Curious Tale Of The Telesg

[somedaysurfer]

So I bought a neck pickup from a 68 SG and installed it in the neck of a MIM telecaster I had already outfitted with a Seymour Duncan Little 59 in the bridge. I then replaced the 250k volume pot with a 500k (woulda done the same with the tone, but I can't get the damn knob to unscrew - it's already killed two jeweler's screwdrivers). First of all, the thing sounds wonderful now, but it does some weird things. First - the volume and tone pots seem to have no bearing whatsoever on altering the volume or tone. In fact, aside from the fact that the SD is now much brigher, they don't seem to do anything at all. I believe this is because the neck pu had a single conductor and was meant for a Gibson, which always has separate pots for each pickup. Is that what's going on?

Also - There seems to be little or no difference in the sound the guitar produces when the pickup switch is supposed to be activating both pickups and when it's supposed to just activate the neck. I've been listening hard, and there's just really not much difference at all. Big contrast on the bridge position, though.

It should be noted that I'm a novice at this stuff and because this guitar was very cheap, I'm just having some fun, so please don't jump all over me for not going to a tech. Finally, like I said, I really love the sounds this thing produces now, but something is certainly awry with the wiring even though I took great care in hooking it up according to diagrams from the Seymour Duncan web site.

[bentwood999]

post a pic of the wiring lets take a look see

[SwedishLuthier]

please don't jump all over me for not going to a tech

No problem. This is a forum for DIYers and the odd pro so we all come from the same place that you do. With the difference that for many of us there was no such novel thing called “the internet” to learn from. We are here to share information and help each other, not to snotty tell you to take it to a tech.

I think that you might have more than one problem here

The absence of bridge pickup in the middle position:

Measure the DC resistance of the HB. It should be around 8 Kohms. If not you might have a problem with the HB. It you combine two pickups with very different DC resistances one will be very dominant when used together. I have that in my very first guitar. I have a P90 in bridge position and some obscure other SC in the neck. The neck pup has considerable lower DC resistance and is very dominant when they are combined. It could be that one of the coils in the HB has shorted out. Then you would have a DC resistance of about 4 Kohms.

The problem with the volume and the tone:

When the switch is in the neck position the pup is wired exactly as in a SG or other Gibson guitar. So the problem isn’t that you have a single vol and tone. It is only when combined that could be a problem. Vol pot works by gradually shorting out the signal to ground. The same thing with tone, except that this time it is filtered through a capacitor that only let treble through. So higher value pots as vol will give you a slightly higher output as less is bled through the pot , even at “ten”. The same thing with the tone. There is always a tine bleed through even when there should be none. Now you say that you have better treble from the neck pickup but neither the vol nor tone works. That makes me think that you have some serious problem with either the circuit or with your ground connection. Measure the resistance between the back of the pots, between the pots and the sleeve on the out put jack, between the pots and the bridge (there should be a ground wire to the bridge). It could be a bad solder somewhere or a broken ground wire or similar.

[somedaysurfer]

Thanks to both of you. I had no problem installing the bridge pickup many months ago, but I think I may have gotten in over my head in trying to install a second. It's weird because it seems like all the solder points are solid.

I should have noted I soldered the outside sleeve of the neck pickup to the point at which the bridge bucker's black wire and ground meet the volume pot. The hot output is soldered onto the pickup selector. Somehow, like I said, the tone and volume just don't seem to do anything but carry a current.

I tried messing with the pickup height, and when I lower the neck pickup to nearly level with the pickguard, there's a much bigger contrast between all three pickup positions. It's weird that the neck pu seems dominant, though, considering the Little 59 is really hot.

I'll try to get a pic posted of my wiring. Prepared to be horrified.