How to Make a Four Conductor Pickup
- 1). Remove the strings from the guitar. Use a screwdriver to unscrew the mounting frame for the pickup. If the pickup is screwed to the guitar body, use the screwdriver to free it. Unsolder the pickup from the wires leading into the guitar body. Examine the pickup. If the back is filled in with plastic or wax-like material, you will not be able to modify the pickup.
- 2). If the pickup has a metal cover, use the soldering iron to unsolder the cover from the pickup frame. When the coils are free, support them with your hand and gently remove the tape surrounding the coils. The coil wire is very thin and can be easily damaged.
- 3). Set the coils down and locate the small insulated wire connecting the two coils. Without pulling on the wire, use wire cutters or small scissors to cut the wire in half. Remove about 1/4-inch of the insulation from each coil wire by holding the hot soldering iron tip directly under the insulation until it becomes loose. Hold the wire steady with one hand and carefully remove the softened insulation with your fingertips or tweezers. Do not pull the wire while doing this.
- 4). When you have removed the insulation from each side of the connecting wire, you should have two wire ends, the two wires already attached to the coils and the braided shield wire. Different manufacturers use different colors of wire, so if your pickup already has black or white wires, use different colors for the 6-inch extensions. Carefully solder each 6-inch strip of wire to the end of the coil wire where the insulation was removed.
- 5). Solder all four wire ends to the length of four-wire cable. Make note of which coil connections go to which wire in the four-wire cable. Remove the old wiring from the guitar body and thread the four-wire cable through the body into the control cavity, where you will rewire the controls and switches.
- 6). Carefully replace the coils in the pickup case in their original positions, re-solder the pickup cover and replace the pickup in the guitar. Screw it into position and replace the bezel surrounding the pickup. You are now ready to rewire the controls using the new coil connections.
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