60's Jaguar wiring diagram is Wrong. Has anyone noticed?

[constantineguitars]

I wanted to wire my Jaguar (hand built reproduction) to the original wiring configuration and after a lot of fiddling around I determined the wiring diagram had two significant errors in it. This is the original hand drawn Fender diagram.

First off the signal and ground on the output jack are both shown grounded. Of course I didn't follow that because it was obviously wrong. However, the lower switch control plate is also wrong. If you follow the diagram the lead pickup will not work and only the rhythm section will work.



Seymour Duncan's wiring diagram appears to be correct but it is shown from above and not with the control plates flipped like Fender's drawing. Which makes wiring confusing because your looking at the control plates from the bottom when wiring a Jag. Well, after comparing the drawings I finally got it to work.

I think this is how the switches should be wired:



Here is the guitar. Build from 40 year aged wood, one piece alder body, birdseye maple neck with rosewood fingerboard and I hand wound custom pickups with aged Alnico magnets. The guitar was built by me for my own use and I'll never sell it. Therefore, is as exact as a reproduction as I could get and even the wiring uses the cloth 7 color pushback wire. I am adding a genuine Fender tremelo soon to make it more authentic. I found it helpful to have the original colored wire so with all the wires buried in the body I had a better chance of getting the wiring correct. I could never afford any real vintage instruments so as a luthier this was the only way I could own decent instruments

[timtam]

The "error" in the lead pickup switch is still common in contemporary Fender wiring diagrams eg below. It has come up before. But it actually depends on whether those switches are truly DPDT switches or not (since only SPDT functionality is needed). As they don't all have 6 working terminals it's conceivable some or all of them work as SPDT when wired as shown.
I don't necessarily read the output jack as mis-drawn. The tabs are physically at the outer edge of the jack - so as a wiring diagram rather than a schematic it's kind of visually correct, albeit ambiguous - obviously ambiguity is not very helpful and it would have needed to be explained to the factory staff wiring it.

Nice build BTW !



BTW I think the original was B&W ...

[constantineguitars]

Yeah the original was black and white and I have that one as well. I see what you mean about the switches, maybe mine have 2 terminals on each switch position but they are probably independent (not true DPDT. I'll ohm out the switches just out of curiosity. If they were true DPDT then I see how the circuit would work properly as shown in the original drawing.

It was a fun build and I really like the variety of sounds I get with both the Jaguar and especially the Jazzmaster. I very much prefer the look of the offset body guitars and have also considered a Thunderbird build. Also have built a Jazzmaster, Tele, Tele Custom, Strat and 59 Les Paul in addition to about 80 other guitars (acoustic, classical and electric) and have restored many electrics. My happy place is in a shop working the day away.

Thanks You,

Dave

[TonyMan13]

I will be starting a Jaguar project soon and am interested in this post. I cannot open what should be the corrected wiring diagram and was hoping I could get a copy.

The kit I have has DPDT switches, so if I read the comments correctly is it right that the wiring diagram from Fender is possibly correct?

Thanks

[timtam]

I will be starting a Jaguar project soon and am interested in this post. I cannot open what should be the corrected wiring diagram and was hoping I could get a copy.

The kit I have has DPDT switches, so if I read the comments correctly is it right that the wiring diagram from Fender is possibly correct?

Thanks

There is no real need for a 'corrected' wiring diagram. The standard jaguar switch works with the standard wiring diagrams. However, if you have DPDT switches for the lead circuit, read on (or just jump to the pic at the bottom below !).

The correct Fender part number for the lead circuit switches is 0054508049 (or 0054508000). For example that's the part listed in the parts manual for the last vintage-style jag, the American Original 60s ...
https://www.fmicassets.com/Damroot/Orig ... 6-2017.pdf
That switch only has two tabs - see pic below - so it's a SPST switch. It's not a SPDT nor a DPDT (like the rhythm/lead switch is), that are probably more common and better known. With only two tabs, there is only one way to wire the two wires that go to it, and it must then work as it's supposed to.


But as you can see in the contemporary wiring diagram I showed in my post above (and in the linked AO60s jag PDF), the middle lead switch (bridge pickup on/off) is shown a little differently to the other two lead switches - it does not have the two tabs/connections in a straight line, whereas the other two lead switches do have them straight. Off the top of my head I can't recall if or when I've ever seen that switch variation with the non-straight adjacent tabs, but maybe Fender did have some switches that came from Switchcraft like that; and maybe that variation persisted in the wiring diagrams Fender has released.

But again as long as you wire to the only available tabs on the 0054508049 switch that you have (or a true vintage version, with or without straight-line tabs) , the lead switches will all work as they should.

The only ambiguity arises if you instead use a full DPDT switch in those lead circuit positions. That is perfectly acceptable - you just don't use all of its tabs. But then you have to be a little more careful of how you wire it. Firstly, you can just use the tabs that are in a straight line, for all 3 switches. If instead you wired your DPDT using the tabs in the same relative positions as shown for the middle/bridge SPST pickup switch in the diagrams above, the circuit won't work. That is unless you also wired the centre common wire through both centre tabs of each switch - see an example of that in the pic with DPDT switches at the bottom below. Then you don't have to worry about wiring to straight-line tabs or not.

Sorry if this all sounds a little complex. But if you understand how any SPST, SPDT or DPDT switch works - that is, what connections they make between tabs in each switch position - how to wire the jag should all be clear. It also helps to understand how the jaguar circuit works, ie what those switches actually do in the jag circuit ...

[TonyMan13]

Got it, thanks.