Having used the 555 for a long time 1000 uf seems a lot to me ,pin 6/7 are wired together someone suggest they weren't ,pin 5 should have a 0.01 uf ceramic to ground, if you scope pin 3 you should get a timing pulse, as suggested you may have toasted it,pin 3 is the output side , so you should get a signal off that, the pot seems to bother me two, i've always used a 3 pin pot, with the center pin wire to one of the others !!!