I recently modded my Strat with a wiring setup in homage to jimmy page, with a mini-humbucker at the bridge that has a single coil tap on the push/pull volume pot and a reverse phase on the push/pull tone pot [the 1st one from the strings] and a telecaster style neck pickup with a neck on switch on the 2nd push/pull tone pot.
as a bit of a newbie to this it took be about a month to perfect the wiring diagram i drew up from mounds of research. when i was happy with it i i got my bro to help out with soldering it all together.
for some reason when i plug it in i get no sound [it's not my amp i know that for sure although it is buggered to hell as it makes a horrid hissing noise]
i've checked everything and all seems fine i can't think of any reason why it doesn't work.
i can only think of a tiny tiny little bit of stray wire, that i can hardly see, that isn't in contact like the rest.
or i burnt out a pot... but i don't know what a burnt out pot looks like; does it literally burn up? do the contacts melt inside? does it smoke up like mad?

SO!
can someone please tell me what may be wrong

Are you sure everything is grounded??? Do you have any pictures of the pick guard before you put it back together???

There's a brilliant wiring specialist that hangs around these forums and should be able to provide you with some help if he reads this topic. His name is Martian and he knows alot about wiring up pickups and mods like this. And yes clear pics and a diagram of what you have done will be very helpful. Hang around and he should pop in. There are several other Strat doctors around here too that should be able to help. This sound a bit to complex for my simple mind.

Russ

Yea, it's FUBAR! :shock::shock:

Seriously, let's see what we can deduce before you POST PICTURES!

"...when i plug it in i get no sound..."

Obviously, that's an outright short somewhere either caused by a crossed wire or wires or a missing wire or wires.

"...i can only think of a tiny tiny little bit of stray wire, that i can hardly see, that isn't in contact like the rest..."

Aside from its intended terminal, provided it isn't in contact with anything else or has the potential of making contact with anything else, it is irrelevant.

...i don't know what a burnt out pot looks like; does it literally burn up? do the contacts melt inside? does it smoke up like mad?...

Pots really don't smell, per se. If a pot looks all burned up on the outside, inevitably, it is burned up to some degree if not all, on the inside. Yes, the contacts and harware inside melt. No, they don't smoke like mad but I guess if one kept a soldering gun on a pot long enough, it very well could.

Now let's see those pictures!

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You dig?

Russ, thank you so much!

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You dig?

HEY I CAN JUST PLAY THEM,but guys like MARTIAN,NIKININJA,ZZDOC And a few others are very impressive with there knowledge of getting behind that pickguard and a bunch of other things with moding and wireing.I am a lot of things but mechanicaly inclined is not one of them.I have to say it is interesting to sit back and just read some post of how creative some of you guys are .KEEP ON ROCKIN

I am by no means an expert on wiring, but have rewired a few Strat copies in my life thus far (I have to admit I'd never try to rewire an American, or Custom Shop Strat for fear of messing it up).

I highly recommend going to a web site like Stewart Mac, DiMarzio, or SD and reviewing their wiring diagrams if you have not already. You may want to consider using a new pickup selector switch (one typically found on a Super Strat). Stewart Mac has one specifically made for HSS config and it has detailed instructions on how to wire it.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Components:_Switches_and_knobs/1/Megaswitches/Instructions/I-3484.html#details

That might be a better option than going with the push pull volume pot. BTW humbucker might sound better with 500k pots ... it depends on what kind of sound you like though.

It stinks to have to remove the strings and waste a perfectly good set. I keep around a few sets of cheap strings just for testing after I make a change. I am sure somebody else has a better trick to test things (like using a multi meter).

Good luck!!!

I'll be the first to admit, I'm somewhat anal about checking my work. Whether it is a new wiring or a troubleshooting task, first, I'll check all of the components visually, audibly and lastly, working them while connected to the appropriate meter, thus ensuring they are functioning properly; and as applicable, within tolerance of their individual specifications. If a component is bad, it will be caught in this process and replaced with me repeating the whole verifcation process on the replacement component.

I'll then proceed to do the wiring.

If it is a really complex task, I MAY check it in stages but the overwhelming majority of the time, I do so upon completion.

My first check is to lightly tap the coils as I put the components through their paces and listen. I do this with the guitar still apart. If everything checks out, I'll button it up and test it again the same way. Once it has passed to this point, I'll put one of the old strings back on the guitar and then do a the final check. At any point in this process, if something is amiss, I'll again use my eye and/or ear to pinpoint any error, omission or component failure as over the years, I've oftentimes found that this is quicker to pinpoint than using meters. Premising the malady still eludes me at this point, it is then that the meters come out again.

