Seymour Duncan Vintage 1959 Blues Pickups

[Pauls_49]

Hi all, I only just joined this site. I am seeking some assistance please. I have recently finished building my 9th and 10th Guitars, both identical. I'll put a couple of pics up of them. For these two guitars I decided to spend big and go with Seymour Duncan Vintage 1959 Blues Pickups.

The pots etc I used 500K volume/tone pots and a .047uf capacitor.

After wiring all this up, these pickups sound very ordinary indeed. Plus I am not getting any variation on my tone control

I am thinking this is due to my poor soldering abilities.

So looking at my pic of my wiring. I have soldered the braided cable (earth/ground) from each pickup to the back of the pots. Then that wire extends to the live points on the 3 way selector. Wire is stripped to reveal the hot/active wire inside and soldered onto those points.

Is my soldering the problem. I am thinking of redoing it all. My soldering iron is an older larger one I used to use for stained glass work.

Should I have cut the braided wire off at the pots and just soldered that only, and left the inner wire longer to reach the selector switch?

Should I have soldered both grounds on the back of the volume pot only and not one on the tone pot.

Open for suggestions please, as I would love to be able to have these pickups sounding awesome.

Regards
Paul, Australia

 

[rogue_one]

Re: Seymour Duncan Vintage 1959 Blues Pickups

First off, nice builds.

Second, I can’t answer your questions. I just wanted to comment on the builds. When In doubt, I tend to use the Seymour Duncan wiring diagrams. Did you use them?

 

[Pauls_49]

Re: Seymour Duncan Vintage 1959 Blues Pickups

Hi there Rogue, And thanks for your comments on my builds. The timber I used is Purple Heart and Hornbean (blonde timber and very hard). I thought the Hornbeam was a hard timber but the Purple Heart is much harder.

I just looked at the SD wiring diagram to suit 2 humbuckers, 1V/1T/3W switch. These pickups I bought only have one wire coming out. Its braided on the outside and the live/active wire is inside. The ones on the SD wiring diagram have 4 wires, but 2 are tied off anyway, so I guess the answer is the same as what I have. The only difference I can see here is, both earths/grounds are soldered to the volume pot. I did one to the volume pot and the other to the tone pot. I've done this before and I didn't have problems.

Maybe its just my shoddy soldering. I will buy a new 40w soldering iron during the week and try and do it all again.

Thanks again, Paul

 

[AlexR]

Re: Seymour Duncan Vintage 1959 Blues Pickups

I'd be putting it down to the soldering too. The shot is not particularly detailed, but the joints on the back of the pots are quite bad. I'm not trying to be derisive here - merely factual.
I know Jaycar has some quality irons - get one with a chisel tip rather than a point as that helps to get the area of the pot casing hot.

You are on the mark with the pickup connections. Essentially you have the middle being the black hot, the red/white are internally connected, and the green bare are combined in the braid.

Love the 'barbershop' look to the neckthrough laminate btw. I build myself, and coincidentally have just invested in some wood to do a neck-thru strat build. Purpleheart is one of the woods, as well as black Korina.

 

[Pauls_49]

Re: Seymour Duncan Vintage 1959 Blues Pickups

Hi Alex, Thanks for your reply. Yes soldering is not one of my best attributes. Woodwork, no worries at all. I've got by on my previous builds but hadn't struck this braided wire before on the previous pickups. When your talking about the red, white, green etc. I only had the one wire coming from my pickup. The braided wire with a black hot wire internal inside the braided wire.

Would you cut the braided wire away at pot length and pull it back a bit and solder that on?,....then leave the internal hot wire sticking out a lot to reach the selector?

And I don't think there is any difference in grounding to either pot?

I just looked and there is a Jaycar at Coffs Harbour, might have to drive up there early this week.

Then I can try and redo all this much better.

Thanks again, Paul PS, Purple Heart is very rare to buy these days also, and not cheap.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Seymour Duncan Vintage 1959 Blues Pickups

Yes, the purpleheart I got was from Gilmerwood in the US......but I practically get all my wood from o/s anyhow so I guess this is not making it any harder than any other species.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Seymour Duncan Vintage 1959 Blues Pickups

I have a 100 watt soldering that's meant for stained glass use. I love it for pot backs or humbucker covers because it melts the solder instantly. But I've found that it is too much heat for the delicate pot lugs and will destroy them. For those I use my 45 watt.

 

[Pauls_49]

Re: Seymour Duncan Vintage 1959 Blues Pickups

Hi Clint. My old soldering iron I have been using I used it for stained glass also (leadlighting). It was an expensive one at the time, has a thermostat in it, but probably to big and powerful for guitar wiring. As Alex suggested,I'll head up to JayCar this week and see if I can pick up a 40 watt. And try and fix up the problem I seem to have made happen.

Regards
Paul