Tone Pot Help - Telecaster

[drd07]

Sorry for the cross posting between forums, but this situation is making me crazy.

I just finished (refinished) my tele in inca silver. Looks great, BUT I'm having tone control problems (standard wiring). I've swapped out all pots and the switch, but I'm still having the problem. My problem is:

The tone control works when the bridge pickup and middle position is engaged. However, it doesn't work when the neck pickup is selected. When I turn the tone knob when the neck pickup is selected the volume drops somewhat, but not all the way off (slightly muffled, but more of a weak signal). Also, in the middle position, with both knobs fully on, I feel like the neck pickup is a bit weaker than the bridge.

I'm completely at a loss. Does anybody know what the issue could be? This is making me nuts! I followed the seymour duncan diagram BTW.

[David Collins]

A broken coil, or occasionally a cold solder joint at the pickup's coil wire / eyelet joint could match the symptoms you describe. In these cases the pickup can still put out some signal, though it would typically be more trebly and weaker than normal. This does cause the tone to act more like a volume for that pickup though, and also make the neck comparatively weak in the middle position.

If you have a multi-meter this is easy enough to check.

[cc9cii]

Is this the diagram you used? Is your wiring exactly like that? (I assume your wiring of the switch is slightly different, since most switches look slightly different) Are you able to post pics of your wiring, in several different angles?

[drd07]

cc - that is the diagram I used and followed it exactly.

David - Thanks for your input on the pickup being messed up. I'm going to unscrew the neck pickup and give it a look at. How do I test it with a multimeter?

Thanks guys..,.

[drd07]

Unscrewed the neck pickup - still no luck. Here is an image if anybody can figure it out.

[mellecaster]

Please don't take this the wrong way...but that's one of the worse Grounds mess I've ever seen...Sorry....

[cc9cii]

Originally Posted by drd07

Unscrewed the neck pickup - still no luck. Here is an image if anybody can figure it out.

That image is a bit too blurry to see what's going on. I can't see which wires are connected to the lugs of the tone pots, nor can I see which wires are connected to the lugs of the volume pots.

Can you see which of the switch lugs are the 'common' ones? They extend to the semi-circle conductor so that it is touching it at all times.

[drd07]

Phew! I got it figured out! Thanks for the advice everybody. It turned out that the neck pup went bad somehow. I got a replacement and all is good now!