HSS Strat modification - would this work as intended?

[austrianjohn]

I want to modify the electrics on an HSS Highway One Strat to provide two new options.
1) coil split on the humbucker,
2) optionally add the neck pickup when the (coil split) bridge pickup is selected.

Using an on/on/on switch, would the following wiring work?

For the coil split (shown in red) the humbucker output goes to the bottom right of the on/on/on switch (instead of the 5 way switch), the coil split wire goes to the top right position, and the output goes from the middle position to the 5 way switch.

The neck pickup wiring (effectvely the David Gilmour mod) is shown in green.

If I've got this right the results (when the bridge pickup is selected) would be:

down:    bridge pickup humbucker
middle:   bridge pickup split
up:        bridge pickup split + neck pickup

Is this ok?

[ashcatlt]

I can never remember which side of the on/on/on flips which way in the middle position, but assuming you've for that part, I think it works. I'm not sure I like the way you're splitting the HB, though.

As is, you'll hear the "bottom" coil, but the "top" coil will still be connected to the circuit at one end with its other end waving in the cosmic wind. It's what we call "hanging from hot", and is not great idea for noise reasons.

If, instead of taking the full HB to the DPDT, you just leave it on the 5-way where it was, it'll short that coil when not in use and be much better. We've had some interesting debates on whether a shorted coil "hanging from hot" is a good idea, but I personally am not convinced that it's any real problem.

But to appease them, or if you find that the bottom coil is not the right one for humcancelling with the N pickup, you could just put ground on that center lug (remove that wire to the 5-way) with the HB to the 5-way as normal, and you'll have the more typical coil-split scenario of shorting the "bottom" coil, which being closer to "ground" is supposed to somehow be better.

[austrianjohn]

Feb 5, 2016 11:56:09 GMT -5 ashcatlt said:

I can never remember which side of the on/on/on flips which way in the middle position, but assuming you've for that part, I think it works. I'm not sure I like the way you're splitting the HB, though.

As is, you'll hear the "bottom" coil, but the "top" coil will still be connected to the circuit at one end with its other end waving in the cosmic wind. It's what we call "hanging from hot", and is not great idea for noise reasons.

If, instead of taking the full HB to the DPDT, you just leave it on the 5-way where it was, it'll short that coil when not in use and be much better. We've had some interesting debates on whether a shorted coil "hanging from hot" is a good idea, but I personally am not convinced that it's any real problem.

But to appease them, or if you find that the bottom coil is not the right one for humcancelling with the N pickup, you could just put ground on that center lug (remove that wire to the 5-way) with the HB to the 5-way as normal, and you'll have the more typical coil-split scenario of shorting the "bottom" coil, which being closer to "ground" is supposed to somehow be better.

I think I've got the on/on/on logic correct, but thanks for your suggestion re how to split the coils. I'll give it a try.

[austrianjohn]

I finally got around to completing this project. The electrical mod suggested by ashcatlt works (thanks!), and the variation in tone with the coil split and adding the neck pickup provids lots of interesting sounds to play with. All I have to do now is learn what to do with a baritone guitar.

The only minor problem I hit was that as the fretboard extends almost to the neck pickup, I had to remove the neck in order to take the scratchplate off for minor wiring mods, not something I'd experienced before with a handful of Strat or Strat-like guitars. Here it is next to my David Gilmour Strat build.