Basic Guitar Wiring Question

[Oliver Garretson]

Hello all. I am working on my second build and have gotten to the wiring phase but have no experience working with electronic wiring. I am following this basic diagram from stewmac: http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/i-1217/1217_1802.gif (it is for a two humbucker les paul style setup; one volume pot, one tone pot, w/ a 3-way switch.

I want to make sure I have the right idea regarding a couple things that are troubling me ( I am doing a series or standard wiring)...please tell me if I am wrong

If using a 4 wire humbucker pickup with this setup I should take the north finish and the south finish, solder them to the appropriate place on the three way switch for both pickups (as one wire).

then, take the south start, the bare ground and the north start and run them to the volume pot, where the north start will be soldered to the input of the volume pot. The bare ground and south start will be soldered to the bottom of the volume pot (as one wire)

Also a general question: when soldering wiring to the back of a pot should each wire be connected via its own separate bead of solder? or should all the ground wires be soldered into one mass?

Thanks for any help y'all can provide!

[David King]

Don't bother trying to solder to the back of the pot if you don't have a big 100W soldering iron or station. Just let the pot get grounded to the shielding foil via the serrated washer. Or solder to the serrated washer if you have to.

[John Catto]

I just use a regular solder pencil to do pot backs. The main trick is to use a scalpel/box cutter blade etc. to scrape the back of the pot first. They seem to coat or plate them with something that inhibits soldering. This is an issue with Alpha pots but not CTS if I recall.

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

Oliver,
I assume you mean the coils in each pick up are in series. If so, then the finishes are tied together, one of the starts goes to ground, the other to one side of the switch. I say this with authority because I just went to the Seymour Duncan website. I'm not sure what the results will be if you do what you've said.

http://cdn.seymourduncan.com/pdfs/suppo ... _codes.pdf

I just try to follow the manufacturer's instructions and b the third or fourth pass I get it right.

[Oliver Garretson]

My understanding is that you can wire a 4 wire humbucker in series or in parallel. Though I don't have a preference as I don't know much about the difference.

I appreciate the help Joshua, it sounds quite logical. Also, thanks David and John.