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I have an old '60s Kawai/Winston that's giving me some grief.
Nothing worked when plugged in. Has a pair of single coils, big fat ones, 3-way toggle, volume, tone and input jack. Hollowbody so no rear access, had to de-solder the neck pickup to get all the wiring pulled out to test. Pots were very stiff, 3way as well.
Lightly sanded the input jack to remove any oxidation, then cleaned it and everything else with Deox-it. Everything works great now. Plugged it into the amp (neck pickup still de-soldered) and tapped the pickup with a screwdriver and worked fine. Took a multimeter and both pickups have a reading so put back together.
3-way switch (before desoldering the neck pickup) looked like the bridge pickup's green wire was broken off. Soldered it back on, then the neck pickup, and now... neck works fine, bridge doesn't work at all. Ever so often with enough wiggling and such it sounded like it cut in/out so assumed old solder joints broken.
De-soldered everything, used a solder pump and removed all old solder, retinned everything and soldered it all back up, and volume works, tone works, neck works... no bridge.
Multimeter to the 3-way thinking maybe the one side was dead but was able to get a reading without any problems.
Kinda stumped... hoping for some feedback/ideas... I'd like to keep everything original if possible, just not sure why the bridge was fine outside the guitar and now it's not.
Here's a quick diagram of what the wiring is for the 3-way... each pickup has a red/green/black wire... black/green are soldered to a metal tab on the 3-way switch housing. The red wire from each goes to one of the outside terminals. The grey wire that goes to the volume, has a white wire in the middle and woven metal sleeve... white goes to the centre terminal, and the woven part to the same tab as the green/black wires.
Nothing worked when plugged in. Has a pair of single coils, big fat ones, 3-way toggle, volume, tone and input jack. Hollowbody so no rear access, had to de-solder the neck pickup to get all the wiring pulled out to test. Pots were very stiff, 3way as well.
Lightly sanded the input jack to remove any oxidation, then cleaned it and everything else with Deox-it. Everything works great now. Plugged it into the amp (neck pickup still de-soldered) and tapped the pickup with a screwdriver and worked fine. Took a multimeter and both pickups have a reading so put back together.
3-way switch (before desoldering the neck pickup) looked like the bridge pickup's green wire was broken off. Soldered it back on, then the neck pickup, and now... neck works fine, bridge doesn't work at all. Ever so often with enough wiggling and such it sounded like it cut in/out so assumed old solder joints broken.
De-soldered everything, used a solder pump and removed all old solder, retinned everything and soldered it all back up, and volume works, tone works, neck works... no bridge.
Multimeter to the 3-way thinking maybe the one side was dead but was able to get a reading without any problems.
Kinda stumped... hoping for some feedback/ideas... I'd like to keep everything original if possible, just not sure why the bridge was fine outside the guitar and now it's not.
Here's a quick diagram of what the wiring is for the 3-way... each pickup has a red/green/black wire... black/green are soldered to a metal tab on the 3-way switch housing. The red wire from each goes to one of the outside terminals. The grey wire that goes to the volume, has a white wire in the middle and woven metal sleeve... white goes to the centre terminal, and the woven part to the same tab as the green/black wires.
