If your custom pickups are built on a METAL/conductive BASEPLATE, have METAL COVERS, or have exposed metal foil-shielding, it is important to know HOW that frame and/or shielding is attached to ground.
3/25/07 THE LASTEST: I just had a customer try to install a set of GFS Lipstick pups, and he was unable to get the switch working correctly. I will post any updates that I receive to this issue as they come in.
I have had reports from users of Kinman and Lace pickups concerning these issues. I have PERSONALLY installed and tested the rotary mods with Fender Noiseless and new three-conductor Lace pups, with no problems.
In January of 2006, I received a nice e-mail from Chris Kinman, and here's a short quote from it:
"I see you mentioned Kinman pickups in reference to grounding techniques for single coils. Yes, there may have been issues in the past because I didn't make mine phase-reversible. But that was changed last year (or was it the year before) when I isolated the magnets from ground. Now in most cases my Hx series are quite happy to run in series without any special considerations."
So, if you have a NEW set of Kinman Hx Strat pups, you may not have to worry about this. If you have an older set, old two-conductor Lace pickups, or other pickups constructed with metal basplates or covers, please continue reading.
If you have added a metal baseplate to your bridge pup, such a sold by Lindy Fralin or Callaham - a popular mod - IF you installed it following their instructions, it may interfere with the rotary's series and out of phase combos, by offering the bridge pickup another path to ground (baseplate > mounting screws > foil pickguard shield > ground).
Fortunately, the fix is VERY simple. Clip the baseplate's jumper (that they instructed you to solder) to the pickup's negative (aka "ground") lead eyelet, and instead add a third and separate lead, to ground the baseplate. Please see this illustration...
The good news: If you have metal basplates or covers AND THREE-CONDUCTOR wiring (the pup has three leads), this should NOT be a concern, as the third conductor is usually an independent ground/shield wire. An example of this is the newer Lace pickups, where the orange lead is the coil positive, the white lead is the coil negative, and the green lead is the shield/ground. The green lead would stay soldered to ground - typically the back of the volume pot - and you would use the white lead to connect to any phase or series mods as the coil's negative lead.
The bad news: If you have standard two-conductor wiring and your guitar has a fully shielded pickguard, you may find that some of the new combos will NOT work. With ANY setting where the pups are in series OR phase-reversed, you MUST eliminate the pickup baseplate's continuity with the shield/ground of the guitar.
This is necessary because with two-lead pickups, the baseplate and/or shield USUALLY has continuity with the negative lead from the pup's coil. That means that in certain pup selections, the baseplate - and anything metal that contacts the baseplate, like pole pieces and mounting crews and springs - is actually on the "hot" side of the signal. Potentially, the entire under-pickguard shield then has continuity with the HOT side of the circuit. This means that when you try one of the series combos, you will probably just be shunting one (or more) of the pups to ground, and it either won't get you the desired results, or, in out of phase settings, it may not sound at all.
There are two ways to address this problem with two-conductor wired pickups. One is to change the pickup's wiring (IF POSSIBLE), eliminating the continuity between the coil's "-" lead and the baseplate and/or shielding, but that can be a tricky task. The other - and FAR SIMPLER - way is to modify the Strat's pickguard shield.
If your Strat has the simple foil shield on the back of the pickguard, this is relatively easy to accomplish. The object in modifying the pickguard is to eliminate all continuity between the shield and the pickup's metal parts. This can be done as easily as scraping off the foil around the holes where the pups are mounted to the pickguard in a large enough radius so that the height-adjustment springs (if used) do not touch the foil. Alternatively, if you are sure the holes themselves are clear, you could simply apply a small piece of electrical tape to the bottom of the pickguard to "insulate" the foil from the pup mounting screws. If you use rubber tubing as your height-adjustment spacer, you simply need to be sure that where the mounting screw passes through the pickguard, the screw does not touch the foil. In MOST cases, that will do it!
But...
Even though you have cleared the spots on the pickguard shield, and now the switch works as it should, because of the way your pups were manufactured, when you put the coils in series on notch #3, everything with continuity with the "-" lead is still on the hot side of the circuit - including the mounting screws of the bridge and mid pups. So, when you touch those mounting screws - or the pole pieces of the pup - you are actually touching the hot side of the circuit, almost as if you had unplugged the axe and where touching the tip of the cable.
UNFORTUNATELY, there is NO quick-and-easy fix for this, short of replacing yer pups with ones that DO have the three-conductor/separate ground lead, or are not built on a metal baseplate...
Now, maybe there are a few work-arounds...
Maybe some non-conductive screws? You should be able to find them at Home Depot or other hardware stores in their "specialty fastener" department (a tip from a FAT-O user). Another band-aid would be to cover the screwtop up with something non-conductive - a piece of tape, a drop of rubber cement, thick paint, clear nail polish??? Anything... ?
Or, just don't touch 'em!!!
If you have any problems or questions, please e-mail me!
