About soldering to the back of pots.

[jalguitarman]

I have soldered pick ups before but since I am wiring this strat from the ground up I want to really inquire about this. When you are soldering the ground connections and you have the wires kind of wound together and soldered. What I asking is how would you position the iron on the connection?? I have a weller soldering ataion and I have a 1/8 tip I got specificly for soldering to the back of pots. do I need to try to find some way to make the iron touch both the back of the pot and the wires at the same time ??? Orwould it mahe sense to pre-solder the wires togther by touching the iron to the wires (not the solder) to melt the solder. Then use something to hold the wires to the back of the pot and touch the iron to the back of the pot (not very far away from the wires) until it gets hot enough to melt thr soler that on the wires i just pre-soldered. My soldering station will go up to 850 degress fairenhight. what is the best temp to solder to the back of the pot with?
Any help would be appreciated. videos wont do me ant good as I am on dial up and down loading takes forever when I can get it to work.

Thanks as always.

One more thing. if solder on the connection is dull in appearance and not shiny does that mean I have a cold solder joint.

 

[Invader09]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

Tin the wires as you mentioned, but still hold the iron against the pot and wires at the same time... when gets hot enough, add solder to the wires, and around the wires (pot) don't use too much, but use enough....

I juat did this last night w/ my Invaders in my SG... worked great !

- You can't tell if there's a cold joint if it's dull.... you have to test it....

 

[jalguitarman]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

Tin the wires as you mentioned, but still hold the iron against the pot and wires at the same time... when gets hot enough, add solder to the wires, and around the wires (pot) don't use too much, but use enough....

I juat did this last night w/ my Invaders in my SG... worked great !

- You can't tell if there's a cold joint if it's dull.... you have to test it....

Thank you.
So does thst man if the joint is cold you wont have a good connection?????
am I the only one who feels like they need three hands to do this stuff?

 

[Invader09]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

For me, I just have to be extremely focused when I do it... and think ahead for every move ahha....

Yes,, if you have a cold joint, it will not sound great....not a good connection, it forms an envelope effect

 

[uOpt]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

Soldering at the casing of the pots is a stupid idea in the first place. These things were never intended to be heat up.

Proper grounding for pots means you put them into a grounded metal face so that the mount point grounds them to the equipment ground.

 

[jalguitarman]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

Soldering at the casing of the pots is a stupid idea in the first place. These things were never intended to be heat up.

Proper grounding for pots means you put them into a grounded metal face so that the mount point grounds them to the equipment ground.

but this is typically how it has trditionally been done, correct? how would you otherwise do it???

 

[uOpt]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

but this is typically how it has trditionally been done, correct? how would you otherwise do it???

Usually done, yeah, it's the normal guitar maker nonsense who ignore electronics' component specifications

A metal plate when the pots are mounted. Doesn't have to be thick.

The Callaham Strat pickguard shield is actually marketed with this advantage, you ground the shield once and all pots mounted are automatically grounded, too.

 

[alex1fly]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

i built a little stand to give me an extra hand. its just a block of wood with clips on the end of wires sticking out of the wood.

 

[playas]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

Thank you.
So does thst man if the joint is cold you wont have a good connection?????
am I the only one who feels like they need three hands to do this stuff?

Yes 3 hands, one for the solder, one for the iron and one for the component...and if there´s more than one component / wire...


I find resting the iron on something so that it´s horizontal works for some situations as it leaves two hands free. Clearly this means you´ve got to be very careful as you should be anyway when soldering anything.

If at all possible without over-complicating things I start by de-soldering the hot and ground leads from the scratchplate if it´s a strat style so you can just take the whole thing away from the guitar and give yourself room to move.

It´s a hell of a lot easier soldering components on a nice flat surface than reaching akwardly into the control cavity of a guitar with a hot soldering iron leaving it long enough to heat up the surface while trying to avoid frying that last lead you´ve just soldered.

 

[jalguitarman]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

Usually done, yeah, it's the normal guitar maker nonsense who ignore electronics' component specifications

A metal plate when the pots are mounted. Doesn't have to be thick.

The Callaham Strat pickguard shield is actually marketed with this advantage, you ground the shield once and all pots mounted are automatically grounded, too.

I have a callaham pickguard sheild in this particular set up. I read something about this on his site but with my limited knowledge didn't quite get what he meant. I mean I can follow a diagram but as for the understanding of how it all works I have not been instructed. I just recently learned that a pot acts as a volume control when you solder the lug on the right back to it'self. I imagine most people here know that but I didn't until I started wiring up th pickguard and from fixing my freinds guitar the day before I figuered out why the lug was soldered back to its self and the confimation of people here.



I will have to look at Bills site again. Would you ground it (the pickguard sheild) to the trem claw??

Also where then would you solder the black wires coming from the pick ups???

thank you for helping.

