When favors go bad

[MetalUpYerEye]

This thread is partially to vent a little about this situation and partially to see if you guys can help me figure out what i'm missing here.

A few weeks ago my brother asked me to do a 'favor' for a friend of his. Someone I don't know. The favor was to fix his guitar; an Epiphone SG Junior. The guitar originally had a dog-eared P90 (1 volume, 1 tone). Some time before it made it to my bench, someone took all that out and it had a Dimebucker (1 vol) with a coil split switch when it arrived at my house. When it got here the volume knob just spun continuously and the lever for the switch had been busted off.

I have a butt load of 500k pots lying around and a few switches as well so I figured i'd throw those in there and just have helped my brother out. A pot and a switch don't cost much so I didn't ask for any payment originally.

So I finally get the guitar open and pull all the old crap out and find out that the pots I have are too short in the shaft to work. I make sure that the guy is OK with it and I order a long shaft pot. I install the long shaft and one of the switches I had about a week later, once the parts arrived. The volume control does not function properly. At full on it is fine, but at full off there is still sound. Like half volume.

Now before anyone gets too into it, I have wired many guitars with 2 vol/2 tone, 1vol/2 tone, etc. with no problems. So I figure I must be missing something. After a break and going back to the guitar several times I finally look online for a wiring diagram. Every diagram I see has it hooked up exactly how mine is. All of my solder joints have been done and redone several times.

So I go in for another look this afternoon and go to flick the switch to humbucker mode as i'm plugging in to test it. The switch handle breaks off in my hand. And the best part? The effing volume control still doesn't work properly.

I checked the pot with my meter and all the resistances are where they should be. Right now I have the + from the pickup to lug 1, output from lug 2 to output jack tip, lug 3 to ground and input jack ring, bridge ground to ground.

And most of my hair is on the ground too. Because i've been tearing it out for the past 3 weeks over this stupid thing.

[trjones1]

A picture might help.

Have you tried using a different pot in the circuit to make absolutely sure that it's not your pot that's the problem?

[Gurner]

So what happens when you short the volume pot 'input' lug to the volume pot 'ground' lug - if you still get some volume out of the guitar, then it's not the pot ......but instead a poor ground (either from source, the guitar lead or something internal to the guitar)

[vendettav]

^ bingo that's what i was about to write 
anyways yeah either bad ground either a bad pot

[Hides-His-Eyes]

I'd look at star grounding it. You can imagine that some resistance between what the Pot has on lug 1 and what the socket thinks is ground would lead to sound when the pot is at the minimum of its rotation.

[birt]

i hate working on guitars like this. the ones that i always seem to get are guitars that have been messed with before and were never really repaired. you realize that after you've been working on it for hours...

good luck with yours! as said, check the ground connections.

[Galego]

I had that problem the other day, the CCW terminal of the pot wasn't making 0ohms resistance when the pot was at 0. I had to tighten the terminal where it's attached to the pot's board. I think it happened due to me overheating the terminal. Measure it with a multimeter, if it doesn't cut the sound completely, it's because the wiper is having some resistance to the ground connection.

[MetalUpYerEye]

I'm reading zero resistance to ground when the pot is full off. I used a bit of wire to connect the input lug of the pot to the ground lug and I get no sound.

So it seems that the pot is bad. The brand new pot. That I had to special order online for $13.

But if the pot is bad how can it be giving me proper readings?

[vendettav]

^ who knows... ? may be just try with the pot you have under your hand? the short shaft one, just to ee if replacing the current one doesn't work

[burningman]

What is taper of the volume pot you installed?
Have you changed the tone potentiometer and capacitor? If so, you may have created a more drastic filter.

[MetalUpYerEye]

It was the pot, as I suspected. I wired in one of the ones I have with the shorter shaft and it works perfectly.

So now i'm hosed unless I order another pot. I guess i'll have to exchange this one for a working one... At least i'm getting compensated for parts... 

[Galego]

Switch over the volume/tone pots. It wont make that much difference if you can't go to absolute zero in a tone pot.

[MetalUpYerEye]

There is no tone pot. Originally there was, but whomever worked on the guitar before swapped it out for a coil split switch. So it had 1 humbucker, 1 volume, 1 coil split switch.

Both the original pot and original switch were broken so I replaced the switch with one of mine and now its broken too. This is just really irritating because now i'll have wasted 2 switches and 3-4 hours of my time effing around with this thing trying to do a favor for someone I don't even know.

Now I have to order another long shaft pot online for another $13 and wait another week and then i'm gonna eat the cost of that because I told the 'customer' that it would be $20 for parts. I can't return the one I have because i've taken it apart trying to figure out what was wrong with it and I don't think they'll accept it for a return. Unless someone knows how I can swap this long shaft into one of the working short shaft pots I have... 

I like doing nice things for people but I think this is it for me. No more freebies. 

[vendettav]

eh that sux man, you could may be talk to the dude and say some circumstances changed so you'd need additional money for that? (not the best way to go but ...)

[edvard]

He's probably not going to want to spring for a bad pot either.
You've learned your lesson, no more freebies.

As for putting the long shaft pot in your short shaft body, it's possible.
I've done it before, different situation though.
Are they the same brand and or the parts the same size?
Give it a shot...

[Hides-His-Eyes]

Complain to wherever you bought the pot from and see what they say. Sometimes they won't even want to waste the cost of you posting back a broken part when it's of no use to them, and will just send you a replacement anyway.

[zambo]

you should tell the owner what you went through to fix it and be real with him. If he coughs up the dough then cool, if not bummer. If he has a soul at all he will understand and offer to pay with a chuckle im sure. I was a in store luthier ( for lack of a better word) and was surprised at what people did when offered the real story of the journey to fix it land. my 2 cents. good luck.

[Paul Marossy]

And the moral of the story? Don't do any favors for friends or friends of friends!!! 

Sorry to hear of your woes trying to be a good guy and help out someone. That's the way it goes sometines. 

[MikeH]

No good deed goes unpunished. 

[Hides-His-Eyes]

I think the real moral here is if you get a fishy part send it back!