wiring problems

[bobbio]

Hi,
I have installed scn pickups in my strat and have wired it correctly as far as I can tell. The problem is that the tone pots are not working. The volume works fine but no tone change. Anybody got any ideas about what's going on? Could it be a bad capacitor? I did install a treble bleed capacitor. Think this could be the problem?
Any haelp will be mucho appreciated,
Thanks,
Bobbio?

[Paleo Pete]

I have installed scn pickups

scn pickups? Sorry but not something I recognize. I'm familiar with Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, EMG, Bill Armstrong, but scn doesn't ring any bells.

Have you swapped out any of the volume or tone pots? And what are the values of the pots and the capacitor? I have a similar issue with my old Harmony, I swapped the cap trying to get more treble from the guitar and the first couple worked great, I got a bit more treble as I changed values, but still not enough. Then I went one step further (in capacitance) and it gets enough treble for me now but the tone control no longer works. That's not an issue for me, it got me the tone I was after and I never use the knobs anyway.

So I'm wondering if you used a cap of a value that somehow cancels the tone pot similar to the way it happened with mine. Cap values usually range .022 to .047uF. Single coil pickups normally use a 250k pot. (Fender uses 250k pots and .02uF caps)

Good info on wiring [url=http://www.1728.com/guitar.htm]Here[/quote] you can use their diagrams to check your wiring and see if you got something backwards, and of course it's too late now but I never touch the wiring in a guitar until I grab up my digital camera and take a dozen pictures of it from every angle with the original untouched wiring. Then I have the original to refer to after I dig into it.

Double check your wiring, make sure you don't have a drop of solder touching both contacts on a pot, and that everything is soldered well. If you try any changes, change one thing at a time to avoid confusion. And I can't see your soldering job, are your solder joints nice and silver and shiny or lumpy gray and dull looking? If lumpy and gray you have cold solder joints, not good...(Sorry but I have to ask, I have no idea whether you know how to solder properly.)

And google for "guitar wiring" or "pickup wiring" and you'll get tons of sites similar to the one linked above, I was amazed just how many different pickup/switch/pot/cap configurations were available when I first looked it up. I still use the standard strat wiring.