Double Fat Strat Questions

[hondro1025]

Hey guys, quick couple of questions. I've got this new project where I acquired a strat copy and am replacing the crap pickups with GFS vintage 59' humbuckers. The pickups have two wires and a shield. Typically, the black wire is connected to ground and the white wire is connected to signal... the shield is also connected to ground. Is that correct? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Also, I plan on using a telecaster style switch. Will that work? One volume and one tone is all I'm using. A very simple setup. It might be overkill, but I'm addicted to the shielding/star grounding wiring. Thanks guys.
Alex

[Mike Richardson]

There is no "industry standard" for pickup wire colors. You should contact GFS for the correct wiring. However, if you have two wires AND a shield, the pickups should be in phase as long as you make sure that both pickups are wired the same way.

[ChrisK]

Unless the black wire is a coil tap.

You indeed need to inquire with the maker (of the pickup, not the really BIG GUY). ;D

[CheshireCat]

chrisk said:

Unless the black wire is a coil tap.

Does anyone still do that anymore?

[UnklMickey]

hi Chesh,

i can't say if anyone still does that. (i wish they would all do 4 wires + shield)

i can tell you that diMarzio / Ibanez did that.

although, they used white for hot, red for the series link and the braid for ground.

guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/index.cgi?board=wiring&action=display&thread=1148998058&page=1


with a few resistance measurements, it would be pretty easy to see whether or not Alex's pickups are the same.


unk

[ChrisK]

I have a set of PRS McCarty pickups that are this way.

The Guitar Fetish site is info-less on the wiring of the GFS pickups.

Resistance is fertile.

[ux4484]

I think for GFS coil taps are usually seperate (red and white) wires. If they have a coil tap, the hot will be green.
The GFS Retrotron wiring diagram I got with my "Modern Vintage" set is exactly as described above, Red for the north coil tap and white for the south coil tap and a seperate sheild pre-wrapped with the black (-).
I've only seen one other set of GFS pickups besides mine (they were full size humbuckers), the wiring was identical.

[CheshireCat]

ux4484 said:

I think for GFS coil taps are usually seperate (red and white) wires. If they have a coil tap, the hot will be green.

Do you understand what we mean by "coil tap"? We aren't referring to coil splits in that instance.

[ux4484]

Maybe I must have misread the original post, I was under the impression he was describing the GFS wiring, not the original wiring in his copy. The 59's are full size HB's, and aren't coil taps mainly a single coil thing? So when you mentioned coil taps, I thought wrong and posted the GFS HB wiring I have seen and used the wrong term....insult to injury....

Hondro hasn't been back to this thread, so I'm still not really clear on which pup wiring he is asking about. I'll stick with my original thought and go with he's asking about the GFS wiring.
Before my last post, I didn't look at their site. A coil tap per se is not indicated in the GFS description of the 59's, but polarity is.

From the G-fetish site:

We have not only added all of the good vintage stuff, but installed two leads within the classic braided cable for easy polarity changes- Maybe you're into the Peter Green thing??