Frankenstrat Homemade Wiring Problem

[Leevis]

Hi

Hopefully can someone help me here.

I am trying to wire up a frankenstrat homemade job using cheap parts. I have a pickup I bought from amazon and I think I have it wired up correctly. The issue I have is where to put the ground from the pick up, in this case its a black and a bare wire - I soldered these to the top of the volume pot but not really sure where I need to wire these. I still have not wired the ground into the trem claw but wondering where the ground goes from the pick up.

Help

[Bizman62]

3 hours ago, Leevis said:

The issue I have is where to put the ground from the pick up, in this case its a black and a bare wire - I soldered these to the top of the volume pot but not really sure where I need to wire these.

My analogue for guitar wiring is that it's a loop, coming from your amp through the hot wire i.e. the tip of the cable, the signal then makes its way through the pickups and pots and finally lands into the sleeve of the jack and back to the amp. The direction of the current may be the other way around but the idea remains the same. Everything that gets grounded simply has to end to the sleeve prong of the jack, one way or another.

In your case it means that you'll need to connect the top of the volume pot to the jack.

The same applies to the trem claw, simply solder the wire to a place that has a connection to the sleeve prong of the jack. The top of the volume pot is as good as any. The reason for grounding the trem/bridge is to make a contact from your sweaty fingers through the strings to the common ground so that your clothing or other static charges won't cause extra snaps and pops.

- o -

There's many ways to ground a guitar and they're all good. The top of one pot is commonly used - notice that you'll have to ground all pot tops! You can also solder all ground wires to a washer, or you can use a solid metal plate as the bottom of your control cavity - the pots will get grounded through their shafts which are part of the housing. I've also seen a bare stiff wire connecting all pot tops (doesn't that sound funny, "pot tops"?). A loop, a spider web, a star, a base plate,,, They'll all work as long as there's a connection to the sleeve prong of the jack.

Sometimes when reading an illustrated wiring diagram there's just the ground symbol ⏚ in various places right on the side of each component. That simply means that you'll somehow connect all of them to the sleeve prong,  through one or more grounding points.

 

[Leevis]

I have finished the soldering, pretty sure I have wired this correctly. I have strung the top E and bottom E to give it a test and all I am getting is a massive buzz. The volume works though.

Any idea what I have done wrong here (obviously something)

[Bizman62]

First thing to check is the jack: Is the ground connected to the sleeve prong and the hot to the tip? That should give you the sound with massive buzz.

If you don't get any notes at all, there's something wrong with your pickup wirings.