I had a client drop off this parts tele for some work, and now I am going to fix the tone knob.  Taking off the control plate immediately showed me the issue at hand. Things were pretty messy in here, and there were a lot of cold solders that needed to be addressed. It appears that this could have been done with soldering iron that was underpowered, or just set to too low of a temperature. The large, chunky blobs on the backs of the pots are a good indicator that thought.

The tone pot was wired in a way that mirrored the volume pot, which is the main reason it was not working. I ungrounded the lug got all of the previous soldering removed to give me a nice, clean surface to start with.

Once everything was cleaned up, I could focus on getting this wired up properly. I moved over the lead from the volume to the tone and got the capacitor reinstalled. This client only wanted me to fix the soldering for the tone knob since they also enjoy working on their own instrument. They told me the leave the rest of the soldering up to them, and they will fix any issues as they arise.

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about soldering and I can make a follow up video answering the most frequently asked ones.

Once everything was properly connected, I got the control plate reinstalled, and now this guitar is ready for a setup!