TL-1 (Factory second)

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Originally Posted by peterh

Hey Doc, I'll pick up a new set of feeler gauges tomorrow. I have a set of my dad's old ones marked 6 to 32 but I don't know if thats hundreds of an inch or something else. That measurement of .020" - is that on the open strings or when pressing down on the 3rd fret?

On another note, I put all the wiring together tonight and ..... it makes a hell of a buzz. I've had some conversations going on another thread about pickup wiring and I thought I understood what I should be doing but obviously not. The volume is working fine - roll it back and the buzz decreases, roll it forward and it gets louder up to a point and then it gets pretty quiet right near the top end. I tried tapping the pickups with a screwdriver to see if anything was working and I might have been getting something from the bridge pickup but don't think I heard anything from the neck pup.
I'm wondering if I still misunderstood the grounding of the copper shielding. I used the outer braid from a piece of wire as the ground from the bridge, soldered it to the copper in the cavity and then soldered it to the pot case. Should I have used coated wire instead of bare mesh?
Here's a couple shots of the control panel wiring. Yeah... it's a bit messy but I haven't soldered much lately. All the connections are solid as far as I can tell. Anything look totally amiss?
Attachment 10760Attachment 10761

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Yep, the measurement of .020 inch is on the open strings, it's Fender's standard specification for all their Strats, Teles, and other six-string guitars, except Basses, I think they use a different spec on their Basses.


I get a similar buzzing issue with my strat, when I did the bridge-grounding I soldered one end of a piece of insulated wire to a suitable point on the back of the volume control, and the other end was soldered to the trem-spring claw on the back of the guitar body, since you have a Telecaster style guitar, you just use a piece of insulated wire to ground the bridge to the volume control as per how I did with my strat, but instead of soldering the other end to the spring claw, you just strip about an inch or so of the insulation off the end, twist the strands together, and then put that underneath the bridge plate before attaching the bridge with the mounting screws, to check if you have properly grounded the bridge you can use a multimeter set to low ohms, you should see close to zero ohms if you touch one multimeter probe to the bridge and the other probe to the sleeve connection on the output jack.



There's at least four possibilities for no sound from the neck pickup, the neck pickup could be open-circuit, there could be a bad solder-joint, or a bad pickup selector switch contact, or the neck pickup could be short-circuited somewhere.

I tested the bridge ground with my analog multi-meter but I'm not sure whether the reading is right or not (I inherited the meter from my dad, didn't come with any instructions). When I set it for 1 Ohm and touch the 2 probes together I get a reading of 20, I get the same reading when touching the top of the bridge and the outer sleeve of the jack. I'm guessing that that is correct? I get the same readings also, when I test the neck ground wire in the cavity and the outer jack sleeve. It seems that the buzzing gets worse as soon as I touch any metal part on the guitar. Not sure what to look at next. Guess I pull all the wires off and try again.

I think the diagrams I've been looking at (Tonerider is one of them) must be for a different kind of 3-way switch because it shows the bridge connecting to the lugs closest to the volume pot but that circuit isn't in operation unless the switch is in the forward position, which would make sense to be the neck position. So.... I totally disconnected the bridge pup for now and put the neck pup on the rear most switch lugs. The buzzing is still there, but I get sound out of the pup when I tap on it with pliers. Tomorrow I'll try hooking the bridge pup up again and see if I get any sound from it. Maybe I've got a bad switch.

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Originally Posted by peterh

I tested the bridge ground with my analog multi-meter but I'm not sure whether the reading is right or not (I inherited the meter from my dad, didn't come with any instructions). When I set it for 1 Ohm and touch the 2 probes together I get a reading of 20, I get the same reading when touching the top of the bridge and the outer sleeve of the jack. I'm guessing that that is correct? I get the same readings also, when I test the neck ground wire in the cavity and the outer jack sleeve. It seems that the buzzing gets worse as soon as I touch any metal part on the guitar. Not sure what to look at next. Guess I pull all the wires off and try again.

I think the diagrams I've been looking at (Tonerider is one of them) must be for a different kind of 3-way switch because it shows the bridge connecting to the lugs closest to the volume pot but that circuit isn't in operation unless the switch is in the forward position, which would make sense to be the neck position. So.... I totally disconnected the bridge pup for now and put the neck pup on the rear most switch lugs. The buzzing is still there, but I get sound out of the pup when I tap on it with pliers. Tomorrow I'll try hooking the bridge pup up again and see if I get any sound from it. Maybe I've got a bad switch.

