Jag Wiring Nightmare

Constantine

I am wiring a Jag from scratch and I followed the diagram in "guitar Electronics for Musicians" which has always been really reliable as a source and accurate. I also compared the diagram to Fender's as well as other on the net such as this one:

I used High quality copper shielding in all the cavities and linked all the cavities together with grounds and ohmed all the grounds out. I checked all the pots and caps/components prior to assembly and all tested good (I have an LCR bridge to test the caps and even the pickups).

I have built many guitars as well as a Jazzmaster before and I understand the basic circuit and the neck preset business. However on this one the problem is when I switch in the neck preset in everything dies. The neck preset tone pot just makes some weird clicking sounds when you roll it back and forth but other than that nothing....... no guitar sounds whatsoever. Also when I switch the middle swith in the lower switch plate to the down position I also get no guitar sounds whatsoever. I am thinking there is an short lurking somewhere in the preset.

I have had another person with good wiring sensibilities trace the wires and they see no mis-wiring.

With both pickups on (humbucking) or when the guitar is in the master control setup the guitar sounds killer so I am really excited to get it finished!

Anybody have any other ideas??????

Thanks in advance,

GP

Do you have a multimeter? Best way of checking for shorts/miswiring. If it has a 'continuity' checker incorporated (the digital ones often do), even better.

If you don't have one, cheap digi multimeters cost next to nothing and will do the job.

Spitfire

It could be something shorting against the cavity shielding, have you tried plugging it in with all the control plates out of their cavities?

Failing that check with a multimeter set to ohms across the two poles of the jack socket. If the needle reads zero this will indicate a short.

Fran

Spitfire said: It could be something shorting against the cavity shielding,

I had that problem with my Jazzy. It took me ages to spot it.

Constantine

Thanks for all the help, it was a leg on one of the preset pots just barely touching the shielding of the cavity cutout.

The jag wiring seems complicated but it is the simple things that get by you.

Thanks again, The guitar is playing nice and now I can do the final setup!

Spitfire

Yep, it's usually something simple.