Vintage Rails wiring diagram

[Ale-X-Rock]

Hi everyone.
I've searched these phorums and I've lokked also with wiring diagram form in resources at seymour duncan’s site but i càt find the diagram im looking for.
My 41 years old custom made guitar has two humbuckers vintage rails for strat .. one in neck and one in bridge position.i have buyed the humbuckers by 1993... Both have four wire + gnd (green, white, black & red + bare) I have buyed a 3 way schaller selector to replace the old switch.... i cant find the wiring diagram for this pickup model ... I've read here and there that vintage rails are wired differently from other rails models..and that splitting them by push/pull or 5 way blade will not make a lot of sense..
The guitar was wired with just 3 options :
Neck / Neck+Bridge /Bridge.
and I think the middle option of switch was in parallel.
I'm not a guitar sound/wire specialist but i would like to have them sound as good as possible, I think in the middle both humbuckers in series could be great, and if there is the splitting option ... why not (I could buy two P&P pots). I've decided to renew all electronics except the humbuckers as they're are really the heart of this guitar !

any thoughts / advices would be really appreciated
My questions:
Does anyone have any wiring diagram I could use?
Is it really possible or advisable to split vintage rails coils?
Should I change something in coil start/end connectins order to get the humbuckers splited without cancelling each other (I've read some wiring issues on this)
​​​​​​what shoild I use
Pots: 500K or 250K?
​​​​​tone cap: .022 or .047?
many thanks in advance
Alex

 

[Artie]

On a 4-wire Vintage Rails, you twist and solder black and red together, and then white, green and bare together, then treat it like a 2-wire pup. With black/red as hot, and white/green/bare as ground.

A Duckbucker is done the same.

They're designed for 250k pots. Cap of your choice, but I like .022uf.

And no . . . Vintage Rails and Duckbuckers aren't particularly good split.

 

[Mincer]

I think when you split the VR, you get 3 strings, like the Duckbuckers.

 

[Artie]

I think when you split the VR, you get 3 strings, like the Duckbuckers.

I thought that too, until I experimented with mine. It's the coil that picks up the signal. Not the pole piece. And the other pole piece is still inducing magnetism on the other three strings. So you still get all six strings.

A VR and a Duck don't sound great split, simply because they don't sound great split.

 

[Mincer]

None of the 'little humbuckers' sound very good split IMO.

 

[Artie]

I agree.

 

[jeremy]

i dont mind the hot rails split actually, but in general, i prefer parallel with the single coil size buckers. a series/parallel switch is almost always useful, but less so with the vintage rails or duckbucker imo

 

[Artie]

. . . a series/parallel switch is almost always useful, but less so with the vintage rails or duckbucker imo

Yeah . . . I've done a series switch with both a Duck and a VR. You'd think they'd sound like a Cool Rails, but they don't. I don't know why, but a Duck and a VR just need to be wired in parallel and call it a day.

And BTW, when wired like that, they both are nice, quiet, mellow, Strat pups. Not bad at all, but their own thing.