Fun find: 92/93 Legacy with factory ungrounded electronics

[jlm]

Hi folks, I thought I'd share my Labor Day activities and oddities. Today I acquired a really sweet 92/93 Cherryburst Legacy. The previous owner said the pickups were really bright, and oh were they. But it felt great and was nearly unplayed.

After getting it home I found that it had some static issues and the treble pot was not working in the PTB system. I opened her up and found what appear to be all original, untampered-with electronics and those sweet Duncan SSL-2s. To my surprise neither the volume or treble pot were grounded, and since the output jack was "grounded" to the volume pot then the output jack wasn't grounded, either. My multimeter confirmed that only the bass pot was grounded. Weird! There we no extra solder joints, no evidence that there was ever a ground wire between the pots. I have to assume it left the factory that way given how clean everything was. Check out the photos.

I soldered a ground wire and now everything works and sounds great. This seems like a pretty big miss from the factory back then. But, then again, the body is stamped Dec 18, 1992 -- the Friday before Christmas week.

Thought I'd share the story. Enjoy!

Edit: Updated to Cherryburst from Honeyburst

[Craig]

Hi folks, I thought I'd share my Labor Day activities and oddities. Today I acquired a really sweet 92/93 Honeyburst Legacy. The previous owner said the pickups were really bright, and oh were they. But it felt great and was nearly unplayed.

After getting it home I found that it had some static issues and the treble pot was not working in the PTB system. I opened her up and found what appear to be all original, untampered-with electronics and those sweet Duncan SSL-2s. To my surprise neither the volume or treble pot were grounded, and since the output jack was "grounded" to the volume pot then the output jack wasn't grounded, either. My multimeter confirmed that only the bass pot was grounded. Weird! There we no extra solder joints, no evidence that there was ever a ground wire between the pots. I have to assume it left the factory that way given how clean everything was. Check out the photos.

I soldered a ground wire and now everything works and sounds great. This seems like a pretty big miss from the factory back then. But, then again, the body is stamped Dec 18, 1992 -- the Friday before Christmas week.

Thought I'd share the story. Enjoy!

It looks like a Cherryburst finish on Alder body and is an early version of the Legacy with MIJ pots.
I also see solder spots on the pots where the ground wires should be.

Check out this post in our G&L Knowledgebase: G&L Legacy '92 or '94 upgrade questions.
Also, check out our Legacy diagrams in the Gallery: Album:Legacy Diagrams.

Hope this helps.

[jlm]

Thanks for the clarification about finish and wood; I've updated the registry.

Fair point about the Bass pot's extra solder blob.