Washburn G-JRV (G-Junior)

[ehaataja]

Yeah, I thought that diagram was posted earlier in this thread too. Must have gotten deleted. It looks simple enough, but in my hand drawn diagram, that is exactly how I have to capacitor wired. I was told that was wrong.

[dnic]

No the cap was/iOS wired to the left lug. And in this diagram they also have the right lug of the tone pot grounded. That's how the are getting the cap to ground. There are a lot of ways to wire guitars. The most common is the way I explained it to you in that other post. The wild card here are those pickups. That's why I suggested using this last diagram. It's how your guitar came from the factory.

[ehaataja]

Ok fair enough. I will study it a little closer. There must be something I am not seeing that's confusing me.

[ehaataja]

Ok, so what I currently have is the cap being soldered from the left lug on the volume cap to the center lug of tone cap. The only difference I can see that the right lug of the tone cap is grounded to it it's own body. On my setup the right lug of the tone cap is grounded to the body of the volume. So grounding it to itself will make the difference? I don't get it, but I will do it if that will make it right.

[ehaataja]

Ok. Completely and totally lost again. I wired it EXACTLY like the green picture posted on page 3 even though that wiring seems to contradict much of what you guys were telling me, and now the guitar doesn't make a peep. This one might be too over my head. I'm starting to think the wall decoration might be the only possibility, because I do not comprehend a single thing about this wiring stuff. Thanks for trying guys. Maybe I'll give it another go someday when I'm done being pissed off.  Or maybe I could put it back to the way it was in my blue diagram that I made.  At least one pickup at a time worked that way.  Better than nothing.

[dnic]

Ok right now the green diagram clearly shows the cap wired to the center of the volume pot. And the tone pot right lug wired to the case.

Is it posible to have a local tech take a look at it?

Yes the green diagram is different from the way I told you to wire it. But the green diagram is the stock wiring diagram. So I suggested just going back to that way of wiring.

[ehaataja]

Yeah, I was all pissed off when I wrote that last message. People are irrational (and sometimes hostile) when they are pissed off, and I am no exception to that rule. So, I apologize for my tone on that last message. So, yeah, it's time to start over and figure this out. So, I don't know any technicians off the top of my head, but I have been working at an electronics factory for 10 years, and this place employs around 1000 people at my location, so I am very sure I could find someone local to help if I tried. I am very close to reaching that point. There are technicians and electronics engineers there. Many of them. I work the afternoon/night shift, so I will start putting my feelers out there later today.

So, yeah, the stock wiring diagram (the green one) is exactly what I was going by last time, so I put both red wires from both of the single coils as the hot wires and soldered the white wires in with the grounds. That might be the problem. Maybe your suggestion of taping off the red wires and just having a two-wire system might be worth a shot. Maybe the pickups are afterstock? Unlikely, but possible.

[ehaataja]

There was a major downsize event at work today, where about 80 people got fired for no particular reason (that has been made public knowledge). I did not ask a technician for help with this today. Asking for help just did not feel like the right thing to do today. Maybe next week. I am going to take the guitar apart yet again. There is something I don't like about the finish. When you look at it at a steep angle, it looks like there's little bumps sticking out of it. I gave it a double coat of clear coat with the intention of sanding and polishing, but it looked so good straight on, I thought I would leave well enough alone and skip the polishing. I changed my mind. It's time to polish. I'm going to make this thing look sweet. It already looks really good, but I tend to be a perfectionist. I want to make some good-looking covers for the pickups too, but very thin so they don't interfere with functionality. I will get it sound good too. eventually. Definitely need to do some learning.

[dnic]

Good luck with the finish! Go slow

[ehaataja]

I got it back together and working for the most part, but the 2nd and 4th position still don't work right.  I think I've narrowed down the problem to the switch itself.  I can live with it for now.  Each individual pickup works well and sounds really good in my opinion.  This picture probably won't look much different to you, but up close I can tell you that this thing looks freaking cool.  I give myself an A- on the paint job, because there are a few flaws that I can live with, but it looks really nice overall.  Both of the pots are brand new, but after I got them, I quickly realized they were designed for a Stratocaster.  I modified a 1 inch spade bit to very carefully make the wood thinner at the mounting locations, and I made them work rather than returning them and waiting for new ones.  So, for electronics and overall functionality, I give myself a C, but I will continue to work on this until it is 100% right.  

The green original wiring diagram did work for the most part.  I just switched the red and white wires around, and then it worked.  I tried to tape off the red wires at first, but they did not work at all that way.  When I had the red wires as my hot wires, I have a feeling this would have worked fine, but I probably had something else wrong or backwards.  It sounds good.  It looks great.  I'm happy.  My overall self-grade is a B for now. I'll still make it better.  It needs new machine heads too, but they are kind of expensive for decent ones.  I wouldn't want to cheap out on those. 

I appreciate your guys help and advice.  I would have been lost without that factory diagram you provided.  Antares posted it via link initially, then DNIC posted it again.  Sorry I don't remember names so well.  Sorry I got a bid moody for a while.

The pickups are all trashed because I was careless with a dremel getting some rust off, so I made some very thin pickup covers that should look nice.  They are in my garage drying right now.

[dnic]

COOL, glad you got it going. Sometimes they can be challenging. But you stuck with it, good for you.

The paint looks great!

I'm sure everyone that chimed in was happy to help. I know I was.

[ehaataja]

One more quick picture.  Here's the pickup covers installed.  I made them out of a plastic lid from coffee can.  The glue didn't want to stick to plastic at first, so I sanded and primed the glue side.  Now it seems to stick just fine.  Some people claim that these things slightly affect the sound, but logically that doesn't make any sense to me.  It sounds the same to me.  I realize this is kind of "ghetto", but I don't really care.  It looks better than gouged plastic.  

[GuitarAttack Forum]

The guitar looks great and glad you are able to play it. Interesting technique on the pickup covers.

I'm still focused on that Epiphone! lol

John

[ehaataja]

Thanks John. I ended up figuring the out wiring 100%. It was the middle pickup being out of phase with the other two. I kinda/sorta learned what that means. The humbucker is wired with white as positive and the wrapped wire as ground. The neck is white as positive and the red AND wrapped wire as grounds. It's the middle pickup being opposite the other two that makes the whole system work. The middle pickup now has the red wire as the positive and white and wrapped wire as grounds. And the five-position switch has two points of contact on opposite sides from one another, so I soldered wires from one side to the other, for insurance in case of short circuits in the distant future. I am sure there are 50 other ways I could wire it, but it's working good, so I'm leaving it alone. The pickups covers and my ghetto cover technique.... well.... it worked I guess. Like I said, it's better than gouged plastic, which would be fine if I was going for the relic look, but obviously I was not going for the relic look on this one.

[dnic]

That's great news. ROCK ON!