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Usually, those Analog meters are set up so that if you select the 1 Ohm range, it should read 1 Ohm with full-scale deflection, assuming that the battery in the multimeter is a fresh one, did you make sure to zero the meter before you did the test?, zeroing the meter issimply touching the two probes together and adjusting the Zero knob till the meter needle sits over the Zero mark on the scale, the reason why you do that is because the meter probe leads contribute a small amount of resistance to the reading on the meter so Zeroing the meter nulls out the extra resistance of the leads, I think if you are getting a reading of about 20 there's a good chance that you have continuity between the meter probes, the reading would be much higher if there wasn't continuity.


With my Strat, I get the opposite effect, the hum tends to get reduced if I touch the bridge while the guitar is plugged in, I'm sure that the grounds in my guitar are all good, so I reckon you might have a grounding issue somewhere, if you don't get sound with the bridge pickup installed you can de-solder it and use your multimeter to check if the pickup is open-circuited, to do this you switch your multimeter to the highest resistance range, say X10k or X100k, zero the meter, and then touch one meter probe to one of the wires of the bridge pickup, then do the same for the other probe, an open-circuit pickup will be indicated by an infinite reading on the meter scale.

Please post a pic of your output jack connections, buzzing when you touch any grounded metal is often a sign the the jack connections are reversed. Also, the switch is a different type to what you see in most diagrams so it connects differently. If you are unsure about your connections post images and we'll walk you through it.

Doc, the multi-meter tips were very helpful. I calibrated the meter, and using the 10x setting, I found that the middle lug on the volume pot, which has the hot wire going to the output jack, shows continuity (reading 0 on the meter) and I'm pretty sure it shouldn't. I'll pull the wire off and try a new piece - maybe there's a nick in the cover that's shorting the ground wire to the hot wire.

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Originally Posted by peterh

Doc, the multi-meter tips were very helpful. I calibrated the meter, and using the 10x setting, I found that the middle lug on the volume pot, which has the hot wire going to the output jack, shows continuity (reading 0 on the meter) and I'm pretty sure it shouldn't. I'll pull the wire off and try a new piece - maybe there's a nick in the cover that's shorting the ground wire to the hot wire.

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Was that with the Volume knob rotated fully anti-clockwise?, if so that would be normal, if on the other-hand you get a reading of 0 on the meter where the Volume knob is rotated fully clockwise that would possibly indicate that you have the Volume control wired up back-to-front, or if you get a reading of 0 no matter how the Volume control is set then you might have a short-to-ground on the output jack or somewhere after the Volume control.

Umm..... to be honest, I never even thought about how the volume knob was rotated. I guess I assumed that there shouldn't be any connectivity shown between any hot wire and ground but I'll do another check today with the knob rotated in both directions.
I totally missed WeirdBits post last night (I blame the solder fumes) - I'll post a pic of the output jack later this morning after coffee (priorities).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by peterh

Umm..... to be honest, I never even thought about how the volume knob was rotated. I guess I assumed that there shouldn't be any connectivity shown between any hot wire and ground but I'll do another check today with the knob rotated in both directions.
I totally missed WeirdBits post last night (I blame the solder fumes) - I'll post a pic of the output jack later this morning after coffee (priorities).

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With the Volume control pot, the solder lug that's at the most anti-clockwise position of the pot shaft rotation (assuming you're looking down the shaft towards the pot) needs to be connected to ground, the other solder lug gets connected to the pickup switch hot connection, and as you know, the output is taken from the middle wiper solder-lug of the volume control pot.

Scott comment is a LIKE +1. :)

i even built a reversed jack and output as a quick tester to 'correct' my misdirected soldering the second time i did it. I'll be surprised if that isnt where its gone wrong.

Okay I SWEAR I checked it twice before I soldered it, but I guess the trick is to check 3 times or else don't do it at midnight :p
There it was, laughing at me, once I finished my coffee......backwards, you idiot.
On the plus side it sounds so quiet now ;)
Attachment 10779
(yes, that's all black dog hair in the background - time to vacuum I guess)
Intonation is pretty decent after adjusting the saddles but the low E is still a bit sharp on 12th fret.
Now it's time to strip it all down and do the pickguard holes and put the final coats of TO on then polish it up.
Just in time too - new puppy coming on Friday so I may not have much free time for a while.