software

I was wiring a '59, and have a 500k pot for volume, 250k for tone, with a ceramic disc capacitor rated at .047MFD.

I was following the diagram posted for 1 humbucker, 1 volume, and 1 tone. I grounded the right-most tab on the tone pot, and I am not noticing that the tone pot does much at all.

Should that not be grounded, per the diagram, to have the full range of what I am looking for?

Any help is appreciated.

One thing to consider: when you say you quot;groundedquot; it, do you mean that you connected it to the back of the pot? If so, did you ground the back of the pot? The back of a pot isn't ground until you make it so. One exception would be a Tele, which uses a metal control plate, but even that must be grounded somewhere.

By quot;groundquot;, I mean a connection that ultimately makes it back to the quot;sleevequot; of the output jack.

Artie

When I 'grounded' it, I just connected that tab on the right to back of the pot. Also where I soldered the ground for the capacitor.

Should I have another 'ground' coming from that tab, to the back of the volume pot, and then to the output jack?

You should have a ground wire from the bridge to some other pot. connect a wire from that pot to your tone pot then it is properly grounded.

But its important to understand that the bridge is not ground. The bridge is just another guitar part that needs to be grounded. The only ground on a guitar is the outside ring of the output jack. Every quot;groundquot; must terminate there eventually.

Artie

So should I not have 'grounded' the tab on the right side of the tone pot to the back of the pot?


Originally Posted by GdntoneguitarsSo should I not have 'grounded' the tab on the right side of the tone pot to the back of the pot?

There's nothing wrong with that as long as you have a wire that connects that point back to the output jack. And, I'm assuming that you have the cap going between the tone pot and volume pot. You wouldn't want to ground both the cap and one lug of the tone pot. Its either/or.

That's another place that I screwed it up then. I had the cap going from the center of the tone pot to ground, and the right lug (is that what I call it!?) also going to ground. Does that pretty much render the cutting of the treble on the tone pot useless? 'Cause I really can't hear the difference.

That would do it. Its one or the other.

Just to review, a tone control is just a variable resistor, (the pot), in series with a cap, that creates a quot;filterquot;. Doesn't matter which comes first, but one end of that filter goes to ground, and the other end goes to whatever point you want to attenuate highs. Could be either of two lugs on the volume control, (if you want the 50's mod), or to a lug on the switch, ala Strat.