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To follow along with these pages you should go here
and print out the layout diagram for the 5F6A Bassman board. |
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Now we are going to lace
the circuit board. Lacing is the process where lugs are joined together in a
buss. A buss may be just two lugs or a buss can be several lugs joined
together. Lacing lugs together is how lugs are joined together electrically.
For example on most of my boards there are several lugs that all must be
grounded. Instead of running a separate wire from each lug to ground, the
lugs are all laced together and then one large wire is connected
to ground which lets all of the lugs go to ground.
Lacing the lugs is an art and will take you a while to get the hang of it.
The drawing on the left is a typical section of a 5F6A layout diagram. The
solid black horizontal lines show which lugs get laced together to make a
buss. The diagram has the word "Buss" on it pointing to a buss wire. The
bias pot has a diagnal buss wire but most busses are horizontal on the
layout diagrams.
Refer to the 5F6A layout diagram to follow along with this tutorial. |
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The circuit board needs to be screwed down to
a bench top or held solid while you lace the circuit board. I use two screws
and screw the board to my bench through two of the mounting holes.
First take a fine pair of bent needle nose pliers and make a 3/4 loop on the
end of the buss wire.
These pliers are Snap on model E704ACG and work the best of any tool I have
tried. |
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Hook the 3/4 loop
you made above around a lug at the end of a buss and then hold the loop tight against the lug
with the pliers. Take the buss wire and pull it back and forth between the
lugs that you want to join together. If you have a large gap to span make a
360 degree loop around a lug before you continue on to the next lug. If you
are just joining two lugs that are next to each other, you do not have to
make a double 360 degree loop. Continue to lace all lugs together by looking
at the layout diagram to see which lugs get joined.
The top photo shows how the buss spans large gaps. Notice the double loops
around the lugs.
The bottom photo shows two lugs joined side by side. |
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Push all buss wire loops down
so that they as close to the board surface as possible. I use a small dental
tool I found at a flea market. It has a small 90 degree hook at the end of
the dental tool.
Here you can see the right end of a board that has
been laced. Notice there are lugs everywhere that have been joined together
on a buss. Some busses are just two lugs and some busses have as many as 7
lugs joined together. |
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Now it's time to solder all the
lugs that have been laced. Put the tip of your soldering iron against the
lug and touch the solder to the lug lacing at the same time. The
solder will start to melt and you must make the solder flow around the
lug so that the buss wire has solder all the way around the lug. You do not
need a ton of solder. Do not flood the lug with solder. Soldering is an art
and takes time to get good at it.
Use some sort of small fan to suck the solder fumes away from you. If any
buss wire pops up from the heat you can reheat the lug and hold the buss
wire down with some sort of tool. |
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This step is not necessary, but I think it
makes the boards look much better. On the longer buss wire spans I will take
two pairs of pliers and pinch together the buss wire so that the two wires
are grouped together side by side. I only do this on lugs that are 3 or more
lugs apart from each other. See the before photo
above.
This is what is looks like after the buss wire has been pinched together. |
When you solder the lugs, small spots of
resin will spray onto the board surface, this is normal. The resin is inside
the solder and helps the solder flow properly when the solder is melting.
The resin is soft and gooey at first but will firm up if you wait a few
minutes. The cooler the room temperature the quicker the resin will firm up.
After the resin hardens, I take a small flat object and scrape the board
clean of all these resin spots. If you scrape the resin spots before they
firm up, the resin will just spread around the board and make a mess that is
hard to clean up without some sort of very strong chemical. I don't use any
chemical to clean my boards. I don't want to breath the fumes from a strong
chemical in my shop. |
| Now all the lugs with lacing should be
soldered and you should have a clean board with no solder resin spots. |
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