The build is done with just a weird glitch to troubleshoot. The pickups work when the pickguard is out, but once it’s positioned and screwed down the neck pickup doesn’t, well, pick up. It’s the selector switch, as when forcing it a bit it works. But it behaves perfectly when taken out of the guitar body. I did copper shield the cutouts - earthing issue somewhere?
I got it working, installed and then plugged into some pedals. Then it cut out again and now is back to only working on bridge nad middle pickups.
Do I just replace the switch? Everything seems solidly soldered though and once again, it wolks when I take it off the guitar…
I know very little of electronics so here’s my not-so-educated guess. My idea is that you have something in your circuit either being cut short or connected to earth when pressing down the pickguard? I would test with some plastic foil in between
Yes, I’ve been wondering whether one of the pickguard screws is piercing the copper shielding anywhere and earthing incorrectly? But electronics is not my thing. It’s the on/off operating that’s got me flummoxed! I’ll try removing the shielding and seeing what happens, I think.
Hi Scott, it does sound like an intermittent fault for example one or more of the connections may be touching the shielding as you re-fit the switch to me it does sound like an easy fix so check it out again before you start buying gear, take all the pickguard screws out lay the guitar down flat and lift as you play a string see if it comes and goes I have testers so its easy for me but just take your time and try any probs giz a shout Cheers Hec
I think this is the way. keep the strings on and remove like 1 screw at a time, while playing in between until you have narrowed down the problem area. Always disheartening when you get to the end of a project and cant find the one fault to fix.
Good luck!
I’d be betting on the switch contacting the copper as well. The screws have nothing at all to do with electrical contact problems outside of them holding something down.
I’d take out the screws near the switch and lift up and see if it ‘fixes’ the problem. If it does come back, then you will need to take off the pick guard and see what is touching. The copper tape is soft and you should be able to identify the contact point. Maybe you have a wire sticking down or you chose a switch that is a little too tall for the cavity?
Another option is that you are breaking a wire somewhere. did you break a solder joint on one of the pickups wires or at the switch when you put the pick guard in place? I had to carefully scoot the wire into position before my pick guard would sit flat. Since things work again out of the guitar, this is not the likely problem.
The other thing I can think of is maybe the copper tape is lifting to contact something. I consider this a pretty low probability, but if you have some copper tape that lost the sticky while applying it, it could happen. For this, it is most likely under the switch or around your neck pickup.
yeah, my thoughts are either that something is touching what it shouldn’t when you secure the pick guard or that something is breaking connection when you press down the pick guard.
You could probably experiment with the pick guard off so see if you could isolate the location of the fault. and then once you get there, figure out if it’s an unwanted contact or unwanted loss of contact.
I once had the same issue after I replaced pots in my Les Paul. I vote for unwanted ground connection mentioned by @sequences, @LievenDV and @DeltaTyne.
Your pick selector switch looks to be attacked to the pickguard, so I’m wondering if the contacts in the switch are not touching your grounding shield and that’s killing the signal?
It may pay to isolate the switch’s contacts with electrician’s tape just in case. If those pins contact the ground in the shield, you’ll hear nothing indeed.
Huge thanks for the comments from @heckler@JackPK@Mustela and @sequences It’s my Saturday morning project. I suspect the copper shielding is the issue. I will investigate and report back. And yes, the pickguard screws themselves are unlikely to be the cause, but maybe they are the last pressure on the switch, pushing it that half mm too far! Thanks again - this is such a supportive community!
Like most,
I’d suggest there’s a short circuit somewhere…
I’d just try to either isolate everything that might touch and then.
leave it if it works
or if that doesn’t please you, isolate anyway, and then take of step by step, checking in between in the problem still persist, so you find where exactly the bad connection is.
During my strat build, I did have issues with things touching the copper shielding. Before doing the shielding, I read about the pros and cons of shielding. The commonest cons about shielding a strat, that I read in forums, is that either the instrument cable plugged into the jack touches the copper shielding, in which case nothing works, or that one or more of the wires soldered to the switch touch the copper shielding on the base of the cavity. I had the first of these problems but it sounds to me like you most likely have the problem with a switch wire touching the copper shielding.
I hope you sorted it out.
Beautiful strat, by the way !! Lovely colour of the stained wood and cream pickguard. Looks very nice indeed.
Thanks for the advice. I’ll get to it this weekend. Hopefully it’s the switch touching the foil when it’s at the neck pickup position. Should be easy to check with some insulation tape!
I’ve been playing with different finishes and treatments. This is a cobalt blue wood dye finished with yacht varnish. My favourite so far is Tru-oil. I tried Tung Oil but it really doesn’t harden well. I tried spraying but don’t have the equipment or space to do it properly. But Tru-Oil is pricey to get here in Europe. There’s another gunstock oil I tried called Balinoil (or something like that!) but it’s thinner than Tru-Oil and doesn’t have the same kind of finish.
Bingo! A strip of electrical insulation tape under the soldering attachments to the switch. There was an indent in the foil covering - when the pickguard was screwed down, it was just enough to make the bottom of the switch make contact with the Faraday cage. Many thanks all who commented!! Now working perfectly. (Well, intonation’s not quite right, but I’ll get there!)
I believe heckler has the right problem. I had the same problem on my build. pickup leads at switch were contacting shielded cable causing it to go to ground.
