Help with wiring and soldering AV Jaguar

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Lachristus
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Help with wiring and soldering AV Jaguar

Post by Lachristus » Wed Jun 22, 2022 11:24 am

I've been away from electric guitars for a decade, but have recently felt the need to get back to it which has led me to a purchase of a 2006 AV '62 Jaguar. I've always had a crush on the Jaguar so now it the time! The guitar has been modded with 250k pots, the soldering is sloppy and the switches has been molested so it in need of some TLC to be brought back to it's original glory.
It is my first time going into the cavity of a guitar and doing work there, but I feel fairly confident about this endeavour and I have time to go slow about it. I am however looking for any bits of advice on how to proceed properly. Any tips on the soldering process and wiring process? Jaguar seems more fiddly with the cables going through the body - what is the best order/way to do this? I've been looking at different diagrams - which do you prefer? I'd appreciate if someone would show me pictures of their circuits and the wirings (I feel like I would be helpfull with a actual photo to go along with a diagram).

I've purchased Fender Genuine 1M Pots for the lead circuit and orange drops to replace all capacitors. The rhythm circuit still has the CTS 500K and 1Meg pot that it came with and the soldering looks clean.

Any advice is appreciated.

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timtam
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Re: Help with wiring and soldering AV Jaguar

Post by timtam » Wed Jun 22, 2022 7:14 pm

Welcome to OSG !

Does your jag still have the brass shielding plates ? If you wish to mimic Fender's wiring approach with those (pic below), distribution of grounds to pickups and hardware is quite different to wiring without plates. If you do have plates there is nothing that says you must wire them as below. You could just ground the plates independently (for their shielding role) and wire grounds to pickups more directly. It probably depends on how the existing mods have been wired, and also whether you really want to start from scratch.

The orange drops will make things more difficult in the small cavities as they are much bigger than the usual caps (and make no sonic difference). Ceramic or poly caps are much easier work with.

BTW the stock rhythm circuit tone pot is 50k not 500k.

Have you done any soldering before ? If not it would be good to practice on some scrap components first. My approach to wiring of any significant complexity is to take the wiring diagram and write out a text list of all the point-to-point connections that need to be made, and then tick them off as I solder. Soldering just from the wiring diagram is more likely to miss something.

Image
"I just knew I wanted to make a sound that was the complete opposite of a Les Paul, and that’s pretty much a Jaguar." Rowland S. Howard.

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Lachristus
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Re: Help with wiring and soldering AV Jaguar

Post by Lachristus » Wed Jun 22, 2022 9:32 pm

Thanks for the welcome and response. The diagram you supplied is also the one I have on the top of my list, for a beginner it is the most clear.
Dang it with the orange drops, I’ll see how bad it is, and if it doesn’t go down easy capacitors are luckily cheap! The pot rhythm pot is obviously 50k :fp:
The brass plates are indeed there, and I plan on leaving the grounds soldered as they are now if the soldering looks solid.
Would you recommend taking the circuits of from the body and pulling wires to be able to solder away from the body. Or does it make sense to leave cables running through the body and solder ‘on’ the body, but obviously protecting the body with cardboard or cloth or tape?

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Lachristus
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Re: Help with wiring and soldering AV Jaguar

Post by Lachristus » Wed Jun 22, 2022 9:33 pm

And I’ll practice soldering on the mangled switches :ph34r:

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MattK
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Re: Help with wiring and soldering AV Jaguar

Post by MattK » Thu Jun 23, 2022 12:06 am

Soldering tips - make sure the things you want to join are already touching (i.e. don't solder something which will spring apart when you let go, otherwise you'll wreck the joint); Wipe the soldering iron tip on a wet sponge so it's bright and silver before touching the joint. Heat the larger thing first (e.g. back of the pot), and make sure the joint is nice and hot before touching the solder to it (don't bother with lead-free, it's not a pollution risk for a couple of joints, and lead-free is harder to work with). Use a flux core solder and feed it onto the iron tip while you're holding the tip on the joint, there will be some smoke so ventilate. Feed it on till you get a shiny silver bubble, then remove the solder followed by the iron. If nothing moves you will get a nice shiny (and reliable) joint.

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timtam
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Re: Help with wiring and soldering AV Jaguar

Post by timtam » Thu Jun 23, 2022 6:53 pm

For jag bodies with tunnels between cavities (as yours likely has), those do create an issue for wiring. So if you were starting from scratch, how much can you do before you actually have to run the wires through the tunnels .... after which subsequent work becomes a bit more difficult/constrained ? On the plus side, there are separate control/switch plates for each cavity, that can initially be wired in isolation, with the tunnel wires left unconnected to their endpoints until last.

But in your case, assuming you're not starting over from scratch, you can just unscrew/solder each control/switch plate in turn, leaving the cavity-interconnection wires in place.
"I just knew I wanted to make a sound that was the complete opposite of a Les Paul, and that’s pretty much a Jaguar." Rowland S. Howard.

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Norrin Radd
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Re: Help with wiring and soldering AV Jaguar

Post by Norrin Radd » Wed Jun 29, 2022 7:21 pm

Lots of great advice above. I second NOT using orange drops. There’s already a lot going on inside a Jag and sooooo little room. I would solder as much stuff that is local to an area before connecting any of them - if that makes sense. And for sure - get the good solder. It makes the job a ton easier!

One last thing I forgot - if you can get the colored wires - do it! I just got done assembling my 1st Jag and am so grateful for the colored wire (that matches the diagram above).

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MattK
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Re: Help with wiring and soldering AV Jaguar

Post by MattK » Wed Jun 29, 2022 8:27 pm

Also cloth wire is both vintage correct and easier (you just have to push the cloth insulation back rather than strip it off). They used to sell kits on eBay with the right mix of lengths and colours but I can't find one at the moment.

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Re: Help with wiring and soldering AV Jaguar

Post by Norrin Radd » Sun Jul 03, 2022 7:12 am


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