Jaguar wiring issue

[sebbeklang]

Hey guys

I just finished a jaguar build, but I'm having wiring issues. The problem is that my tone pots also affect volume, as in when I roll the tone down to zero I also get zero volume.

I followed these wiring diagrams:

https://www.fralinpickups.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Jaguar-Diagram.pdf and https://www.seymourduncan.com/images/wiring-diagrams/Jaguar_Standard.jpg (should be identical) along with this series mod https://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1277 (but I don't think that has anything to do with this)

What seems odd to me is this part.

When I use the lead circuit, the orange and the white wires are connected, and the yellow is the pickup hot. When the tone pot is all the way up there is no resistance between the top and the middle lug, and full resistance between the middle and the bottom one.

When I turn it down it is supposed to decrease the resistance between the bottom two lugs, causing the higher frequencies to go through the cap and ground out. But doesn't this also mean that the resistance between the top two lugs increase, hence the volume effect?

I've looked around at a bunch of wiring diagrams for other guitars and haven't found another one where the tone pot has something attached to all three lugs.

Should I just connect the yellow wire to the middle lug instead? Could something else be wrong? I double checked the wiring and it is wired like this and there shouldn't be any issues with accidental connections.

Edited November 6, 2021 by sebbeklang
clarification

[curtisa]

Yes, it's odd. But it does 'work', even if it has the side effects you've found. And by and large it a0ppears to be typical across multiple wiring diagrams for the Jaguar that I've looked at, so I guess it's just the way Fender chose to do it for whatever reason they had at the time.

I would point out that there does seem to be one other variant floating around that shows an extra 56k resistor strapped across the top two terminals of the pot (where you have the red and yellow wires shown in your post). See here for example. This would lessen the effect of the tone pot slugging the output level as it's wound down at the expense of making the tone control less responsive overall. You could try it out and see if it makes the circuit behave a little better.

Or you could always say 'to hell with historical accuracy' and just wire the tone pot in a conventional two-terminal arrangement (who uses a stinking tone pot anyway..?)

[sebbeklang]

Oh man... I used those diagrams because they were easier to read and understand. Now that I look at others that I just glanced over before, most of them have that resistor.  I'll try it out and see what happens!

I also thought I had the same issue with the tone on the rhythm circuit, but now that I look at more diagrams that seems to be by design, since the tone pot is only 50K. I'd only tried it out at very low volume on my amp, but now that I try it again I realize I get volume, albeit lower than I prefer. 

I'll add the resistor and try it out for a while before I decide if I want to change anything. Thanks!