Advice For Wiring Benedetto PAF

[rlyacht]

I am doing a "spare parts" project, installing a single PAF in the neck position of a strat body, the idea being to have a strat with more of a warm jazz tone. I have a wiring diagram (below) from the SD site, as well as a diagram I just found in the Benedetto box. I'm planning to have the tone control be push/pull to do a coil split. Most of my wiring experience is with single coils, and I've got a few questions:

• The pickup has 5 wires: black, white, red, green, and one that's bare. I believe that in the SD diagram, the green wire and bare wire are paired together and soldered to the volume pot, and the white one is paired with the red. Is that correct?
• The SD diagram has 500K pots and 0.047 cap, whereas Benedetto has 250K and 0.022. I realize this is one of those YMMV questions, but given my goal of using it for jazz tones, what's the best choice?

I'd appreciate any advice, other than "don't do this stupid project" :-)

[Chistopher]

It depends on what you want. 500k is the conventional pot for a humbucker. 250k will be a tad darker, but not much. 0.022 uF will take roll off treble and a little bit of high mids, 0.047 uF will take off treble and a decent amount of high mids. The higer the number, the lower the cutoff frequency for what the pot effects. I prefer 0.01 uF, which is a little smaller than appears on production guitars. Given you want a Jazz box, I'd say a 0.047 uF is likely going to help you out more. Maybe even a 0.1 uF.

Also, coil split is fairly hit or miss. It would be really useful on a jazz box, but if you find the pickup you've got doesn't split all that well, it could be worth looking into using the push-pull pot as a bass cut. That way the bass doesn't get too overbearing at lower tone settings. If you like your split but still think you might want a bit less bass at lower tone settings, look into the Fender Greasebucket mod

[rlyacht]

Thanks! That's very helpful. I will wire it up that way, and look into the greasebucket mod.

[rlyacht]

I wired it up according to that diagram, using the parts I had (500K pots, 0.047 cap). I find that volume works, and so does the coil split (at least it sounds different!), but the tone control seems *not* to have any impact when turned down. I am really sure I wired it properly (famous last words, I know). Is there any chance I have a bad cap, or os that something that essentially never occurs? My multimeter doesn't have a capacitance tester function. I'm using a standard Sprague orange drop cap.

[jeremy]

i really doubt its the cap, but it is possible. is the tone pot casing grounded?

[Mincer]

Caps don't usually go bad, but if you have another one hanging around, you can test it.