Pickup Help Needed

[skh515]

I bought two SD 59s to put in a Strat. What I didn't realize was I had bought 2 conductor pups. Not the 4 conductor pups I need to "bridge" coils from different pups. I call it Bridging, not sure what the right term is (i.e. Neck pickup screw side with middle pickup slug side, etc). So the wife and I did some open pickup surgery. She worked in a German radio factory for several years, and is a regular solder monkey. All of the wires were black. I deduced that the wire going through the bottom of the bobbin was the start and the one coming off the side of the coil was the finish. I did this with both coils.
The first pup sounds like a serial humbucker.

The second pickup sounds very thin, not a bad sound, but not what I want from a 59. At first I thought we put the magnet in backwards, but I double checked it and it seems to be right. Did I wire the second coil backwards? Should I switch the red and green wires? (I used SD color codes). They can't be in parallel, so I'm thinking they are out of phase.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Pickup Help Needed

It does sound like your 59 is out of phase...that is what causes the thin, weak sound. It is awesome that you have someone around to help with pickup surgery like that, though!

 

[skh515]

Re: Pickup Help Needed

I switched the red and green wires and it sounds much more like a serial HB. But I still have some gremlins in there. I had everything working and suddenly it got very loud, and neither Volume pot works. Do I have a short that bypasses the Vol pots? I'm starting to think I need to rewire the whole thing and let my wife do all the soldering.

Marrying a "Solder Monkey" has it's ups and downs. She laughed at my old soldering iron. I had to buy a better one with the spiral wire to hold the iron with a wet sponge below it. Then I had to use a bungee cord to keep the cable out of her way. Everything has to be just right, but she does nice work.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Pickup Help Needed

if the volume controls arent working then id check the wiring. signal flow is pretty simple to follow and it sounds like your wife knows what shes doin

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Pickup Help Needed

Yeah, can you get your wife to sign up here as a member? Some folks here need schoolin’. (Me included)

 

[skh515]

Re: Pickup Help Needed

Yeah, can you get your wife to sign up here as a member? Some folks here need schoolin’. (Me included)

LOL...

She doesn't really do current flow. It's just me saying "solder this wire to the middle lobe."

But I can tell you what I have observed. She does not feed wire through the openings in the lobes. She preps the lobe by filling in the opening with solder first, then solders the wire to it. When soldering two wires together, she preps the end of each piece by coating it with solder, then adds more solder when connecting. She only strips the wire back about 1/16th of an inch. I usually strip 3/8 to 1/2" but I'm trying it her way. She then tests the connection by pulling hard on it. If the connection holds, then it's good. If it doesn't, it wasn't good anyway. When she burns herself she cusses in German. Not sure that increases the quality, but it is mildly amusing. She cleans the tip on the wet sponge regularly and she wants the tip to be fairly sharp. I think they changed the tips fairly often at the factory. One, possibly useless, aside; when they were working on aerospace projects, it was one shot only. If just one connection wasn't right, they'd through out the whole thing and start over. There was no re-soldering. It makes me wonder how many times I've heated up the back of some of my pots.