It’s possible to quickly check the missing bridge ground idea. Take a length of wire touch it to a ground point on one end and touch the bridge with the other to see if the noise goes away.
3 Likes
My local GC was selling a beautiful Musicman Stingray Special 4H in jet back. I was keeping and eye on it on their website and one day it was gone. Then about a week later it shows up online again, being sold as brand new, but now discounted to $1900. Disappeared a 2nd time and then reappeared being sold as brand new again for $1650. I finally decided to go check it out, and it had the most horrible hum you could imagine. Further inspection revealed someone had changed the battery housing (Musicman logo missing). I then figured out it was sold twice, returned twice, and someone changed that battery box trying to fix the issue. I asked why it was being sold at such a discounted price, and they said they were just trying to clear inventory to make space. So I guess the point I’m trying to make is them sales people lie.
3 Likes
Who the hell uses a red wire for ground, lol.
3 Likes
Maybe they had a giant spool of red left over and thought ‘hey who’s gonna notice?’
2 Likes
One thing not mentioned is when soldering to pot bodies you need a high wattage iron. A 35W iron is not going to cut it and will just make a mess of the job and possibly create a cold solder joint. 
Why would I need a higher wattage iron? I currently use a 40W iron. What would be that advantage to me of using a higher wattage?
I presume that a higher wattage will heat up quicker?
Genuine question, I’m not an electrician.
The body of the pot acts like a heat sink and a low wattage iron may not overcome the heat dissipation
2 Likes
Ok, so a higher wattage iron applies more heat to the pot quicker getting it hot enough to form a good solder joint between the wire and the pot?
1 Like
Yes, but I learned this lesson my first time out. It is exceedingly difficult to remove a solder from a pot using a low wattage iron, if you can do it at all
4 Likes
I have always had two irons. One is an adjustable wattage solder station for most electronics jobs and the other one for heavy duty soldering like soldering grounds on pots. This is the one I use. Here’s a link,
Also, it is not a good idea to use a higher wattage iron, like this, for general electronics work as it can destroy a component or if used on a circuit board can lift the foil traces off the board.
1 Like
I’d recommend just picking up an inexpensive, variable temperature soldering station. It would work great for electronics in general and are designed for soldering with heat sinks if needed. Generally you will want to look in the ~70W+ range.
You can get perfectly fine Chinese made ones in the $40-50 range. You can also pay a lot more and get a Weller or a Hakko (my preference would be Hakko; I’ve used both and both are top notch brands).
But really the Aoyue I had was more than sufficient and cost much less.
1 Like
So I’ve used my 40W Weller iron to solder onto pots.
Is using a lower powered iron going to potentially damage the pots because i have to leave it on longer to warm up the pot so the solder will melt?
My concern would be that with my relative inexperience in this field using a higher wattage iron might mean I fry something. If that makes sense as a concern?
1 Like
Soldering onto a pot, you want to create a localised hot spot more quickly than the heat can penetrate through the pot body into the rest of thepot. If you use too low a wattage, the body of the pot will wick the heat into the body faster than you can apply it. So, you need to heat for a long time, and you can get one of two things: either a spot that’s not hot enough to get good adhesion (cold solder joint) or the whole pot hot enough to damage its giblets.
That’s the thought anyways. In my experience, if you want to solder onto a large mass, in addition to the appropriate wattage it’s also important to have a beefy enough soldering tip. It won’t work too well (at least it hasn’t for me) with a thin needle tip for soldering small components onto circuit boards.
4 Likes
Seriously though - red, when used, is usually for wires carrying current. Black is often “common” in electronics. White typically carries signal. This is not universal though.
This is different for electrical wiring in (say) houses. Black is usually the hot wire there. So be careful 
In all cases, green is a common color for a dedicated ground wire.
Using red for a ground wire is a bozo maneuver. You can see in the photo that the other one is green.
To this day I don’t understand why guitars are done this way instead of just putting in a dedicated ground post for everything to ground to.
I’ve found a 40W chisel tip iron to be adequate for soldering onto pots, but you definitely don’t want anything smaller. I also have a 25W needle tip that is definitely not up to the job (but it’s great for circuit board work).
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is the importance of using good solder. Throw away anything that comes with the iron and avoid lead-free solder (your bass isn’t going to end up in a landfill, is it?). Get some Kester 60% Tin / 40% Lead rosin core solder and the job suddenly becomes much easier.
Also, pots and capacitors are not expensive, so I always order more than I need, in case I screw something up. 
2 Likes
+1 on this - large tip for heat transfer
1 Like
If you just want a simple variable temp soldering iron I would recommend the Hakko FX600.
https://www.hakko.com/english/products/hakko_fx600.html
50W, and a very reputable brand with a standard size for tip swapping.
I’ve owned one, it’s great. Excellent compromise between cheap irons and soldering stations. Runs about $35US.
1 Like
What gauge do you use?
Yeah standard house wiring in BC is black/red = hot, white = neutral and bare wire = ground, green = protected ground. It’s more common to see red as the 3 phase hot wire round here.
Bottom line is I have a small electrical tester in my tool bucket and assume everything is live unless I prove it otherwise 
1 Like
Yep that’s the only plan for long term health