Help With Pickups

[beetroot36]

I have two problems putting lace sensors into a strat.its my first attempt at changing pickups and its not went so well

the first problem is ive cut the wires too short and they wont go through the route. ive attempted to fix this by cutting the wires and soldering some more wire onto the ends, and now ive taped over that but im not sure if thatll help.

the second problem is that its almost impossible to solder to the case of the volume pot, the solder simply wont take and ive spent hours trying, ive scratched the pot but still no luck.

can anyone help me please, itll be really appreciated.

thank you,

Casey

[black_labb]

soldering extra wire onto the leads is the way to do it, it should be fine. you should be able to measure a resistance between the 2 wires coming from the pickup (probably between 4kohms and 12kohms, but im not sure what laces are, think their on the lower side of things)

make sure the soldering iron is nice and hot before you solder something to the back of the pot. i had trouble with that the first time too. it helps to use a bit of finer sand paper (180 grit would be good, or something around there) where your going to solder it. let the soldering iron get nice and hot then put a dab of solder to the tip (helps to spread the heat). then put it to the pot, and add bits of solder to it until it is flowing along the pot, as opposed to just sticking to the soldering iron tip. once it is add some until you have a nice amount there. then tin the tip of the wire, remelt the solder on the pot and add the wire to it. make sure it is properly sticking to the pot, and not balling up around the tip of the soldering iron before you take the soldering iron off.

[Geo]

I'm guessing you have a 25w iron. From my experience, you need a 40w iron to solder to a pot. That's a lot of metal to heat up. Also, lay the cone of the iron tip against the pot, not just the very end of the tip. You want as much of the iron touching the pot as possible.

The last thing... having a brand new tip on your iron makes a huge difference when soldering to a pot. My tips always turn black and crumble away after a while. A brand new tip on a 40w iron will let you solder to a pot in a few seconds.

[mikevirok]

Instead of using sandpaper, I like to use a flat-head screwdriver to gently scrape any film from the surface of the pot back.

Also, instead of taping (since over time electrical tape will leave a gooey residue on the covered areas) try using heat-shrink tubing. You can pick it up at your local hardware store (or Home Depot, Lowes, etc.). It's fairly cheap.

[digi2t]

I'm guessing you have a 25w iron. From my experience, you need a 40w iron to solder to a pot. That's a lot of metal to heat up.

Black_labb's routine and a 25 watter works just fine. I've always used a 25 watt iron. Admittedly, a pot is quite the heatsink, but if your patient the 25 watt iron does an admirable job.

And yes, there's nothing like a brand new tip. It's almost like Christmas... before you started getting clothes as gifts.

Cheers