Golden Age Hotwired Pickguards.

Michaelmsg · #1 12-10-2013, 10:22 AM

Recently I built my second and third electric guitars. I did not want the hassles of wiring everything so I just went ahead and purchased the Golden Age Prewired Pickguards for strats available from Stew Mac. These are supposed to be good quality setups with the only hook ups being the output jack and the ground on the tremolo claw.

Both instruments have been put together and I am having issues. On one of them the volume works when it is turned up to 10 but by the time it reaches 9 the volume is gone, basically the volume knob is an on/off switch. The volume is off or its on and that's it. I am also getting no tonal differences from the tone controls. When I turn these knobs I hear no changes in sound.

I have removed one of the pickguards to make sure that none of the lugs are touching the conductive paint that I placed in the cavity and they are not.

I have a call into Stew Mac but technical support only returns calls between 12 & 4.

Any thoughts on what might be causing this?

Something I will also add is there are no ground wires soldered to the back of the tone pots and the wiring is not exactly like any of the other strat diagrams that I have seen but the wiring is identical to the photos of the wiring of these pickguards on Stew Macs Website.

muscmp · #2 12-10-2013, 12:22 PM

if it has a non-standard wiring scheme, you are at the mercy of stew-mac.

play music!

terrapin · #3 12-10-2013, 12:41 PM

Does sound like some kind of odd wiring scheme, or, someone miswired at StewMac...........Where are the ground wires from each pickup wired? They should be to the back of one of the tone pots, usually the upper pot? I can't find a decent picture of how they wired the guard on their site, so hard to help? Both guards are doing the same thing? Very strange! I bet the solution will end up being a simple one.

I just found the StewMac wiring diagram and it is weird to me? All grounds soldered to the volume pot and NO direct connection from Volume Pot to Tone pots? Never seen a wiring like this?

Michaelmsg · #4 12-10-2013, 01:42 PM

Here is a link to the page with the picture

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electron...l?tab=Pictures

The ground wires from the pickups are soldered to the back of the volume pot along with the output ground and the tremolo claw ground.

By looking at the switch you can see that the selector tab on the inside is touching the circuit board of the selector in the same spots on each side. Sorry kinda hard to explain with out actually showing. But the diagrams that I have seen show a jumper wire from the far left lug on one side to the far right lug of the other side that goes to the volume pot.

As I mentioned earlier though there is no grounding wires on either of the tone pots. There are wires like this on the schematics/diagrams. It is a shielded pickguard with the small piece of PSA silver foil tape adhered to the back side of the pickguard, maybe they are using that to "ground" the pots. I don't know if that works or not but it is the only logical explanation that I can come up with.

Sorry I have not taken the time to figure out how to post photos yet on this forum. Hopefully soon I will be able to have some spare time to figure out how to upload them.

Thank you for your thoughts.

terrapin · #5 12-10-2013, 01:49 PM

Here is their wiring diagram:

http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Elec...s/i-5422.html?

It seems very weird to me, but there are ALOT of ways to do this. To my eye there is a ground wire missing from the tone circuit back to a volume pot lug? The foil tape on the back of the guard does nothing for grounding the Tone pots.

THIS is what I am used to:

http://www.millerguitar.com/images/w...trat_style.jpg

jonfields45 · #6 12-10-2013, 02:03 PM

They are using the foil on the pickguard for the tone ground. If the first tone pot, or volume pot, gets loose at a gig, you might have intermittent tone controls. Seems like an acceptable risk, but not how I would wire it. All you need to do is add a ground wire from the first tone pot (center of the three) to the volume pot. Jon

terrapin · #7 12-10-2013, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonfields45

They are using the foil on the pickguard for the tone ground. If the first tone pot, or volume pot, gets loose at a gig, you might have intermittent tone controls. Seems like an acceptable risk, but not how I would wire it. All you need to do is add a ground wire from the first tone pot (center of the three) to the volume pot. Jon

This sounds right! I would bet this wire wilkl solve the problem. I NEVER heard of using the foil tape INSTEAD of the direct ground? I would try jumpering in a short wire like jonfields45 said and see if that works. It is a more stable connection.

jonfields45 · #8 12-10-2013, 09:04 PM

Using the foil for all the grounds is exactly how Fender built Strats in the early 70s. I had that problem (playing a high school dance with my high school rock band with my almost brand new Strat) only worse, because there was no common ground point for the strings, pickups, and output jack. They used the back of whatever pot was closest to solder a ground wire. If the right pot got loose, and it did, no sound. I ended up soldering a ground line between all three pots, which would not hurt in this case either. Jon

terrapin · #9 12-10-2013, 09:38 PM

It just seems a very unwise way to do the job???

Michaelmsg · #10 12-11-2013, 12:12 AM

I agree it is an unwise way to deal with this issue. I am waiting for an actual conversation with tech support at stew Mac before I move forward though. They did try to call me back today but I was in the dentist chair when my phone rang. It is a little hard to talk on the phone when you have two hands in your mouth. Funny how the dentist always tries to carry on a conversation with you when they are working on your teeth. I always get a chuckle out of that.

I will update when I know more. Thanks for your help.

Michaelmsg · #11 12-11-2013, 10:49 PM

Stew Mac called me today. They will be shipping me two new pickguard set ups to exchange out with me.

Talk about good customer service.

I will update when I have new info.

Thank you to all of you who chimed in

MBE · #12 12-12-2013, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michaelmsg

Stew Mac called me today. They will be shipping me two new pickguard set ups to exchange out with me.

Talk about good customer service.

I will update when I have new info.

Thank you to all of you who chimed in

Glad to hear it! They've always had excellent customer service in my experience and I'm glad they address your issue quickly.

Having said that, I believe the technical issue other people noticed in this thread (relying on the foil for ground) is one that I've discovered on some strats I've had in the past, so I always add a dedicated ground wire.

Michaelmsg · #13 12-13-2013, 09:59 AM

I received another call from tech support at Stew Mac. He wanted to see if he could delay another day to actually install the pickguards to make sure they were functioning properly before he shipped them out. He stated that he was having issues with getting consistent readings with the multimeter. I discussed the addition of ground wires for the pots with him and he did not see an issue and thought it might be a good idea. I thought about adding it to the ones that I already have like many of you have mentioned but I did not want to take a chance of them not exchanging them.

Thank you again for your assistance. I will update when I know more and try to figure out how to post some photos.