OK, I found a couple of more wiring diagrams for Les Pauls. These two diagrams make it easier to understand.
That's the thing with wiring diagrams and technical drawing in general. Wiring diagrams are a type of shorthand or a general sketch of the circuit. There are variations from drawing to drawing depending on the draftsmen. Below is what I think is the clearest diagram.

This diagram best illustrates what the actual parts looks like.
I'm kicking around buying a les paul and taking out the stock electronics and dropping in the Page Electronics, so the costing goes like this:

2 Humbuckers with 4 conductor wiring - $200
4 Push Pull Pots- $25
2 .02 microfarad Capacitors - $10
1 Pick up selector switch - $10
1 Out put socket - $10
2 Ft of wire $ 5
__________________________________
Total Parts $260

Cost of a used Les Paul Std Ebay Avg $1500

You could obviously save money on reusing the humbuckers, using an Epiphone Les Paul and be done for about $500.

This is a Stratocaster wiring variation. I think it allows the middle pot to be a blender, similar to the fader control on your car stereo. I have not tried this yet.

This is a close up of the wiring of the volume and tone pots.

Jimmy Page LP wiring

The wiring of Gibson's Jimmy Page Les Paul is fairly complicated. The key is the use of push/pull 500k potentiometers, these allow coil tapping (the use of one side of the humbucker) and in phase out of phase coils (this gives the tone a hollow sound). These potentiometers are available from Stewart McDonald (www.stewmac.com) they're a great resource. You can also find vintage electrical components from Surplus Sales of Nebraska (do a Google search for web address) Comment, there's a market in vintage electrical components from the 50's 60's gutars. I've found you can source inexpensive vintage electronic components through places like I've listed .

Well, This is THE wiring diagram for Gibson's Les Paul. It's available from Gibson's website so I consider it in the public domain. I'll try to explain it to those not familiar with wiring diagrams. From left to right, there two sets of parrallel lines with spring like thingys next to them. They represent the humbucker pickups, sometimes there are four wires (4 conductor) some times two wires (2 conductor). These wires carry the signal, or notes from the strings.
two wires run to four variable resistors, two of these variable resistors have a capacitor attached accross two of the terminals on the variable resistors making them the tone controls. From the tone controls a lead(wire) goes to the output jack. Two other wires go from the pickups to the pickup selector switch (Treble, Rythym, both). This diagram is relatively simple. Below is the wiring diagram for Gibson's Jimmy Page Les Paul which is one of the most complicated wiring diagrams for a Les Paul. Again this is available from the Gibson web site.

Welcome to my newest blog. It's going to be about a passion of mine for guitars. Specifcally about solid body guitars, Stratocasters, Telecasters, Les Pauls etc. More specifically affordable, quality guitars that are more for playing than investment. I'll try to bring information in the form of pictures, diagrams, stories and articles. If you found this blog feel free to leave a comment. Above is a guitar I assembled last year for about a $1000, it's got a Fender Custom Shop Neck, a Warmouth Swamp Ash body, Fender Hardware (Sperzel Locking Tuners, EMG David Gilmour Pick Ups , Boost circuits..