Wiring a Strat...

[Musician78]

...On the underside of the pickguard there is silver conductive tape... Do I need to ground that?

[j2379]

nope

[Musician78]

K Sweet, ty.

[Musician78]

Next Question.... The pickups came with two 1 MEG pots, and 1 500K. The instructions say I have 3 1 MEG. Don't know if this is type-o or not, but I can't find any wiring diagram for those online to compare. Anyhow, if I keep the 500k, where would I want to put it in order to have the least inpact? Volume? 1st tone? second tone? I ust the middle pickup the least if that helps......

Thanks.

[max]

The original strat wiring has a tone knob for the middle and the neck pickup only. Is that how you're going to wire it?

[Musician78]

I believe so. I have never had a Strat before so... ya... So I am wiring according to the Schematic.... I will assume that is how it will be...

[max]

Standard wiring:
http://www.guitar-mod.com/wiring/standard_strat.gif

The red wire is the tone for the middle pickup, the green one is the neck pickup, the empty one would be bridge.
If you intend to use the tone knob for the bridge pickup you could wire the 1meg pot to the empty spot, leave the middle one empty and use the 500k one for the neck. That would sorta make sense.

But honestly, with 1 meg and 500k pots its not going to make much of a difference, normally you use three 250k pots for that and it sounds fine even with humbuckers. You may change the volume pot for one with 500k, but thats about it.

Its rather likely though that the 500k pot is actually the volume knob (because its audio taper) and the two other pots are meant to be tone because the are log. Thats how I personally would wire it: standard strat wiring with no tone for the bridge and the 500k pot as volume.

[vklobucar]

Not to highjack the thread but on a side note I like to wire my Strats with the bridge pup sharing the middle tone with the middle pup. Seems to take some of that shrill high end away and only requires you to jumper the contacts on the 5 way

[Axewielder]

...On the underside of the pickguard there is silver conductive tape... Do I need to ground that?

While technically not required, shielding serves no purpose unless it is grounded. I use the copper pickguard shields instead of tape, and always ground them.

[Axewielder]

I meant to add: pickguard shielding doesn't do much as far as reducing pickup hum. What it DOES do is drastically cut down on that static electricity crackling noise you get when you run your fingers across some pickguards. I think bakelites are the worst? In any case, you'll need to have it grounded properly to benefit from this. My tele used to have this issue something fierce.

[Axewielder]

Here's how I grounded my pickguard. Note that you'll need a fully shielded cavity and conductive tape that is conductive from front to back for this technique to work. You want to hit a pickguard screw hole location with it to eliminate the possibility of an intermittent connection.