Gibson Les Paul

Check the output socket signal connection and all pot solder connectors are not touching their pot bodies or any conductive screening paint, if there is any, or any stray strands of screening braid. Check the tone control pot caps are not being shorted to themselves or pot body as things move and turn.

Not sure why you are particularly interested in the values of the pots at zero, it is their values at max that you need to be looking at.

Or it could have been a problem with the jack lead or amp and not the guitar at all.

Gareth.

Oh, and sometimes the guitar pickup coils become damaged either by the pick hitting it, or by sweat ingress, and intermittently or permanently lose one winding.

Gareth.

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Tugging on the screen leads to the pickups did not change the DC ohmages so I left them be and all those adjustments . From the 8 figure serial number this was probably mid 2003 but I doubt Gibson would use computer data cable to the switch, presumably someone replaced it. The foil sheathing of that, at the end, was floating in space and could have touched the signal out line, The "cloth" core of the sig out wire was disrupted where the earthing braid is soldered to the switchcraft socket and being loose, turned. As turning a jack in there, there was a poor-conductive point to the contact so perhaps a build up of sprayed in WD40 leading to that and a bit of conduction at the core fraying. If I owned one of these I'd ditch that silly plastic output escutchion and replace with a brass plate and 4 larger screws. Hairline stress cracks to each of the 4 mounting holes in that plastic and will fail soon - all the guitar lead yanking having to be restrained by that plastic square along with the bush nut localised stress.

You might try identifying the model of the guitar to be able to find out more about it. The serial number only reveals the production date, factory location and production number.. not the model number.

There are numerous sources of original wiring diagrams online.. then there are modified wiring arrangements (splitting coils, phase reverse etc) also methods to replicate the 1950s type wiring methods.

The genuine Gibson brand Les Paul models generally have 2 pickups, fewer have 3, but there numerous Les Paul models.

The Vol and Tone pots would've originally been 500k.. although some prefer to replace them with 250k. Many users believe they'll sound much better if they modify the wiring and replace components with parts of different values.

There are a lot of amateur repairs and attemts to upgrade parts floating around, and sometimes attempted by hobbiests who don't understand wiring diagrams or proper techniques. The computer cable you discovered is an example of the *any wire will work* attitude of the inexperienced.

The 7k+ ohm readings you mentioned seem normal (aftermarket humbuckers can read as high as around 15k ohm), but the 3.80k isn't a typical humbucker reading unless the separate internal coils are connected in parallel, which is fairly easy to do if the pickup has a 4-wire lead (whether that would be the original wiring for that pickup is unclear).

Some paralleled coil or other special/modified features are attained by using a push-pull switch integrated into one of the control pots.

-- Cheers, WB .............

"Wild_Bill"

... Phil

These reading, according to the OP, were at the switch position, where the centre position would be the two humbuckers in parallel.

Thus, 3.8k is pretty much as expected.

Gareth.

One thing's for sure.. interpreting Nigel's posts ain't easy. At least he has some comments to proceed with.

-- Cheers, WB .............

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If they did not compress the braid of the screening , before soldering , then there would be less likelihood of problems with that old-style lacquered "hosiery" cloth insulation. Perhaps like the plastic escutchion, deliberate built-in pitfalls, having no justification otherwise