 

[pzaxtl]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

The easiest way to do it is to tin your wires, then melt a blob of solder onto the back of the pot (make sure you clean the back of the pot first -- 400 grit sandpaper works great). When you're ready to attach your ground wires, lay them on top of the solder blob, place the iron on top of the wires. When the solder melts, pull the iron away and hold the wires in place a moment or two. Doing it this way you are much less likely to cook the pot by overheating it since you're not trying to heat the back of the pot, flow the solder and attach the wires all at the same time, taking more heat and time than is necessary.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

Soldering at the casing of the pots is a stupid idea in the first place. These things were never intended to be heat up.

Proper grounding for pots means you put them into a grounded metal face so that the mount point grounds them to the equipment ground.

They were also never intended to be used for musical equipment. They were designed for machinery and electronics (radios, etc) where internal mounts were metal.

As well, they used to be made a bit thicker so they'd withstand the heat of tubes in smaller radios. Plus, thicker metal is always better as it's more sturdy overall.

Soldering to a thick housing is better since it's harder to cook the internals. Today's thin/cheap/flimsy pot casings suck. Plus they're coated in a non-stick film that you have to either cand or cook off of it with the iron.

However, it's easy enough to get some brass shim stock and make a pot mount that you can ground everything to - as long as you've got something that can put a hole in the metal to mount the pot to.

 

[jalguitarman]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

The easiest way to do it is to tin your wires, then melt a blob of solder onto the back of the pot (make sure you clean the back of the pot first -- 400 grit sandpaper works great). When you're ready to attach your ground wires, lay them on top of the solder blob, place the iron on top of the wires. When the solder melts, pull the iron away and hold the wires in place a moment or two. Doing it this way you are much less likely to cook the pot by overheating it since you're not trying to heat the back of the pot, flow the solder and attach the wires all at the same time, taking more heat and time than is necessary.

Ok, I want to make sure I understand you. You said melt a blob of solder onto the back of the pot. So then if I read you correctly by the other part of your post that means your not melting that solder blob by heating the back of the pot. Is this correct?
Thank you.

 

[Invader09]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

DON'T DO THAT ! It will be a cold joint... you have to heat up the contacts...

 

[uOpt]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

Ok, I want to make sure I understand you. You said melt a blob of solder onto the back of the pot. So then if I read you correctly by the other part of your post that means your not melting that solder blob by heating the back of the pot. Is this correct?
Thank you.

No, you have to heat up the back of the pot so that the solder melts on the metal (as opposed to melt on the iron).

 

[jalguitarman]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

No, you have to heat up the back of the pot so that the solder melts on the metal (as opposed to melt on the iron).

OK thats what I thought too.

I am still intriuged with the idea of grounding to the callaham pickquard sheild. If you have more insight please share.

 

[uOpt]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

OK thats what I thought too.

I am still intriuged with the idea of grounding to the callaham pickquard sheild. If you have more insight please share.

With the Callaham guard shield you still need one grounded point and it doesn't have a real connector.

The "proper" way would be a thicker shield plate on the bottom of a LP plate and the shield has a lug bending up that you use to connect a ground wire, or to screw on a longish piece of metal with holes that you solder all the other groundies in.

It's not that I do that myself (people just don't buy the stuff if it isn't done the traditional way), but it would be the right way to ground the pots.

 

[jalguitarman]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

With the Callaham guard shield you still need one grounded point and it doesn't have a real connector.

The "proper" way would be a thicker shield plate on the bottom of a LP plate and the shield has a lug bending up that you use to connect a ground wire, or to screw on a longish piece of metal with holes that you solder all the other groundies in.

It's not that I do that myself (people just don't buy the stuff if it isn't done the traditional way), but it would be the right way to ground the pots.

Using the callaham sheild in that way where would you put the ground wires from the pick ups??
OK you said you would still needa grounded point. From where to where would you ground. Or like this. would I instead of solderinggrounds to the pot solder them to the guard sheild instead but still have to ground the back of the pot to like the trem claw, is that what you mean??

 

[uOpt]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

The Callaham guard isn't thick enough to solder to.

As I said earlier since buyers don't want anything else than fried pots I wouldn't worry about it too much.

In a Strat the most elegant solution is probably a 1mm aluminium strip with many small holes for the wires and one big wire that you mount the pot through. The other pots and the switch get grounded via the shield, all the wires go to the strip.

 

[357mag]

Re: About soldering to the back of pots.

The easiest way to do it is to tin your wires, then melt a blob of solder onto the back of the pot (make sure you clean the back of the pot first -- 400 grit sandpaper works great). When you're ready to attach your ground wires, lay them on top of the solder blob, place the iron on top of the wires. When the solder melts, pull the iron away and hold the wires in place a moment or two. Doing it this way you are much less likely to cook the pot by overheating it since you're not trying to heat the back of the pot, flow the solder and attach the wires all at the same time, taking more heat and time than is necessary.

After trying other methods and suggestions this is also the way I do it. No cold joints come of it either. In fact this is how Seymour himself does it.