msprigings Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Hello everyone. About 2 months ago I got a '57 ES225T. I absolutely love this guitar. However it exhibits some fairly strange behavior. Some day when I cut it on the tone pot has no effect. It's basically at 100% the entire time. When I turn the pot I get no noise or crackle. Nothing. Other days when I cut it on it works perfectly as it should. When taking a peak in there it still has the old bumblebee cap. Also I unscrewed the tone pot handled it, jiggled it, and tried to make it not work and and of course plugged it in and it worked fine. I've never had it stop working while playing. It just seems to be some days yes and some no. Any thoughts on this? My guess is perhaps the pot is dying but I've never seen one act like this. Typically they get noisy and crackle. There is perhaps a cold solder joint in there that maybe as the temperature or humidity or something change reconnects it? I haven't taken it all out as we know fun that is with these arch tops. Anyone experience this before? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Never experienced this before, but I think the cold solder joint suggestion is pretty probable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrorod Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 I agree with the cold solder joint probability. The potentiometer ,of course ,is a mechanical object. It will not just "up and die" .Removal of the harness will be necessary to get a proper fix eventually..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msprigings Posted February 9, 2014 Author Share Posted February 9, 2014 Yep I believe it's time to pull out the harness. Having never done that before. Any tips? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrorod Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Yep I believe it's time to pull out the harness. Having never done that before. Any tips? Yes, attache a length of rubber 'surgical tubing' to the pot 'shafts' BEFORE dropping them into the body. That way, you have a means of pulling them back into place. You will have to rig a similar way to' fish' the input jack back to its whole. I once modified a 1/4" plug and soldered it to a length of copper tubing. This allowed me to pull the jack back to its hole and slip the washer/nut back on it. The harness should come out of the pickup cavity with no problems.Use some good electronics cleaner on both pots while you have access. Think it thru before 'screwing up' .....hopefully not....Ha! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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