Humbuckers, can I convert 1 wire to 4 ?

[stuart55]

Hi there, I'm new to the site and have a question I hope someone out there can help me with. I bought a pair of humbuckers for a guitar I'm building and had wanted to split the coils. It turns out the humbuckers I have are single wire, I've heard you can convert them to 4 wire and I'm wondering if anyone could confirm this and possibly even have done it. Any suggestions would be much appreciated, thanks, Brian

[Happyguy]

hello and welcome to guitarnuts,

I don't understand how a humbucker could only have one wire, is it possible that it is 2 wires in the same plastic casing?

[wolf]

Stuart55
I have done this many times. It is somewhat difficult but not impossible. Usually when someone buys pickups, they should come with 4 conductors. Anyway the important thing is if you can actually get at the coils. Gibson (and other companies) are notorious for manufacturing chrome-covered, sealed-in-epoxy "bricks". I had these in my SG Standard. How did I get the 4 wires out? I didn't and couldn't. I had to buy 2 new pickups. This is probably the 500th time I've posted this gripe.

IMPORTANT:
If you have purchased two of these sealed-for-eternity bricks, EXCHANGE THEM for something that has 4 wires or at least get humbuckers whose coils can be accessed. Otherwise you'll be in the same situation as I was with my SG. I am NO fan of these chrome-covered bricks. If you want any tone options from those pickups, make sure you can bring out those 4 wires.

I have a few pages on my website that talk about guitar rewiring. It starts here www.1728.com/guitar.htm and I think very soon I will add a page about "bringing out 4 wires from a humbucker.

[wolf]

Okay, I have just posted a page about converting a 2 wire humbucker to a 4 wire.
www.1728.com/guitar1a.htm

Everybody, if you find any mistakes, please let me know.

[JohnH]

Thats good Wolf - I learnt something today!