DIY gear?

My only attempt at DIY was a complete a disaster. It started when I when I wanted to change the cheap Chinese jack installed on a cheap Epiphone Dot because it had shorted out. First, problem, working with a hollow body is a *****. To make matters worst I decided to replace the pickups, volume and tone pots--two each-- and rewire everything. Soldering ground wires on the back of the volume pots turned into one of the most aggravating things I ever did in my life (and believe my wife keeps me busy). Why can't they include a loop specifically for grounding on these things? To this day after spending more on parts than the damn guitar is worth it makes a nice wall deco. I will never attempt to do that to one of my better guitars. About the only thing I will do is polish them and adjust the truss rods. Kudos to all of you who know what your doing. I'm really impressed.
 
My only attempt at DIY was a complete a disaster. It started when I when I wanted to change the cheap Chinese jack installed on a cheap Epiphone Dot because it had shorted out. First, problem, working with a hollow body is a *****. To make matters worst I decided to replace the pickups, volume and tone pots--two each-- and rewire everything. Soldering ground wires on the back of the volume pots turned into one of the most aggravating things I ever did in my life (and believe my wife keeps me busy). Why can't they include a loop specifically for grounding on these things? To this day after spending more on parts than the damn guitar is worth it makes a nice wall deco. I will never attempt to do that to one of my better guitars. About the only thing I will do is polish them and adjust the truss rods. Kudos to all of you who know what your doing. I'm really impressed.
Redoing pickups and electronics on a 335 style guitar as your first DIY guitar work is a little bit like appearing on the Iron Chef when you've never cooked anything in your life.

I did that once to a Korean Epi Sheraton, along with upgrading the hardware, and created a pretty phenomenal player. But it took me an entire day to do without any interruptions. A normal pickup swap or something might take me 20-30 minutes tops, while drinking.
 
Impressed that it only took you a day to work on your Epi.... I gave up after about 5 days of work. Any clues on how to get the ground wires to stick to the volume pots?
 
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