An issue replacing stock single coils

Leopold

New member
Hello. I'm new here. Hoping to learn a lot from you knowledgeable people.

At the moment I'm working on an Aria, HSS, with a coil tap switch. Replacing the stock single coils with Wilkinsons I ran into problems. The stock pups, like all stock single coils I've seen, have a big ceramic magnet glued to the underside. Wilkinsons, Seymour duncans, and pretty much any other high end single coils are not shaped like this, but the cavities are sized for these kind of stock pickups. The problem this leads to is that when you put the new pickups in, they sit really low and you lose volume. I just jammed a bit of rubber in there to bring the pup a little higher, seems to be working out okay. A friend of mine used torn up bits of a cigarette box, which is obviously pretty ghetto. What do you do?

I've also found that the coil tap switch (it's a two way switch) only has 3 lugs, instead of the 6 you see in wiring diagrams. This is fine is you want to set it up for coil tap, but I kinda wanted to hear how my JB would sound wired parallel. Any thoughts on this. Do a lot of guitars that come with coil tap as standard have this 3 lug thing? What about the ones with a push/pull on the volume knob? Would the lugs then be on the pot, or a separate box wired to the pot?
 
Re: An issue replacing stock single coils

Direct mount?

Use springs or vinyl tubing over the screws. Springs can be scavenged from ballpoint pens, tubing at a hardware store.
 
Re: An issue replacing stock single coils

Thanks for your replies. any thoughts on the series/parallel issue, though?
 
Re: An issue replacing stock single coils

any thoughts on the series/parallel issue, though?

You will need a double poled switch (6 lugs) for series/parallel switching. Most push/pull switches will grant you that option. The switch is built in at the back of the pot in that case (answering your question from your original post). You will find the diagrams on how to do it (if it is a Seymour Duncan humbucker) here:
https://docs.google.com/gview?embed...m/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/1H_1V_1TppSP.pdf

If you want you can get the push-pull pot to get series/parallel switched, but if you'd like you can get the same type of 2-way toggle switch you have now, but with double polarity instead of single polarity, if you get a 2-way toggle on/on switch with 6 lugs, you can replace your current switch with that one and also get series/parallel switching.
 
Re: An issue replacing stock single coils

Yeah, you just need a regular push/pull pot for what you want, or a new double pole switch to wire it for parallel- some really prefer it over splitting (I don't though- see if it is your thing). I always used the foam the pickup came in cut up to throw under the pickup to keep it where it is supposed to be (I do the same for the 'tilty humbucker' problem I sometimes have).
 
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