Les Paul bridge grounding issue

[59PAF]

I read these forums regularly and I've learned so much from all the experts on these forums. Obviously, I haven't learned very much because I am having a PINTA grounding issue.

I changed pots and pickups in my Les Paul and I am having a bridge pickup grounding issue. When the braided wire touches the volume pot the pickup goes dead. I have no problem with the neck pickup but I can not figure out what is causing the bridge pickup to ground out. Any help would be appreciated. I attached a photo so maybe someone will see the problem. Thanks

 

[Juan Wayne]

Shielding should be ground, and so should be the back of the pot, so one of them is touching something other than ground thus shorting the signal to ground.

That wiring looks far from tidy, and at least one of those loose hairs on the shielding seems to be touching the middle lug of the volume pot. Might be seeing it wrong, but I'd tidy up the whole thing either way.

 

[Cjsinla]

Cut the extra wire off the caps. The cap on the neck volume pot looks as if the wire lead reaches all the way to the bridge tone pot.

 

[lakeburst]

Wow that pic .... I'm absolutely no expert, but in this case, I would unsolder everything, clean that dark hole and rebuild it from scratch - step by step. To success!

 

[moreles]

That wiring looks far from tidy,

That's an understatement! The whole wiring harness is a disaster, and if you trace this problem it will not alter the fact that the entire wiring job is full of areas where other shorts can occur. The point of wiring is to have a reliable circuit that disappears as a concern and you can count on it to work so you can play. Sorry to be critical, but that's as bad a job as I have ever seen. No biggie -- practice makes more perfect, and responsible owners redo work until it is right. That's how we all learned. LP wiring is easy.

 

[59PAF]

Shielding should be ground, and so should be the back of the pot, so one of them is touching something other than ground thus shorting the signal to ground.

That wiring looks far from tidy, and at least one of those loose hairs on the shielding seems to be touching the middle lug of the volume pot. Might be seeing it wrong, but I'd tidy up the whole thing either way.

Thanks for your reply. I saw the capacitor lead in the photo touching the pot and took care of that after I took the photo. Tried to edit and upload another picture but wasn't able to edit. I was going to cut the capacitor leads when I finished.

Yeah, its pretty untidy job. It's embarrassing to say how long and how much money I have spent reworking and replacing components. This isn't my first time either. I have always had a difficult time working on Les Paul's. My Stratocasters and Telecaster work looks really good.

Last night I was thinking that the grounding issue could be in the switch on the bridge side because I have made and replaced two switches. The neck pickup works fine considering the look of the braided wire. I had previously extended the bridge pickup lead which could possibly be the issue. I have a set of SD 59 pickups and sometime today I will install the bridge to see if I end up with the same issue. If I do, would you think the switch is the problem? I hope it's not the switch because I do not want to rebuild another one.

 

[59PAF]

Cut the extra wire off the caps. The cap on the neck volume pot looks as if the wire lead reaches all the way to the bridge tone pot.

I did cut the cap leads. I was going to cut them when I finished. Thanks

 

[59PAF]

Wow that pic .... I'm absolutely no expert, but in this case, I would unsolder everything, clean that dark hole and rebuild it from scratch - step by step. To success!

I agree. It's a train wreck. If I can get the bridge ground fixed I will definitely take up on your suggestion.

 

[59PAF]

That's an understatement! The whole wiring harness is a disaster, and if you trace this problem it will not alter the fact that the entire wiring job is full of areas where other shorts can occur. The point of wiring is to have a reliable circuit that disappears as a concern and you can count on it to work so you can play. Sorry to be critical, but that's as bad a job as I have ever seen. No biggie -- practice makes more perfect, and responsible owners redo work until it is right. That's how we all learned. LP wiring is easy.

It's a total disaster. I should have been too embarrassed to upload the photo. I am a perfectionist, and never would I ever settle on a job this bad. This is not my first time installing pots and pickups either. My work usually comes out nice and clean. This has been a psychological nightmare. The problem always starts when trying to troubleshoot a problem in the wiring. That's when my problems begin. Solder, unsolder, replace a pot, blah, blah, blah. I have been online to find out how to troubleshoot guitar wiring issues and I did learn some things but haven't found how to use the multimeter to locate issues in the switch. Maybe you can help me on that one. All this has cost me a lot of time and money and it's ridiculous and it's just four wires. Last night it crossed my stressed out brain that the bridge grounding issue may be in the switch on the bridge side. If I ever conquer this nightmare I will post my finished work.

 

[59PAF]

No need to apologize or feel embarrassed for your ''poor soldering skills''! Most of us have learned after many years of practice, burned fingers and many still learn. It's already difficult to solder, let alone in a small, deep hole, trying not to damage the rest guitar.
Back to the topic, if you still have issues, it's better to undone and redone the whole thing, instead of hunting witches and try to guess what's wrong.

Thanks. I will clean it up and start over.

 

[Juan Wayne]

Thanks for your reply. I saw the capacitor lead in the photo touching the pot and took care of that after I took the photo. Tried to edit and upload another picture but wasn't able to edit. I was going to cut the capacitor leads when I finished.

Yeah, its pretty untidy job. It's embarrassing to say how long and how much money I have spent reworking and replacing components. This isn't my first time either. I have always had a difficult time working on Les Paul's. My Stratocasters and Telecaster work looks really good.

