Geocities6 (Converting a covered humbucker)

[JohnH]

IndexCancel that HumTwo Twin-coil PickupsShergold MasqueraderFour-Conductor WiringCovered Humbuckers

Four-conductor Wiring

Converting a covered humbucker

Following on from the conversion of open coil humbuckers, I have also tried this with covered pickups. The following shows the conversion of Gibson ’57 Classic, which I have fitted in the neck position of a Les Paul Studio. The same principles apply as with open pickups, but with the added complication of opening up the cover, and removing and replacing the existing metal braided wire.

Here is the back of the pickup. It’s an old one, and I think someone opened it up before me. You can see the remains of the PAF sticker:

The first job is to remove the solder blobs on each edge, which will allow the cover to be removed. I did this by filing, since the solder is quite soft.

With the top removed, you can see the coils inside, with the adjustable poles. At this point, the coils are fixed with screws under the base plate, and by the pole screws which also engage the base:

You can also see the tape which wraps around the coils.

Above is the cover removed, which was held only by the solder.

In the picture below, the coils are being separated from the base. To do this, in addition to removing he base screws, the pole screws have to be retracted until they leave the threaded holes in the base:

You can also see above how original braided wire was soldered to the base. This must be removed to replace with four-conductor wiring.

Below shows the assembly with the new wire being installed:

The outer coil wrappings have been peeled back to reveal the four coil wires. The maple spacer on the left was between the coils and the base. A new larger hole has been drilled in the base for the new wire. The new wire is pushed through and ends tinned ready to connect to the coil wires. The screen around the outside is twisted, ready to be tinned and soldered to the base. There are pieces of heat shrink ready to insulate each coil wire.

I drilled a new hole at the other end, rather than enlarging the old one, so the new plastic covered wire would not need to pass by the zone of soldering of the cover.

Here is the finished conversion.

It was quite a squeeze to get all the new wires into the cover, but it works fine. Before closing up, I made sure I knew which colour was which, and I used a scheme based on Seymour Duncan colours.

It’s now back in the LP — giving me some great telecaster-like sounds in addition to its native humbucker roar.

J Hewitt (2007)