Four conductor wiring - conversion

[JohnH]

Yesterday I had a success converting some open-coil humbuckers from an old Cort LP copy, to four wires. It was easier than I thought, and I made some photo notes as I went along. In case others may be interested, Ive put them here, on my Geocities site:
au.geocities.com/guitarcircuits/fourconductor/fourconductor.html

I bought this guitar to try out some HH wiring options, and I went for one with open coils because, although I expected only two connection wires to each pup, I reckoned that it would not be too hard to make this conversion. My fallback would have been new pups, but in fact it worked out fine.

John

[wolf]

John H

Congratulations !!!
I've been doing that for a long time. I wanted to do that with my SG Standard pickups but as you may know they were those Gibson tight as a drum, sealed for eternity ^&$$ ^*&((^&%@# *&^%$##@@ *(* $%$ ........

I'm okay now.

Isn't it great that even if the manufacturers are too cheap and/or lazy to bring out the 4 wires at least they sometimes make it possible for someone to do so? (unlike a certain Kalamazoo corporation. It is UNBELIEVABLE how they keep turning out those chrome covered bricks, decade after decade, after decade, etc).

And if you don't mind, here is my take on bringing out the four wires. I have a more pessimistic attitude toward it than you do, but every time I tried it, I was successful.
www.1728.com/guitar1a.htm
Notice I give more warnings to folks attempting this than you do. To me it seems, putting too much tension on that middle wire could easily disconnect it from a pickup winding and you're up the creek.

[JohnH]

Thanks Wolf. and your warnings about epoxy bricks were noted and steered me in my purchase. Also, your page was a great primer before attempting this. Keeping those windings free of tension was one of the reasons I put the tag boards on.

John