Coil cut your Pit Bull pickups.

It is very easy to cut a coil on your Pit Bull Humbucker Pickups.

First step is to open the case to expose the two coils.
This is a simple process on the metal cased Humbuckers, but nigh on impossible on the plastic cased Humbuckers as the coils are glued to the case.... Found that out the hard way, one broken case sitting on my work bench. :x

To open the case you will need a fine saw to cut the solder join. The reason for cutting rather than melting the solder is it is very difficult to melt and pull the case away at the same time. Also by cutting the solder it is much easier to re flow the join back together.

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When you have the case off you will see the two coils and the connecting wires as well as the tape that is wrapped around each coil.

Looking at the 'Bucker with the wires facing you, undo the two screws holding the RIGHT hand coil, taking care to have a good grip on it as you gently move it away from the base.

Next, unwrap the tape CAREFULLY until you have exposed the RED wire. (This is where you need to be even more careful as the coil wire is soldered to this red wire. The coil wire is very fine and will break off easily.
If you do break it off it is easy to re solder the join). Save the tape for re use.

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Next you will need to solder a wire to the red wire, and another wire to the shield/ earth wire.
(Pass these wires through the hole in the base plate where the existing wire passes through)

Carefully re wrap the tape around the coil, take care to wrap the soldered joins of the red and white wire separately.

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screw the coil back onto the base plate and put the cover back on. Clamp the cover so the cut in the solder is closed and re solder the join.

You have successfully coil cut your pick up!

500 XP. 8-)

When you install this cut "bucker, you will need to connect the added wires to a DTDP ON/ON micro switch.
Solder the RED wire to the CENTRE lug and the earth wire to the bottom lug. You will then need to solder the earth wire to the back of your tone pot.

Now you can cut the coil at the flick of a switch! :D

Newb question/observation: does this process, then, enable you to deactivate one of the coils at the flick of a switch, essentially switching between a humbucker and a single-coil pickup?

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Quote from GlennGP on January 9, 2013, 18:09
Newb question/observation: does this process, then, enable you to deactivate one of the coils at the flick of a switch, essentially switching between a humbucker and a single-coil pickup?

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You got it in one! :D

Really nice work! Great explanation! Thanks for sharing DB!

Quote:

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Quote from GlennGP on January 9, 2013, 18:09
Newb question/observation: does this process, then, enable you to deactivate one of the coils at the flick of a switch, essentially switching between a humbucker and a single-coil pickup?

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Hey Glenn, the cut pickup can be wired to any switch or push pull pot and can switch to a single coil!!! If you want a nice Aussie guitar that has this, the Maton MS 500/50th Anniversary ($2000, so pricey!!!) has one of these!

Nice article DB!! When you said that plastic is harder to remove, I felt like I had no hope... Then I saw the pickup with the cover off and then lookers at my Epi 700T and remembered it was actually an open coil, so now I feel like fixing a push pull pot to it and cutting the coils...

Nice work DB, you're really hitting your straps now.

Also, since I am fairly new to soldering, and literally just had no idea what you were saying, any wiring diagrams with the steps????? Or maybe a video???

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Quote from keloooe on January 10, 2013, 07:53
Also, since I am fairly new to soldering, and literally just had no idea what you were saying, any wiring diagrams with the steps????? Or maybe a video???

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Good observation Kelooe! 8-)

I will get onto drawing up some diagrams this weekend.

As a side note, you will most likely find that the coil and connector wires are soldered to a lug or eyelet on your Epi Pups.

This will make installing the coil cut wire on a lot easier as you will only need to solder it to the lug or eyelet. :D

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Quote from dingobass on January 10, 2013, 08:27

Quote:

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Quote from keloooe on January 10, 2013, 07:53
Also, since I am fairly new to soldering, and literally just had no idea what you were saying, any wiring diagrams with the steps????? Or maybe a video???

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Good observation Kelooe! 8-)

I will get onto drawing up some diagrams this weekend.

