[Basvarken]

Hi Gibsonites,

with the Pit being down for the umpteenth time I thought it was about time I signed up to this forum too

Got a question about G3 pickups.
I bought two of them at Greatdealz on Ebay (the guy with the motherload on NOS Gibson parts).
I want to wire them together as a humbucker, but I'm not sure how.
I can't seem to figure out which lead I should connect to which by just looking at the wiring diagram...

I have one pickup with an orange wire, a red wire and a white wire. The orange one is soldered onto the backplate.
And the other pickup has two orange wires and one black one. One of the orange ones is soldered to the backplate.

One of the pickup is supposed to have reversed polarity. I don't know which one that is...


I'd like to wire them to a three way switch/dial so I can choose
1. front coil
2. both coil in humbucking mode
3. back coil



cheers, Rob

[bassVI]

I'm the absolute worst at describing or explaining wiring but.....you can do what you are attempting. It isn't much different than what I did on the G-3/Ripper clone I'm building, the record of which may or may not be lost at 'The Pit' .
You can treat the wires soldered to the baseplate as a "ground" and connect themto the back of a pot or the ground lug on the three-way switch. Depending on what type of switch is used ( I did it with a six-way rotary and three pickups, waiting for a comment from Uwe about that :lol: ) You want to wire it like two single coils that are combined when the switch is in the middle position. I think you hook one wire (from each pickup) to the "outside" terminals and the other wires ( one from each pickup ) to the "inside" terminal(s) I'll try to add a picture that may help.

Cheers, S.

[img][/img]

The "baseplate" wires don't show in the pic but they go to ground any way, use the "north or south" wires on each pickup to the "outside" and the other wires to the "inside or common" terminal, if it sounds out of phase "thin" reverse the wires on one pickup. I hope this isn't too confusing :wink:

[Basvarken]

Thanx! That helps a lot :D

cheers, Rob

[bassVI]

Glad to help.

S.

[jules]

Originally Posted by Basvarken

Hi Gibsonites

Hi Rob, and welcome

whats it for? a G3 or another project? How far apart will the pickups be. I wonder how much variation the exact pickup sitings can produce. Could be fun finding out...

[Basvarken]

Hi Jules,

thanx for having me around :D

I want to put the two coils in the Thunderbird humbucker casing I bought off Greatdealz on Ebay. The G3 pickups should fit in perfectly if I cut off the lugs.

A while ago our fellow pitter -and luthier par excellence- Krishna (Boston GuitarRepair) gave us some detailed info on the sixties Thunderbirds pickups. He told us there were MelodyMaker like pickups (with a bar magnet) inside.

That gave me the idea to try a little experiment. I already had the Thunderbird casing plus mount ring. I planned on using it on the BaCH Non Reverse Thunderbird that is being built as we speak.
The same guy that I bought the casing off offered a bunch of G3 pickups.
I measured up the pickup casing and I checked upon the dimensions of the G3 coils. Shouldn't be a problem shoe horning them in!

The only "problem" is the G3 pickups are brandnew old stock. Incredibly clean. So I'd rather try them out first, before I start demolishing them. So I have to figure out some kind of test set up...

cheers, Rob

[jules]

Hi Rob,

you are more than welcome my friend!

Thats a very interesting idea. I also bought some Tbird cases with no idea why or wht for. I know I will be thankful one day. The idea of inserting G3 pups is very interesting... definately keep us informed of what you do.... I can see why you are reticent to chop up something thats undamaged, but if they are a good fit....

Perhaps if a battered pair come up (with the lugs already broken -as happens so annoyingly from time to time) I'll have a play myself....

[chromium]

Originally Posted by Basvarken

So I'd rather try them out first, before I start demolishing them. So I have to figure out some kind of test set up...

Check out slinkp's page (antoher fellow pitter) - hope he doesn't mind me linking to it here, but I remembered a test-setup that he devised for an old Tbird pickup - an aerial approach. :wink: Scroll down - you'll see pictures of it:

http://www.slinkp.com/bass/custom_bass

I'm curious how the experiment sounds as well. Also, after loading up the cover, is there still enough room to install the third (middle) pickup mounting screw?

[Basvarken]

Thanx Joe, I remember seeing that test set up from SlinkP.

I think I'm going to do something similar.

And you're right about the middle screw. There may be no place for that. But I'm sure I can improvise something to keep the thing from tilting over...



cheers, Rob

[Basvarken]

I did some hobbying. Simply without any pots, just straight onto the jack plug.

Two single coils taped together with gaffertape.

- two orange wires from the groundplates of the coils to the bridge (ground)

- the white wire from one coil to the orange wire from the other coil.

-black wire to the ground of the jack plug
-red wires to the tip of the jack plug






I mounted this improvised G3 humbucker upside down over the strings with some gaffertape and original screws as "stalks".
I used my (mahogany) BaCH Telebass for this experiment.
The pickup location; just about 1cm from the end of fretboard.



this is what the G3 humbucker sounds like