After seeing Buckethead live and seeing just how much he uses his kill switch to play, I figured it couldn't hurt to install a kill switch for the time when I'm actually able to use one. I'm not a guitar player yet, just a guy with a guitar, but I am an electronics junkie, so I jumped at the chance to fiddle with the innards of my guitar. Below I will show you what I did to get my killswitch in and how you can do the same.

First things first. Here's a little warning for all of you out there: I can't guarantee that the wiring of your guitar will be exactly (or close for that matter) to the wiring of my guitar, and because of that, I can't guarantee that all the things I will discuss will be relevant to your particular guitar, so proceed at your own risk...

If your guitar is setup anything like mine, the first thing we'll want to do is take off the strings to give us much easier access to where we want to be.

Next, to get the pick guard off I used a set of precision screwdrivers (the 1/8" size did the trick for me). Once you get all the screws out of the plate you should be able to just lift the plate up, but be careful as the wires in your guitar might be connected to the plate as they were in my guitar. Don't want to snap any of these wires prematurely. Set the plate to the side and let's take a look inside. Wires everywhere, right? Not to worry, we won't be messing with all of these.

OK, here's the theory behind a killswitch before we go any further. Kill switches do just as the name implies, a switch to kill the sound when pressed. The way that Buckethead uses this effect is by pressing the button quickly, giving it a stacatto, or choppy sound. I can't explain the musical side of all of this, but listening to Buckethead play a song while using this technique is explanation enough for the reason it sounds so cool.

The way I'm going to go about adding my kill switch is to sever the entire signal going to the output jack on a button press. Another method in adding a kill switch might be to kill a certain pickup only, and not the output to the jack itself.

Supplies needed:
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A momentary, normally-closed pushbutton switch
A soldering iron and solder
A bit of wire (same or close to gauge of wire already in guitar)
A couple of red butt connectors (yes, laugh at the name now, but they'll ease the process later on)
Wire cutter, pliers, and wire stripper
Drill, and a bit
Contact cleaner (optional)

Information on supplies:
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Momentary switch - The switch that I got was from Radio Shack, part number 275-1548. Looking back I probably should have gotten a bit bigger button as this one is a mini-switch, but my hands are small anyway, so it should be fine. There are 4 switches that come in this package.

Soldering iron and solder - If you don't have either of these items let me suggest the above to you. I use that same soldering iron myself and it does great, and you can't go wrong for $4.99. Since it was so cheap, I decided to spring for the extra tips as well, but this is not a neccessity for our project. Along with your order for your soldering iron, get some of the above solder along with it. This roll should last you for quite a while if you do light electronics work. If you don't choose to get this roll, be SURE that whatever solder you do get has a ROSIN core, not an ACID core. Acid core solder is used in working with pipes and whatnot, not sensitive electronic components. Eventually if you use the acid core solder your joints might break or may even corrode.

Wire - It's nice to have a good spool of wire around. If you're going out and getting wire for this project, make sure to get close, if not exactly the same gauge of wire as the wire you're going to be cutting and adding in to. The wire that was in my guitar was between 18 and 22 gauge, this'll make a difference for the next item.

Butt connectors - Though the name sounds funny, butt connectors will make your work look clean and professional, and will also keep you from having to do more soldering than necessary. I decided to use this in case you're just not that comfortable with soldering yet. Make sure to get the butt connector for the gauge of wire you're using, for my case it was a red butt connector that corresponded to the 18 - 22 gauge range. Here's a place you can order them from online if you wish, but any local electronics or hardware store should have them.

Wire cutter and stripper - You should be able to get these two items at any local hardware store. The wire cutters and strippers may come in a single unit, and will most probably come with a crimping tool at the end, we'll need this a little later on.

Drill and bit - Get an electric drill and a couple of bits (one for a pilot hole and one for the regular hole). For the switch that I got, the mounting hole as stated on the back of the package is 17/64".

Contact Cleaner - I got this stuff from Radio Shack as well. If you choose to get this, read the warnings on the back and use it in a well ventilated area. Again this item is optional, but since we already have the guitar opened up I figured it couldn't hurt to hit the potentiometers and clean them up. It did help, but more on that later.

