In the 'both pickups on' position, is the sound changing, or does it stay the same i.e you still only get the neck pickup? If you are unsure, tap each pickup in turn lightly with a screwdriver and you should hear a 'thunk' through the amp for each one.
The grounded screen of the yellow pickup input wire on the second photo looks like it would be very easy for it to touch the input lug on the volume pot and stop the signal.
You generally need to practice your soldering and think about how you connect the wires. If you don't use heat shrink to insulate the exposed screen wires to stop them possibly shorting out a signal wire when installed in the guitar, then adjust the length so that the screen wires are soldered directly to the back of the pots etc. with no excess free length, and have longer signal wires if necessary going to the pot and switch lugs.
Cut off any loose strands of wire left after soldering and try and keep wire lengths to a minimum.
You don't want any chance of the signal being grounded once you put all the wires in the cavity and put the back on.
It also looks like either your soldering iron isn't powerful enough to solder the wires to the back of the pots, or you aren't letting the pot heat up enough before applying the solder. It's forming blobs which are only really tacked on in a few places, rather then the whole mass of solder having melted properly and fully adhering to the pot. Lead-free solder isn't particularly easy to solder to large items like pots as it needs a high temperature to melt and the pot mass sucks away the heat, so you need something powerful to heat up the join before the heat has time to dissipate.
It's best to first clean the back of the pot to get rid of any oxidation, so rub with some P240 or P400 grit paper. Then always tin the back of the pot and the wires to be attached first. It then makes soldering them a lot easier.
Last edited by Simon Barden; 27-04-2022 at 05:58 PM.
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