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This usually happens when the wires are reversed on Fender style single coil pickups. When installing other brands of guitar or bass pickups, they may be out of phase with the existing pickups, (magnetically-in or out of phase)(Electrically-winding direction). The magnet wire is wound directly around the rod magnet pole pieces. At times the insulation…

I would say there are advantages to having both series and parallel wiring. You can get interesting tones when using more than one coil. When using two coils, they can be combined in series, parallel, humbucking in phase and out of phase. When two coils are hooked up in series you have maximum DC resistance…

There are several things that can be done to help from melting and burning the insulation on hookup wires. First check the temperature of your soldering iron. If it’s too hot it will damage the contacts and cook the solder. Always mask off the body or other surfaces that could get damaged by solder drops…

I’ve been working on guitars for a long time and to this day I still make a schematic drawing of where all the wires go and how the switches and potentiometers are hooked up. I even make a tracing of a pickguard and as I remove the screws and hardware I push the screw in…

The easiest way I’ve found to lift a potentiometer back through the hole is to remove an eraser from a wooden pencil and insert the pencil through the hole where the pot is to be replaced. Carefully push the end of the pencil with eraser removed over the knurled pot shaft and carefully lift it…

You can get more treble of your existing pickup by increasing the magnetic field by using a stronger magnet or re-magnetizing the existing magnet or moving the pickup closer to the bridge to change the harmonic string vibration. If you decide to alter the pickup, you can use less turns per coil or use a…

First I would turn the treble control counter clock-wise to knock off the high end of a pickup. You can also solder one side of a capacitor to the hot terminal of a pickup and solder the other side to ground. I would start with low values until you find the desire roll-off. A typical…

I would use a soldering iron that contains no coil to heat the tip or soldering element. The coil type soldering guns can demagnetize the magnet within the pickup. I like using a Weller Controlled Output Station with three temperatures from 600? F, 700? F and 800? F. I use 600? F the most for…

Solder is a combination of tin and lead and has the capability of melting at relatively low temperatures. I’ve always used a 60/40 solder that is 60 percent tin and 40 percent lead and becomes liquid at about 370° F. A 50/50 solder requires about 420°F. All solders when going from solid to liquid change…

Adding a dummy coil to another pickup is usually done to make the working single coil pickup humbucking or quieter in the instrument. Some companies use the pickup directly under the strings without using pole pieces and others rout a cavity away from the proximity of the strings. Using a dummy coil the DC resistance…