Procedure:
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What I did first is make my switch assembly. Plug the iron into the outlet and let it heat for a while. While it's heating, get your wire cutter and snip off about 6 inches of wire from your spool of wire, now, cut this piece in half and you should have two pieces of wire, 3 inches each. Strip each end of each wire, about a half inch or so on each end. Twist each end of the wire so that it's not frayed. Ok, get your switch and insert one of your twisted ends into one of the terminals and twist it around the terminal to make a good mechanical connection. Do this to each terminal.

Next comes probably the hardest part of the whole project -- soldering.

Unroll about 3 inches of solder and bring the soldering iron down onto the solder, this will just melt through it and give us a stick of solder to easily hold and manipulate. If this is your first time soldering, i'll refer you here on an overview of the basic processes of soldering: Soldering 101.

After reading that little article you should have a fair idea about the basics of soldering so we can continue.

I suggest either having something that you can hold the switch down with or a volunteer to hold the switch in place while you work, you find that you run out of hands quickly when soldering. With your new soldering ability, let's solder some wire onto our button. Melt a bit of solder onto the tip of the iron, this will allow the heat to transfer more easily to the solder we want on our connection. Now bring the iron with the dab of solder we put on there down to the wire and terminal and let it heat for a few seconds and put your stick of solder down there, not touching the iron though, we want the connection to melt the solder. Do the same thing to the other terminal.

If everything went right you should have a wire securely connected to each terminal. You can tell a good connection by its shiny appearance, as well as making sure that the solder flowed all around the joint.

Find the volume knob of your guitar and on the back follow the wires that are coming off of it. On mine there were two wires, one was going to the pickups, and the other was going to a hole inside the body where the amp cable connects to the terminal. We want to snip the wire that goes inside the body approximately in the middle. Next we need to strip these two pieces of wire. I caution you however to do this step VERY carefully, if you break the wire off that's inside the guitar you'll have to take it into the shop and that just wouldn't be cool. Breaking the wire that's connected to the volume knob, though not desired, is a fairly easy fix, we'd need only to solder a wire back in place.

Ok, now we know where everything goes. This might be a good time to mount the button. It'll be easier to work with since it's not yet attached to the wires. Find a nice location for the button and make sure there is nothing in the way on the other side (the solid guitar body for instance). Once you find where you want the button to go, drill a small pilot hole in that location. Now we need to get out that 17/64" bit. Using the pilot hole as a guide, drill through the plate, once through, wiggle the drill around a little bit to open the hole up just a bit bigger (I tried just drilling straight through but the hole was too tight, this will help us out).

Pop the button through the back and tighten the nut onto it, be careful though, tightening too much could fracture or break the button and we don't want that as we would need to start the process all over again for preparing our button.

Now the button should be where you want it. Get two of the butt connectors and slide the wire down from each of the button terminals inside as far as it will go.

Now that it's in there, you need to crimp it very tightly. Once you've crimped the wires, give them a tug to make sure they're not going to come out. If needed, get another butt connector and crimp again.

Alright, we've got our button with two newly added wires coming off of each terminal, and butt connectors connected to that, what to do now? Go back to the wires inside the guitar and find the wire coming from the volume knob that leads to the output jack. We need to cut it. Get a wire cutter and snip it as close to the middle as possible. Now that that's taken care of, insert the wire coming out of the body (leading to the output jack) into the end of one of the butt connectors that we attached to the button. Clamp down on the connector and make sure it's secure. Now, do the same procedure for the other end of the wire that's coming off of the volume knob, attach it to the connecter attached to the other terminal. If all of your connections are good, you should be good to go.

If you have any length of bare wire exposed, it's a very good idea to wrap some electrical tape around it to avoid a short.

And that's it. You've installed your killswitch! Re-string your guitar and jam!

One last thing, the only drawback to how I did this killswitch is that there's a small popping noise when you depress the button. I think that this is because of a voltage spike, and could probably be cured with an appropriate capacitor.

If there is any part of the article that is unclear, hard to understand, etc., e-mail me and i'll see if I can't clear it up.