I know many will call this whole system of mine, "redundant", but I like to call it, "fail safe". As we used to say in the infantry, "You never want to pay twice for the same real estate."

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You dig?

+1 for Martian... he knows his stuff. I NEVER put anything back together without checking it first. You close it up, something will be wrong every time , guarenteed.

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For setup help you could go here - http://www.fender.com/support
For a guitars build date, try here - http://www.guitardaterproject.org/

i'm going to upload some pics of the actual job with some pictures of the wiring i came up with as well as some of the stuff i worked from to work all this out.
i'll try and get as many angles as possible

A few stray thoughts on soldering ... and maybe you know this already, apologies if I am restating the obvious. To get the job done quickly and avoid burning up components:

- use a variable temperature soldering pen and use the right temp
- use flux
- on a new surface, you may need to rough it up a little to get the solder, wires and components to stick (like grounding to the bottom of a pot). A little sand paper comes in handy. It seems to me that soldering to the back of a pot is a big pain in the backside to get the solder to stick unless you are using flux and\or roughing up the surface.

From my own experience, it is difficult to mess up a capacitor, or pot, but then again I am no expert and have not done a lot of instruments.

I have checked and this is exactly like what I've done

[i have noticed that one of my capacitors has just popped off so I'll resolder that after sanding the surface a bit <thnx for the advice> of course this is somewhat irrelevant]

apologies for the ridiculously sized images

i think that the contacts on the volume may have gone a bit limp from heat and popped off the rail thingys inside but i can't really tell by eye because it's a real doozy to look inside with the switch attached to it, i have tried to do what Martian mentioned [by ear he said] so i had a careful listen to the pots as i twisted them i.e so i can hear wether the contacts against the raily things.
forgive my terminology but i don't know what the correct terms are, all i know is that pots work just like dimmer switches [shortening or lengthening a circuit, decreasing or increasing the output]

again forgive my terminology

P.S u may notice i used Powerpoint to draw these up... I couldn't get anything else to do the job

Man, that was confusing! I actually have a small headache and I don't usually get headaches! I've spotted several errors and omissions already. Not being able to see the entire illustration at once only makes it worse.

A few examples: You are trying to phase the bridge pickup but you've permanently grounded it. Thus, when you throw the switch, the pickup will short out. What brand of pickup is it? The color coding of the wires may be incorrect for killing one of the coils (per your switch's wiring). The neck/middle tone switch is wired to where it literally does nothing; you do not have the jumper wire on the toggle which links one side of the switch to the other and then both to the volume (hot). This is only some of the stuff I saw so far. Plus, by your own admission, you have connections (the capacitors) falling apart. I must presume you haven't fully mastered soldering yet.

I commend you for your initiative. Many so called, "professional techs" wouldn't or couldn't accomplish this custom job even if their lives depended on it.

"Well, ah-ite, Omm gunna make you an offa you can't refuse butduh I wanna lil sumpin in retoyn, capisci? Dis is it":

Take some time and truly learn how to solder on some scrap components. It should only take you one sitting. There's instructions here and all over the web to assist you. Once you've accomplished this and as time permits, I'll help you through this wiring from start to finish.

"So, waddaya say, we got an undustandin' ah what?"

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You dig?

well the capacitor popped off when i was removing the scratchplate... twas just the one of them and it was only the bit that was stuck on the outside of the pot--- that was a boo boo as I should've of checked stuff before but my enthusiasm as everything was going right overcame me...
I myself did not do the soldering, that was my brother who has a fair bit of experience with soldering... so the thing popping off was my bad
i will revise my phase thingy... just to be clear an out of phase humbucker refers to one pickup being out of phase with the other
the pickups are Irongear pickups a Jailhouse Rail at the bridge, a Pig Iron in the Middle and a telecaster style Neck pickup at the Neck [of course<got it off of eBay from a shop called chguitars the rest came from axetec.co.uk]
i have used a Pig Iron Bridge pickup for the middle, yes, but only to balance it out a bit because the the other two are 13k and 11k Ohm

i forgot to add on that the pickup selector already has the center wheels [the bits inside it clicks around] for tone and volume bridged together so 4 and 5 already work together

i do apologise if my amateuristic vocabulary aggravates anyone but I am raised in England thus so I am a poncy little retard... not that England is a bad place...

ahem

i do value your time, athank kyou


moving on...