Jazzer2020

Nice looking guitar! Mine looked similar, but a finer detailed gold top, not paint-looking and a one piece neck, different knobs. And of course it had the P-90 pickups. Around the time I sold mine I picked up a Squier strat. I've got a ton of guitars but only two solid bodies; the Squier and the SG.

Yes after it happened, I learned how common broken headstocks are on Gibsons because of the headstock angle. I like the SG's and bought mine because I was looking for a lighter Gibson guitar. I used to have an original 1968 Les Paul (original owner) but sold it years ago at a ridiculous price. The guitar was too heavy for me. Breaking the headstock was an interesting learning experience for me. It happened on a weekend and so I was in a panic because my regular luthier was closed until Tuesday! I couldn't bear to see the guitar in pieces, so I tried to fix it myself. Long story short, I managed to glue the neck back together and was surprised when all went well. It inspired me to get out my broken violin bow that I had snapped in two years before. I was also successful at gluing it back together and it plays and sounds just as good as before the accident. One interesting thing I learned was that the glue is so strong that if the neck or bow should ever break again it is almost certain it would be in a different location from the glued part!

It was the pot! So much for the spider wiring on the Volume pot. I swapped out the existing for a spare 500K I had hanging around from ages ago and it worked! Now I have to decide on a cap value and I should be good to go. My SG is circa early 2000's. It went through a traumatic experience early in its life when I decided to weigh it. I got out my scale and was intending on weighing myself with and without the guitar to figure out its weight. But things didn't go according to plan when I put the guitar on a stand next to the scale and a couple of seconds later watched the guitar fall forward and swing face down onto a tile floor! The neck snapped apart immediately near the headstock.

Thanks for the video! I checked the hot lead to ground. The hot lead does not go to ground! I did another test which I think has gotten to the root of the problem. I believe I somehow fried my neck tone pot. When I connect the neck volume pot to the bridge tone pot, it works. That is, I can control the tone of the neck pickup using the bridge pot! Would you agree with me that I have troubleshooted the problem?

Thanks again for your help! Here are a few observations that may give some clues to you. First I tested the hot lead without using the VOM. I simply disconnected the hot lead from the volume pot tab and no sound of course. Then I connected it and sound came through as expected. Then I connected the volume tab to the tone tab directly with a wire (no capacitor). Sound came through. Is this expected? Then I connected the volume tab to the 2nd tone tab directly with a wire (no capacitor). No sound. Is this expected? If this wasn't helpful or didn't give anything unexpected, could you please tell me what to check for specifically with the VOM. I'm not sure what to trace back and where to do it?

Yes something definitely seems to be shorting out. As I mentioned in my first post, before I did any soldering, I simply used alligator clips to test out more than half a dozen different caps. I did that SUCCESSFULLY. Meaning, each time I put the cap in the circuit I could turn the pot and listen to the effect of each cap, from 10-0. The caps were all working in the circuit. It was only when I soldered one cap in the circuit (also having soldered an attachment wire to the hot lead because it was too short) that I started to have this problem (the cap was not working). I tried your suggestion of using electrical tape on the tab ends but that didn't work. Is there a way I can test the connections using a multi-meter? I'm thinking of the switch, the pot leads etc. If I can't do that, I'm thinking of replacing all the pots and starting from scratch.

Here are some more photos. I made an interesting discovery just now (for me). I thought I had found the solution, but it turned out to just be a discovery. With a cap hooked up I was playing through an amp. There was no difference in sound, as I turned the tone pot. Then I moved the alligator clip to attach the cap to the other tab on the tone pot. Bingo! I thought. All of a sudden I was getting a very muted dark sound. But as I turned the tone pot, the tone remained the same all the time. So attaching the cap to one tab gave one extreme, and attaching it to the other tab gave the other extreme. That's all. (In the first two and last two photos I have desoldered some extra solder from the wire going to the volume pot, near the black cloth cover.)

Thanks. I know I can get dozens of wiring diagrams. I know the correct wiring for my guitar. What I wanted to know is if you could see anything obvious that was sticking out? A bad wire, solder etc. etc. I can see the other vol/tone pot, how it's wired. It's working fine. And I wired the tone cap in it (you can't see it in the photo).

Long story about how I go here... But basically I am trying to get my Gibson SG neck tone pot to work. A couple of days ago I was able to experiment with a bunch of different cap values. I simply hooked up the caps with alligator plugs and found the best sounding ones. I narrowed them down to two. Then when I decided on one I soldered it into place. But now it doesn't work!!! It's been frustrating. Obviously something isn't connected right, or the soldering was messed up. I unsoldered the cap and took a photo. Does anything look obvious from the photo? Last month I bit the bullet after trying to get my Gibson ES-175 wired to eliminate a pop/crackle and brought it in to a shop. They re-wired and put in all new parts. Ouch! Hope I don't have to to it again with this guitar.

Tung oil is what I have used several times to great effect. I have also applied mahogany finish and sanded that down to a fine finish. I don't remember if I put Tung oil on top of that.

Yes it could be vol/tone pots or bridge grounding. I was thinking along the lines of the pickup as the problem. Something else just came up that might be related... I was having a pretty good session now (as far as pops/crackles etc.) but I noticed my G string was not balanced volume-wise to the rest. I figured it would be an easy fix. I got out my screw driver and raised the pickup screw under the G string. I know they should be raised a fraction at a time because the volume change should be immediately noticeable. But that wasn't the case. The screw position went from being one of the lowest to one of the highest and there was hardly any difference in volume! Can these pole adjustments just "go" after time? Is there a fix for them? It would really be nice to get a good balanced volume across all six strings.

Well unfortunately I'm not out of the woods yet with this one. I swapped the output jack and though it seemed to fix things at first, sure enough with more playing the pops/crackles came back. So I tried swapping guitar cables and that didn't help. I have a suspicion where the problem might lie but want to wait until I hear from you folks first. By the way, just to let you know I'm not going crazy... I used the exact same amp and guitar cable with another guitar (another ES-175), and there were no pops/crackles whatsoever.

Could you please explain in layman's terms, what the difference is between an "enclosed jack" and a "jack enclosed in a shielding can"? Thanks!

"I'll need to get it out through the pickup hole (hopefully it will make it out the neck pickup hole, as the other hole was plugged a long time ago)."

It's not as bad a situation as it seems. I've worked a lot on hollow bodies in the past. No, I didn't buy it new. But that doesn't mean the jack was necessarily modified. 1. I will toss this jack for sure. 2. Sure it won't come out. It's a huge mother! 3. Given that the jack has to go, having soldered it to a wire wouldn't have accomplished anything in the end. 4. I don't have the best tools, but I always make do. 5. Yes, full tight. 6. So far I don't regret anything I've done with this guitar. But you didn't answer my main question. Would you cut the enclosed jack out or try to crack it open and get at the leads there? We're talking about saving maybe one inch or less of wire.