Last night I was thinking that the grounding issue could be in the switch on the bridge side because I have made and replaced two switches. The neck pickup works fine considering the look of the braided wire. I had previously extended the bridge pickup lead which could possibly be the issue. I have a set of SD 59 pickups and sometime today I will install the bridge to see if I end up with the same issue. If I do, would you think the switch is the problem? I hope it's not the switch because I do not want to rebuild another one.

Dude, don't beat yourself up over this. You came here looking for help to make yourself better. And most of us have done way worse anyway, but we learned by doing it over and over.

Besides, what's the point of not asking the questions? It's like the old proverb, "[...] It's dumb to ask, cool to ignore [...]"... alright, that was Blink-182, but solid wisdom nonetheless.

Now like others said, I'd start over. Test for shorts (especially braids to inside wire and the switch, which it's be hard to point out for sure) while it's all disassembled if you can. I've learned over the years that troubleshooting blindly takes more time than doing it all over, at least when it's a simple circuit like this.

 

[integra evan]

Your immediate issue that is causing the short is the outside braid on the wire on the back of the bridge volume pickup is also touching the lug(s). When you clean everything up, make sure you cut the outside braid back enough so that won't happen.

 

[Big Monk]

I’ll throw my $0.02 in here.

Do you have a multimeter? In a Les Paul, I always start with the switch. Get yourself a wiring template board to mount components on. Heat and use a solder sucker to remove the solder from the switch connections. Use pliers to get your middle lugs firmly together.

Make your switch connection with your braided lead hot wires. Then run a wire from The switch ground lug with exposed wire to wrap around all three leads and solder that in place.

I would ditch the buss wire connecting to tone pots. It’s not necessary (they are already connected through the switch ground) and it allows you to work on Bridge and Neck controls independently and outside the cavity.

Again, use a solder sucker and open up all the lugs on the pots so you can cleanly place wires and reflow. Also, move the braid connections off the pots. For Bridge and Neck, do the same thing as you do for the switch: Wrap a single bare wire around both braids and then make a single connection to the pit casing.

Make sure you have solid connections from the ground tabs on the pots to the case. I usually take pliers and bend them so they just touch and use the minimal amount of solder possible. This goes for all connections. Use the minimal amount of solder to ensure a reliable connection.

Lastly, I like to extend the ground wire from the tailpiece and wrap it around the braid wire for the output jack, which further allows connections outside the cavity. Just shrink wrap the braid that runs to the jack and you’ll be good.

Hope this helps.

 

[Big Monk]

As an example of my above post, this is probably my cleanest wiring on a Les Paul I’ve ever done and it’s in my current #1;

 

[59PAF]

As an example of my above post, this is probably my cleanest wiring on a Les Paul I’ve ever done and it’s in my current #1;

View attachment 578275 View attachment 578276

That is very clean job. Looks great.

 

[59PAF]

I’ll throw my $0.02 in here.

Do you have a multimeter? In a Les Paul, I always start with the switch. Get yourself a wiring template board to mount components on. Heat and use a solder sucker to remove the solder from the switch connections. Use pliers to get your middle lugs firmly together.

Make your switch connection with your braided lead hot wires. Then run a wire from The switch ground lug with exposed wire to wrap around all three leads and solder that in place.

I would ditch the buss wire connecting to tone pots. It’s not necessary (they are already connected through the switch ground) and it allows you to work on Bridge and Neck controls independently and outside the cavity.

Again, use a solder sucker and open up all the lugs on the pots so you can cleanly place wires and reflow. Also, move the braid connections off the pots. For Bridge and Neck, do the same thing as you do for the switch: Wrap a single bare wire around both braids and then make a single connection to the pit casing.

Make sure you have solid connections from the ground tabs on the pots to the case. I usually take pliers and bend them so they just touch and use the minimal amount of solder possible. This goes for all connections. Use the minimal amount of solder to ensure a reliable connection.

Lastly, I like to extend the ground wire from the tailpiece and wrap it around the braid wire for the output jack, which further allows connections outside the cavity. Just shrink wrap the braid that runs to the jack and you’ll be good.

Hope this helps.

I will do what you stated in your post. Thanks for taking the time to write out all the info.

 

[Ninja1195]

For what its worth guitar wiring (especially tight locations such as LP's) takes ages to make super tidy and clean. I have probably rewired at least 100 Strat's in my day and easily 30 plus LP's for both myself and clients.

Strat's are super easy given the access but every time I do a LP I use an old metal tremolo backplate (with four exact holes drilled) as a template. Everything save for the last two braided wires is soldered OUTSIDE the guitar.

Makes for a super easy job and clean too.

A good trick on braided wire is to take a metal screwdriver pick (I have a nice Snap On mini screwdriver set) and "unbraid" the jacket kinda like undoing a girls ponytail. I then cut it clean and lightly tin the jacket where I will ground to the pot. I keep a good 1" away from the hot wire as well.

I too would honestly ditch that whole nest and start fresh right down to new pots. If a client brought me that and insisted that I reuse the pots, I would decline.

Keep at it! Practice does indeed make perfect!

 

[Burty459]

Evening, I feel your pain. I have just done my first Les Paul and I ended up re wiring the whole thing. When complete I still had an issue where the bridge pickup worked but the neck didn’t. In the end I removed the pot, cleaned the whole thing up, checked the bottom of the lugs where they wrap around the board and started a fresh. Worked fine afterwards, I also noticed that there was some of the shielding braid touching onto the lug. Easier said than done in that black hole but I found using a set of long tweezers really helpful. Good luck with the tidy up