HSS strats problem

[lightingboy]

So im trying to re-wire 2 old HSS 1v 2t strat. Bought new pots, waxpoted my pickups, and already did QTB on one of them, next one i'll do over the weekend. 

My question has two parts: first how would the wiring go if i wanted to have tone control for every pickup? Since i don't have any tone control when using the HB pickup. And can it be done with the traditional 5way switch? 

Currently i have a 5 way switch with the following positions:

1 bridge H
2 bridge H (autosplit) + middle
3 middle
4 middle + neck
5 neck

My wiring diagram looks like this (dont mind the miniHB, i have a full size on mine)




Second part of my question is on the one where i already did the QTB mod (it has almost the same wirirng as above but with the QTB mod), it sounds good, but the neck position (5) yielded no sound, and yesterday everything died on me except position 1 (HB).

[JohnH]

Hello and welcome to GN2. I alao like HSS Strats.

On the tone question, when you have an HSS with autosplit, the second half of the 5 way switch is dedicated to that, and so it cant help with selecting tone controls.

In a normal SSS Strat, this connects the tone pots at each position according to how its wired, and you can have all positions with tone control. The tradition was to have them on N and M only, but modern SSS Strats often do B/M on one and N on the other tone pot, or B and N/M.

But when the second half is not available, then the tone pots have to be hard-wired to the pickups, as they are in your diagram. So you can pick any two to have tone control. I think a better choice is to have them for N and B, which will also pickup up the adjacent combinations N+M and B+M, but M alone will have no tone pot. It also avoids dulling the N+M sound by having two tone pots active there.

To get tone control on all, you can either:
Lose the autosplit (its still a good quacky sound with B+M, just a bit thicker), then wire like an SSS
Have a master tone control direct to the volume, and one dedicated to something else - a neck/bridge blender is a good option
Get a more complex 5 way switch, such as a superswitch

On the second question/problem, its too hard to tell, youll need to isolate the problem. If you have a multimeter, see if, when the guitar is in a dead state, is the output shorted to ground (probable short to the shielding), or is it very high resistance (probable bad or failed connectio9n)

[reTrEaD]

Aug 22, 2014 14:25:51 GMT -5 lightingboy said:

Second part of my question is on the one where i already did the QTB mod (it has almost the same wirirng as above but with the QTB mod), it sounds good, but the neck position (5) yielded no sound, and yesterday everything died on me except position 1 (HB).

Let's divide the symptoms into two parts and see what they point to.

1 - No sound in position 5 (neck).
That suggests a continuity problem with the neck pickup. Were it a short in the neck pickup, you would also have no sound in position 4. Possibilities:
1a - Failed connection between hot (white) wire of neck pickup and switch.
1b - Failed connection between cold (black) wire of neck pickup and common.
1c - Damaged switch preventing connection of neck pickup in position 5.
1d - Broken wire inside neck pickup.

5 - Everything dead except position 1.
That suggests a short between the middle pickup hot and ground. Perhaps between the tab on the selector switch where the middle pickup is connected and the shielding foil? I suggest removing the pickguard screws in the area near the switch and lifting the pickguard slightly to see if the sound returns in the other positions.

[lightingboy]

Thanks a lot to both JohnH and reTrEaD, for the tone question i decided to go and connect tone pots to the B and N leaving M without as JohnH proposed and it works really good. 

As an update I'm almost done solvin the other one, I rewired it according to this handy diagram, the only difference being that i relocated the middle tone to control the bridge (where the blue wire shows in the diagram)



Buuuuut since these guitars seem to hate me, now when i select either B or B+M positions i get a really REALLY low volume, if i get it at all. First i thought the switch was making contact with the shielding so i covered it with some black tape, but it still doing weird things. It seems that it gets full volume in those positions every time that it pleases...and that is really weird. What i have noticed is that when i get full volume and i play for a couple of seconds then the volume starts to drop till it is really low. 

Any ideas as to what could be causing it?

For the record, my bridge pickup is brand new. And I checked the other two and they show proper resistance in my ohmeter. 

[newey]

What i have noticed is that when i get full volume and i play for a couple of seconds then the volume starts to drop till it is really low.

It does this only in B + M and in Br alone positions?

What you're describing sounds like an intermittent fault, if it's good sometimes and then low at other times. Something is getting jostled about as you play it, and then it begins making contact somewhere it shouldn't.

It's devilishly difficult to troubleshoot these sorts of faults over the web. For starters, go back and double-check all of your solder joints. Wiggle connections a bit, and maybe hit 'em again with your iron if in doubt.