Weak neck pickup

J

Jnewt90

New member
Hey,

I've switched on my Les Paul this morning and found that the neck pickup is around half the strength it was yesterday.

I've opened up the back and checked all solder points and they're very secure.

Check the switch to ensure that full contact is being made and it is.

I used a multimeter and found that I got a reading from the bridge but not the neck.

I would have assumed however that with no reading on the neck there would be no sound at all?

I'm a bit bamboozled so could use some guidance!

Thanks in advance,

Josh
 
Can you update with gut shots of the wiring? I know nothing should have changed but still could help with identifying the possible issue.

Have you done continuity and ground checks?

Does it look like one of the vintage braids has shifted and ground could be hitting a hot terminal?

Did you check the output jack connection?
 
It’s odd I cut an inch or so of the braided wire off and rewired/soldered incase there was a short between the braid and cloth (due to soldering iron contact) and it worked…but 5 minutes later the volumes dipped back to half.

Shit show of a cavity though and apologies for the bad pictures but it’s hard to get the angle right.

It’s a second hand guitar so I think I’ve inherited some issues!
 

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To clarify the pics - braided wire of the pickup is grounded to the side of the pot - hot wire is soldered to lug 1 - switch (white wire) is soldered to lug 2 along with the tone cap - lug 3 grounded to pot.

Volume pots are push/pull but I’ve not bothered with this function.
 
The white cable going to lug 2 is stripped back too far and can move and touch lug 1, jumping lug 1 and 2 together.

The braid on the bridge pickup ground is barely on top of an old blob and not actually soldered, but that does not affect the output, which is probably rectified by what I mentioned above.
 
Just so you know, you could also just have a faulty pot, but doing all of the wiring can't hurt.

Most likely, if wiring is fine, they may have messed up the CTS pot when they soldered some of the other eyes in it wrong and couldn't figure out how to fix it.


The CTS push/pulls are very easy to mess the little wiring slots on the front for that function. Have you removed them and looked at the wiring there as well? Easier to replace anyway.

Dude I have wired so many guitars and the HB in split mode are almost never ever used and when they are, they are never super great or anything.
 
What lends more to my "replace the push/pull pots" advice is that you can't split those pickups anyway with vintage braiding and a single lead like that, you need 4 conductor.
 
Thanks for your replies!

Yeah I hate these pots to be honest as there’s not much room to ground, just the sides.

I’ll try and put some electrical tape on the white wire but at this point I’m thinking I might just take it to a tech. I’ll hate admitting defeat but I’ll likely make things worse!

Thanks again for your time
 
Jnewt90 said:
Thanks for your replies!

Yeah I hate these pots to be honest as there’s not much room to ground, just the sides.

I’ll try and put some electrical tape on the white wire but at this point I’m thinking I might just take it to a tech. I’ll hate admitting defeat but I’ll likely make things worse!

Thanks again for your time
Click to expand...
Why take it to a tech man? Spend $30 for new pots and get to wiring.
 
There is nothing to "mess up". You have some vintage braided wire with a lead, some pots with caps. I can send you the 50s wiring scheme you are using currently and when the new parts come in, just wire it all up.
 
Btw, if you haven't already ordered pots - I dig the 550k ones from Atlantic Custom Guitars. They have LP sets and such.
 
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