Soldering the pot on a Fender Telecaster

[tangen]

Hi,

My son has just bought a used Fender Telecaster. It had a loose potmeter and hummed. I removed the lid with the pot meters and tightened the loose potmeter. I saw, however, that this potmeter also had some suspicious soldering on the chassis (see the attached picture). Is this how this potmeter should be soldered? I suppose it is some sort of grounding. I cannot see any lug on the pot for this kind of soldering. Help anyone?

best wishes
Jan Ove Tangen

[Netlist]

Jan,
This doesn't look like the nicest soldering job but if the wire connects the pot with ground or chassis and the Telecaster plays well without hum, leave it. Touch the metal shaft of the pot when the guitar is plugged in and listen for any hum or noise. If all is fine, enjoy playing it.

/Hugo

[Enzo]

It looks ugly, but is common enough. There are a lot of ground/common wires from various places in the guitar and they all must connect together somewhere. Grounding the covers of the pots also reduces noises, so the pot body is a convenient place to do this. DOn't worry about it.

[Markus2006]

You can find Telecaster wiring diagram directly on Fender's Web site:
http://www.fender.com/support/diagrams/

Marek

[tangen]

Thank you guys! Very helpful. I will test the guitar more thoroughly, and then decide whether or not to leave the sloppy soldering alone

best wishes
Jan Ove

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally posted by tangen
Thank you guys! Very helpful. I will test the guitar more thoroughly, and then decide whether or not to leave the sloppy soldering alone

It's rare to see a guitar with anything like decent wiring, so it's not unusual

[orson198305]

It's a common method for volume pots in guitars, effects etc, some filters eg tone, will solder a capacitor leg onto the chassis then onto one of the pot's legs.