1960's Apollo Guitar

[Chris Vallillo]

I recently got a 1960s Apollo solid body electric guitar. This instrument was made in Japan and features a mahogany body, "Strat" style headstock and a single pickup. Actually a cool guitar in amazingly good shape.

There is an issue with a capacitor (excuse me, I'm an acoustic guy, I could have that wrong) . The connection is broken at the capacitor and needs to be replaced. I'd like to keep this as close original as possible. Can anyone tell me exactly what this is and where to get a replacement part?

Thanks.

[Chris Vallillo]

I've been on the web looking and came across these. Don't see any numbers that correspond, but, they look similar.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics ... ab=Details

Any thoughts?

[Mark Swanson]

That is not the right cap in there, it has been replaced. For one thing, it is a polarized cap. The other thing is its value is wrong, you have a .10 MFD cap, and you need something in the range of .04 to .02 MFD. That is a pretty big difference!
Second, you could get one of the less expensive caps. No need to buy the one you have shown, a ceramic or an Orange Drop cap will work every bit as well- this guitar probably had a ceramic or a mylar cap to start. people will talk and swear that they can hear the difference in caps, but the fact is they are all the same...and I for one believe that it's a bunch of hokum to say that some caps sound different. I ain't buyin' it....

[David King]

Tone bleed caps are not technically in the signal chain so as Mark points out they can't possibly affect your tone other than by selecting the value.

What you have there is an axial polypropylene cap. I don't think the black band implies that it's polarized. It's way too big for an electrolytic or tantalum cap which are the only types that are polarized (meaning they have a (+) and a (-) side.)

[Mark Swanson]

Judging from the really dirty and nasty looking soldering job on the backs of those pots, this has been messed with before. You should get all that cleaned up, I'd probably re-wire the whole thing.

[Rodger Knox]

I'd salvage the pickup and replace the cap, pots, wiring, and jack.
I doubt there's much vintage value in those components, and they were the cheapest available in the 60s.
Remember, in the 60s the quality coming out of Japan was comparible to current junk from China.

[David King]

Rodger,
Since all* of our current pots come straight from China now that would be a bit pessimistic a view.

* a few exceptions noted: PEC pots out of Canada, Bournes pots out of Mexico and some Alps pots out of Japan.

[Chris Vallillo]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. OK, it sounds like I should go with a replacement cap, possibly an orange drop. Can anyone be more specific about what value I should go with? Mark, you mentioned between .2 and .4 MFD. What difference will each make? Stu Mac has one (part #1281) that's .022uF. Would that do or would you recommend something else?

Looking at pots, this guitar has one single coil p/u. From what I see on Stu Mac, they seem to recommend this: 0115 Split shaft, 250K-ohm (CTS #450S 3484-1133). Will these do the job? I hope to flip this guitar so I'd like to keep it as close to original sound as possible. It actually worked off and on when I got it and it sounded surprisingly good.

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

Chris,

Anyone buying that guitar should be glad to have good wiring in it. You can include the original parts so someone can return it to "original" if they feel the need. Most people feel a 250kohm pot is right for a single coil. The reason is the low value pot attenuates some of the highs. Leo's prototypes had 1 meg pots and he felt it the sound was too shrill (and he liked highs). I prefer a .02 (not .2) mfd cap for guitar. A capacitor provides a low impedance path to ground for the higher frequencies. The higher the value the more the control will affect lower frequencies. Too great a value and the tone control becomes a volume control.

I have no opinion about the type of capacitor in regard to sound. I like the flat orange ones because they don't take up much space.

The pots (you want to replace the tone pot as well) you choose should be able to accommodate the knobs you have. These would likely be the Alpha pots Stew Mac sells. If you're concerned about someone being finicky about the replaced pots, they would probably throw an embolism for replaced knobs.

And you want to put in a switchcraft jack, period.

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

ps. It looks like your guitar grounded the pots and output via the metal pickguard. You would be better off wiring the pick up ground to the volume pot and running a hard ground from the back of each pot to the ground (sleeve) side of the jack. In practice you ground the p/u to the volume pot, ground the volume pot to the tone pot and ground the tone pot to the jack.

It takes less time to do that than it did for me to type this.

[Rodger Knox]

Rodger,
Since all* of our current pots come straight from China now that would be a bit pessimistic a view.

* a few exceptions noted: PEC pots out of Canada, Bournes pots out of Mexico and some Alps pots out of Japan.

I didn't mean to imply that everything from China is junk, but the reputation of Japanese manufacturing is significantly different today than it was in the 60s, and what they were putting out then is comparable to the "entry level" stuff currently produced in China, Korea, and Indonisa.

[David King]

Caps cost a few pennies each so buy one of each value and try them one after the other. We typically do this testing with guitar-sized jumper cables using alligator clips. How a cap sounds is also affected by the guitar cable and the amp to some extent so don't get too hung up on it as long as it does something audible.

[Mark Swanson]

I agree with the others' posts here. Remember that you need a .02 cap. .04 works but most use the .02...not a .2, that's off by a factor of ten, that zero means a lot.

[Chris Vallillo]

Thanks for the great advice. I just put together the order for Stu Mac; two 250k ohm Aplha pots, a .047 orange drop cap, and a switchcraft output jack. I went with the orange cap because It's cheaper to buy just one than a bag of 10 of the ceramic ones.

Regarding the ground wiring, along with being grounded to the pick guard, there is a second wire that touches the pick guard and then disappears into a hole drilled into the body. I assume it connects to the tail piece. How does that affect the grounding situation and any re-wiring?

[Mark Swanson]

That is a string ground wire, and it is important that it be grounded well. this is usually soldered to the back of one of the pots. this guitar was grounded simply by the wire touching the underside of that metal pickguard...it worked, but is an unreliable way to do it...not good. So solder an insulated wire to that piece sticking out and solder the other end to the back of a pot.
If you want to, you can remove the tailpiece and then take that wire out and put a new wire in its place, a longer one.