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So I'm close to finishing my first guitar, but I'm finding I'm somewhat lost when it comes to the wiring. I've been reading up on how to go about it but my last experience working with electronics was probably back in junior high school.

My guitar has 2 humbuckers, and I was originally planning to have 2 tone controls and no volume but I cannot find any electrical schematics anywhere for this kind of setup - only 1 vol, 1 tone. Is it breaking some rule I'm unaware of to have 2 tone with 2 Hbuckers? I would like to have something like this because I always just leave the volume at full on my strat and adjust on my amp anyway.

Also I'm still not sure what values of pots I should be using - I have a 500 and 250 but would go buy some different values if they would sound better. Also how do you know which (lugs?) on the pots and 5 way switch do what?

I've read some people use the bridge as a ground? I can't really get to the bridge in my guitar, could you use a screw that is mounted inside the wiring area or something as a ground?

here are some images of what I'm working with:





any guidance is greatly appreciated.

Volume pots shouldn't matter. I built guitars with a simple on/off switch. Use 500K pots for humbuckers. The bridge should be grounded if at all possible.

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Cool guitar!

For your setup, use a 500K pot for humbuckers.
Wire your pickup lead to lug 3 of your pot, then continue on to the switch.
The .020mf cap is connected to lug 2 to then to ground.
Not a bad primer here: http://www.guitarnucleus.com/wiring.html

Ditto on grounding the bridge, and also run a ground wire to connect the pots.
To do this, sand the back of the pot, tin it with some solder.
Solder in the tinned cap lead to the puddle on each pot.
Solder in a tinned wire to the puddled join the two pots together.
Solder the bridge ground into one of the puddles.

James,

Quite often we get asked questions about how to build some wacked out off the wall guitar. We usually never hear from those guys again. You actually took the advice given completed your research and built a relly cool looking guitar. Big time kudos too you!

Robbie has got you covered on the wiring. Just thought I'd point out that you are not using the bridge for a ground, you are grounding the bridge to the electronics. In the picture, it looks like bridge pickup ring is right up against the bridge. you can loosen the bridge and slip the end of a wire that you have stripped about 1/2" of insulation from under it and then tighten the bridge back down. Run that wire under the pickup and into the electronics cavity and solder it to the back of a pot. Grind a small relief cut in the pickup ring for the wire and put it back together.

Steve

Thanks for the information guys, Started work this week so haven't had much time to think about this this week. I might try to spend some time on it this weekend.

Hi again
So I've been playing with the wiring thanks to your guys advice and have gotten some results, but it is not working 100% yet. Thanks Robbie for the link to guitar nucleus that really helped me understand more of what is going on.

Right now I have it playing on my amp in only position 1 and 2 on the 5 way switch - all the other positions are silent. I am a little confused about the lugs on the 5 way switch still. The tone pot that I have designated as the neck is the only one that seems to make any difference in sound. I also tried attaching lug 3 of both of the pots to their own caseing through ground wires but that seemed to kill the signal. See the image below for how I have it setup atm.



here are some different ways I tried attaching the 5way switch


I just realized that on the stewmac site it says that white is normally the + and black is the ground so sorry if that is a bit confusing.

The 5 way switch is overkill for what you are trying to do, unless you are wanting to do coil splitting with the humbuckers or have a 3 pickup arrangement, with a straight two pickup situation a 3 way switch would be better.

However you may be able to make this work with some jumpers between the lugs.
Use a multimeter or a rigged up continuity meter to identify which of the lugs are connected to the outlet lug in the various positions and that will determine where you hook up the pickups.

The wire from the pots to the switch should be attached to the same terminal as the green wire from the pickups. One leg of the capacitor should be attached to the centre terminal and the other to ground.

You may just be able to use the front 3 positions on the switch for neck, neck and bridge, bridge, instead of neck, neck and middle, middle.