First real soldering attempt - SUCCESS

Veganic

Maybe that one doubles back under the pickup wire and is on the back of pot?

Take snips, cut leg of capacitor. Call it a FrankenSG.

Funkfingers

bbill335 said:

@Funkfingers so nothing connected to the mid lug tone, a single wire from the jack sleeve to the back of the vol pot?

Nope. 

• De-solder the black insulated cables from the centre terminal of the tone pot.

• Solder these to the chassis of the tone pot. (Any permanent connection to ground would do.)

• Run a new insulated jumper cable from the centre terminal of the tone pot to the chassis of the tone pot.

bbill335

I don't remember what I did there and I can't tell from the picture. I think I may have got creative with the grounding... it's so strange, I was quite nervous doing it, so there's a good chance I did do something silly. I was amazed that it worked at all when I tested it. Tomorrow, I'll open it back up and finish it off.

ICBM

JiJoe said:

I'm an electronics design engineer by trade ICBM - no such thing as a 'partial' short. If you mean that the dialetric has broken down and its now just a low value resistor - fair enough - the circuit is just a voltage split now and both tone and vol pot will adjust volume as you said. No such thing as a partially shorted jack either - but f***k it - on you go. 

It may not be technically correct but I would use the term to mean something which has developed a resistance when it should be an open circuit (or a cap) - as opposed to a dead short which has a zero resistance. The difference is that one will produce silence whereas the other will produce a loss of volume and dull tone, so it's a useful description for troubleshooting if someone is finding one of those problems.

There's a lot in guitarist jargon which can easily infuriate you if you stick too strictly to the proper terms - I'm at least as bad with some of them .

streethawk

bbill335 said:

I don't remember what I did there and I can't tell from the picture. I think I may have got creative with the grounding... it's so strange, I was quite nervous doing it, so there's a good chance I did do something silly. I was amazed that it worked at all when I tested it. Tomorrow, I'll open it back up and finish it off.

Axecaster have a nice simple diagram, google '50's wiring diagram one pickup' and look at the images tab. Basically a visual aid to what @Funkfingers said.

Gagaryn

This should help -

Funkfingers

Stone me. You found a schematic diagram from the Seymour Duncan website with no glaring errors or omissions. 

Roughly three years ago, SD Inc. brought in a third party to overhaul large chunks of their website - most noticeably the schematic diagram department. In most forms of publishing, it is conventional to engage proofreaders before committing to the final release. Clearly, somebody omitted to do this. Many of the current diagrams have howling errors in them. Many of the paid SD tech support people do not seem to have any understanding whatsoever of guitar wiring. The company leaves it to forum solder heads to solve customer wiring questions. Duh!

bbill335

I'm kind of confused where the cap goes now, the diagrams are split between having it between the C vol terminal and the tone lug, others have it from the tone wiper to ground and vol C is wired to A terminal tone (I don't know if I'm describing the terminals right).

Does it matter?

Funkfingers

Leave the capacitor exactly where it is.

Just perform the three actions that I described yesterday.

bbill335

Wheyyyy we're all good


There was a big ol' blob of solder that you can just make out in the first pic, I think it was grounding the vol wiper or something because the taper is actually really nice now. Also, having properly grounded the bridge and pickup shield (which was hidden somehow yesterday, I dug it out of the insulation), it's nice and quiet again. Hooray! I'm enjoying my imaginary scouts badge for soldering.

Thanks for the help, everybody.

Bridgehouse

bbill335 said:

Hooray! I'm enjoying my imaginary scouts badge for soldering

Lol.

ICBM

bbill335 said:

I'm kind of confused where the cap goes now, the diagrams are split between having it between the C vol terminal and the tone lug, others have it from the tone wiper to ground and vol C is wired to A terminal tone (I don't know if I'm describing the terminals right).

Does it matter?

No. The order of the connections in the tone circuit - where the cap is, and which way round the two terminals are on the tone pot - makes no difference. All it is is a cap and a variable resistance in series.

bbill335 said:

There was a big ol' blob of solder that you can just make out in the first pic, I think it was grounding the vol wiper or something because the taper is actually really nice now. Also, having properly grounded the bridge and pickup shield (which was hidden somehow yesterday, I dug it out of the insulation), it's nice and quiet again. Hooray! I'm enjoying my imaginary scouts badge for soldering.

Thanks for the help, everybody.

Under the middle terminal of the pot? If so, well done for spotting it - I didn't, although I can see it now you've said so.

With apologies to JiJoe again , that would have caused the sort of "partial short" to the shielding paint I was talking about.

JoeHenry

Hahaha ! - Sorry for the pedantry ICBM. Glad it's all sorted. 

bbill335

ICBM said:

bbill335 said:

There was a big ol' blob of solder that you can just make out in the first pic, I think it was grounding the vol wiper or something because the taper is actually really nice now. Also, having properly grounded the bridge and pickup shield (which was hidden somehow yesterday, I dug it out of the insulation), it's nice and quiet again. Hooray! I'm enjoying my imaginary scouts badge for soldering.

Thanks for the help, everybody.

Under the middle terminal of the pot? If so, well done for spotting it - I didn't, although I can see it now you've said so.

Yeah, it's one of those if-you-know-to-look-for-it things... All good now.

The taper of the pot is still quite extreme but in a good way. Through a little practice amp, 8 is a nice rhythm volume, then 10 for soloing. I imagine it'll be interesting controlling a Ge fuzz face with it.

Funkfingers

bbill335 said:

There was a big ol' blob of solder that you can just make out in the first pic, I think it was grounding the vol wiper or something because the taper is actually really nice now. 

You may think this. I couldn't possibly comment.