Wiring - Caps on tone pot not bridged to volume

[THRobinson]

I have a MIJ ES355 clone, just grabbed cheap for a fun quick fixup. Amazing shape surprisingly, no warping, mold, water damage, but the saddles were just a white clump of oxidation, screws rusted and when I took out the old wiring, the pots were just solid brown with rust.

To make things cleaner, maybe easier for install, I bought some mylar film caps (I call them clorets. Man I miss that gum) and wanted to solder them onto just the tone caps, not stretched between the vol/tone. Most diagrams I found were between the two. The original harness was on the tone only but, so rusted and some wires broken off it's hard to figure out what was happening. Even the leads on the pickups fell off. Multimeter shows they should still work (5.0/4.8kohm).

Bought full sized Alpha pots (A500k x 4), the caps (0.022uf x 2), generic 3way and 1/4 jack, and a small roll of the braided/shielded wire and heat shrink tubing. Went somewhat cheap but still decent parts from a local online store (not Aliexpress or anything).

Looked at a few resources and what I have and wondered if this will work right? Tried to make it easy to read for non-wiring people like me.

[beaubrummels]

That diagram has a couple issues.

1. The output of the Bridge volume pot should go to the switch, not to ground.
2. The ground of the Neck volume should go to ground, not go to one side of the switch.
3. I would have connected the tone link to the outside lug rather than the center and had the middle wiper lug be the tone cap to the back of the pot. Then you don't need to ground the other outside lug of the tone pot. (I'm actually not certain if the way you have it will work or not - I've never seen it or done it that way.)

[THRobinson]

Ya, it's confusing... seems to be a lot of ways listed and some easier to follow than others.

Not sure what you mean in #1 and #2... for example, is the bridge vol output the middle lug? if so it goes to the switch. The thick grey line is the braided shield which I am using as ground, and the red is the pushback wire core inside (actually black but chose red for the wires to stand out, and blue for the pickup wires)

What it now has, albeit rusty and rough shape, has the cap like that, bottom lug to the grounded body, then the middle lug to the bottom on the volume.

I was at FRALIN PICKUPS which had a few various cap positions, but none the same as what is on here. Trying to figure a way to photograph it such that it makes sense to look at.

I watched THIS VIDEO for the bulk of the wiring, but swapped the caps to match how it originally was. Not because it's original, simple because nice and compact,

Gonna try to photoshop the harness a bit.

[THRobinson]

Darn site .. tried to edit the post but ERROR 404 everytime

OK... grey is ground. Some of the wire is braided/shielded. Pickup wire is grey with a white lead and a ground wire inside, i used grey/blue because can't see white.

• So, red cap is on the bottom lug and the top of the pot.
• There is a single shielded wire from the 3way switch that grounds to all 4 pots ended at the bridge volume where it grounds and the hot wire goes to the vol pot middle lug.
• Pickup cable, 2-wires, the ground to the pot and the hot to the bottom lug.
• Top lug on the vol is grounded with a small piece of bus wire, though the tone pot's top lug is wide open.

vol pot, top lug grounded, middle lug to 3way, and bottom lug has the pickup wire and connects to the middle tone pot

tone pot, top lug open, middle lug to volume bottom lug, and bottom lug to cap which goes to the body.

I think the only difference is that I need to un-ground my tone pots top lug...?

[beaubrummels]

That might work, but it's excessive ground soldering. Once the pots are grounded by one ground source, you don't need to ground every connection going between them. You've got the volume output and the jumper from volume to tone both grounding the pots together. It's not necessary and would be simpler if you only connected hot wires where needed and only connected grounds once where needed.

[GuitarDoc]

Either of the first two diagrams will work perfectly.
Beaubrummels' comment about grounds is right on. All of the "hot" wire connections do not need to be shielded cables and they don't all need to be grounded to the pots. It certainly won't hurt if they are, but it isn't necessary.

[THRobinson]

Well, bought a 10ft coil of the shielded wire... kinda based off what that video I liked showed with basically shielded wire and going put-to-pot with the one. That and the original harness is 90% braided as well. Figured I needed the same.