NGD 1954 Aristocrat

I have questions about the location of controls, not what they are doing.
 
cmguitar said:
I have a question about the controls.

Are they set up as typical 2 pickup? Toggle switch up for neck , and down for bridge?
Volume knobs on the left from the players view? Neck volume/tone nearest to the strings, and bridge volume/tone nearest to the treble side of the body? Thanks?

I think someone did some "magic" in there...
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My 1954 Aristocrat was originally wired from the factory with the toggle up for bridge and down for neck. The knobs on the bass side are the volume and the treble side are tone rather than both volumes on the “left” as you play and look down. I have pulled the harness and inspected each solder joint and they are all original.
 
BradHK said:
My 1954 Aristocrat was originally wired from the factory with the toggle up for bridge and down for neck. The knobs on the bass side are the volume and the treble side are tone rather than both volumes on the “left” as you play and look down. I have pulled the harness and inspected each solder joint and they are all original.
Click to expand...
Ok, then, 1954 it is! That's how mine is. I'll adapt. Also , does the neck pickup tone control do anything on your '54? Mine sounds like the cap is always in the circuit. Or maybe the magnet is tired (71, after all).

I had a '52 Telecaster reissue that had a strange combo of toggle switch settings.

Maybe all these settings were de rigueur in the early 50's.
 
cmguitar said:
Ok, then, 1954 it is! That's how mine is. I'll adapt. Also , does the neck pickup tone control do anything on your '54? Mine sounds like the cap is always in the circuit. Or maybe the magnet is tired (71, after all).

I had a '52 Telecaster reissue that had a strange combo of toggle switch settings.

Maybe all these settings were de rigueur in the early 50's.
Click to expand...
Mine has resistors in the circuit in the neck to make it “jazzy”. On mine, I could solder in a wire “bridge” to bypass the resistor so that the tone control is usable and not too muddy. You see this a lot in 1950’s Guilds where they focused on the jazz market. One way to test is to check the pickup ohm reading at the output jack. Since the signal was going through a resistor, mine read open at the jack. Once I put in the bridge to bypass the resistor it read correctly at the output jack.

The only downside is that you need to pull the harness. For me, it was definately worth it. It sounds great now and I can remove the wire bypass to get back to original if desired.
 
BradHK said:
Mine has resistors in the circuit in the neck to make it “jazzy”. On mine, I could solder in a wire “bridge” to bypass the resistor so that the tone control is usable and not too muddy. You see this a lot in 1950’s Guilds where they focused on the jazz market. One way to test is to check the pickup ohm reading at the output jack. Since the signal was going through a resistor, mine read open at the jack. Once I put in the bridge to bypass the resistor it read correctly at the output jack.

The only downside is that you need to pull the harness. For me, it was definately worth it. It sounds great now and I can remove the wire bypass to get back to original if desired.
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I might do this to make it more sonically appealing ;-)
 
cmguitar said:
I might do this to make it more sonically appealing ;-)
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Also check the pickup selector switch for caps and such. Mine had a factory cap installed in the neck position at the selector switch. I removed one end but left it in place just in case somebody wanted to bring it back to the factory configuration.
 
I was picking up my acoustic at the tech's shop years ago. He had refretted the acoustic for me. In walks a guy with big leather buckle boots who looks like a rather rough street person. He's carrying a Guild case and wants to know how much $ to fix a 54 Aristocrat. It looks just like the guitar in this post but the upper bout is badly caved in! He said it got damaged at his party and it's his Uncle's guitar!
 
swiveltung said:
I was picking up my acoustic at the tech's shop years ago. He had refretted the acoustic for me. In walks a guy with big leather buckle boots who looks like a rather rough street person. He's carrying a Guild case and wants to know how much $ to fix a 54 Aristocrat. It looks just like the guitar in this post but the upper bout is badly caved in! He said it got damaged at his party and it's his Uncle's guitar!
Click to expand...
Make him an offer
:)
 
I had a '54 with that logo. It had some similar wear on the body. I wonder if it's the same one? I sold it on consignment in Boston a bunch of years ago. As a matter of fact it's in my avatar, but I'm sure the picture is too small to see much.
 
Well, I've removed the wiring harness. I've disconnected the cap on the toggle switch, and still have some thoughts about what to do with the rest of the wiring. I really want to keep the harness intact, without desoldering, etc.

So, the conundrum is:
1) Put the harness back in with only the disconnected toggle switch cap, or...
2) Shelf the old harness, use the old pickups, and make a new harness wired the modern way.

I'm leaning towards option 2.

Comments are most welcome!

IMG_1823.webp
 
cmguitar said:
Well, I've removed the wiring harness. I've disconnected the cap on the toggle switch, and still have some thoughts about what to do with the rest of the wiring. I really want to keep the harness intact, without desoldering, etc.

So, the conundrum is:
1) Put the harness back in with only the disconnected toggle switch cap, or...
2) Shelf the old harness, use the old pickups, and make a new harness wired the modern way.

I'm leaning towards option 2.

Comments are most welcome!

IMG_1823.webp
Click to expand...
Hard to get a good idea of the harness from the photo. What are your concerns? Are the pot dates and everything correct? Are there just caps in the tone circuit or did they install resistors like my 1954 Aristocrat? I would clean everything up with Deoxit F5 and then get out the multimeter to test everything. If everything test good I would reinstall the original harness.
 
I read your thread about this:

Capacitor/wiring questions on 1954 M-75

I am going through the wiring of my 1954 M-75 Aristocrat and have a couple questions that somebody with a more extensive knowledge of guitar wiring hopefully can answer. From what I can tell, everything is original from 1954. I have drawn out a wiring diagram but need to take my hand drawn...
letstalkguild.com letstalkguild.com

It sounds like the only change you made was disconnecting the cap that is on the toggle switch, yeah?

I'm fine with that. From your thread, it seems like the Franz pickups do well with a .022nF cap on the tone controls, as https://letstalkguild.com/ltg/index.php?members/sfiv1967.25757/ mentioned.

I'll get out the meter out today.

Thanks a lot for your help!
 
cmguitar said:
I read your thread about this:

Capacitor/wiring questions on 1954 M-75

I am going through the wiring of my 1954 M-75 Aristocrat and have a couple questions that somebody with a more extensive knowledge of guitar wiring hopefully can answer. From what I can tell, everything is original from 1954. I have drawn out a wiring diagram but need to take my hand drawn...
letstalkguild.com letstalkguild.com

It sounds like the only change you made was disconnecting the cap that is on the toggle switch, yeah?

I'm fine with that. From your thread, it seems like the Franz pickups do well with a .022nF cap on the tone controls, as https://letstalkguild.com/ltg/index.php?members/sfiv1967.25757/ mentioned.

I'll get out the meter out today.

Thanks a lot for your help!
Click to expand...
I also put in a “bridge” wire to bypass the resistor. That way the resistor was out of the circuit but was not removed from the guitar and it could be brought back to stock by removing the wire that bridged around that resistor.
 
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