to slide it through with the whole thing at a 45 degree angle - that's the only way to fit it through that narrowest part of the bout. THEN when you can see the top of the switch through the hole, about a half-inch away, you can start pulling it slightly upright and into the hole. that is the only point, with the switch tip poking out of the hole at an angle, that you can begin to shift the assembly into an upright position! knowing that in advance would have saved us an hour of serious head scratching. that hour had turned our Mai Tais from pure pleasure toward near-headaches.
i'm super happy with the replacement switch. it's the OEM part, and it feels great - even better than many other American switches!
Best part is - the switching is totally silent! you can rock that thing like a tone-shifting rhythm tool, and even with a good dose of clean gain, there is no popping or clicking in the signal. my friend compared it to his vintage 335 and was knocked out!
i've been playing it all month, for a run of 12 stage shows, and the guitar has been absolutely quiet, even when playing the tiniest ambient sounds with a compressor on, and all that theatrical fader lighting, motorized props, etc. going on.
anyway, i wanted to finally post about replacing that switch, cuz it was definitely the trickiest switch replacement that either of us had done over the decades. hopefully this helps other Star People