As a side note, you will most likely find that the coil and connector wires are soldered to a lug or eyelet on your Epi Pups.

This will make installing the coil cut wire on a lot easier as you will only need to solder it to the lug or eyelet. :D

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another great reason why i chose Epi for my lp jr!!!

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Quote from dingobass on January 9, 2013, 18:31

Quote:

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Quote from GlennGP on January 9, 2013, 18:09
Newb question/observation: does this process, then, enable you to deactivate one of the coils at the flick of a switch, essentially switching between a humbucker and a single-coil pickup?

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You got it in one! :D

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So, a week or six later, my grey matter is ticking over and I'm thinking how versatile an instrument you'd get if you coil cut both humbuckers on a Tele deluxe (TL-1HA). If one were to do that, would you recommend fitting mini switches up near the three-way toggle switch, mini switches down near the volume and tone pots, or going with push-pull pots (and would you replace the tone or the volume pots)? I recognise that push-pull pots would eliminate doing any extra routing or putting extra holes in the pickguard, but I just wonder how complex the wiring would get. But mostly, would doing this create something smashing or be a nightmare?

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Quote from GlennGP on February 12, 2013, 07:26

Quote:

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Quote from dingobass on January 9, 2013, 18:31

Quote:

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Quote from GlennGP on January 9, 2013, 18:09
Newb question/observation: does this process, then, enable you to deactivate one of the coils at the flick of a switch, essentially switching between a humbucker and a single-coil pickup?

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You got it in one! :D

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So, a week or six later, my grey matter is ticking over and I'm thinking how versatile an instrument you'd get if you coil cut both humbuckers on a Tele deluxe (TL-1HA). If one were to do that, would you recommend fitting mini switches up near the three-way toggle switch, mini switches down near the volume and tone pots, or going with push-pull pots (and would you replace the tone or the volume pots)? I recognise that push-pull pots would eliminate doing any extra routing or putting extra holes in the pickguard, but I just wonder how complex the wiring would get. But mostly, would doing this create something smashing or be a nightmare?

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I would go for push pull pots, it looks neater and is just as easy ( or difficult) to wire.
Having said that, I will post a diagram later on wiring push pull pots as coil cut.

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Quote from dingobass on February 12, 2013, 08:40
I would go for push pull pots, it looks neater and is just as easy ( or difficult) to wire.
Having said that, I will post a diagram later on wiring push pull pots as coil cut.

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Yeah, the more I think about that the more it makes sense. I read elsewhere that the go is to replace the tone pots for this kind of mod. I also read (and this ought to have been obvious) that you get a volume drop when you switch to single coil. Is the volume drop a serious concern, or easily compensated for?

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Quote from GlennGP on February 12, 2013, 09:07

Quote:

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Quote from dingobass on February 12, 2013, 08:40
I would go for push pull pots, it looks neater and is just as easy ( or difficult) to wire.
Having said that, I will post a diagram later on wiring push pull pots as coil cut.

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Yeah, the more I think about that the more it makes sense. I read elsewhere that the go is to replace the tone pots for this kind of mod. I also read (and this ought to have been obvious) that you get a volume drop when you switch to single coil. Is the volume drop a serious concern, or easily compensated for?

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I never knew there was some volume drop (if any!), because I'm yet to try it! But I would think that the drop could be very small...

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Quote from GlennGP on February 12, 2013, 09:07

Quote:

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Quote from dingobass on February 12, 2013, 08:40
I would go for push pull pots, it looks neater and is just as easy ( or difficult) to wire.
Having said that, I will post a diagram later on wiring push pull pots as coil cut.

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Yeah, the more I think about that the more it makes sense. I read elsewhere that the go is to replace the tone pots for this kind of mod. I also read (and this ought to have been obvious) that you get a volume drop when you switch to single coil. Is the volume drop a serious concern, or easily compensated for?

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The volume drop is easily dealt with by adding a cap/ resistor gizmo.

This way you can back your volume off with both 'buckers on and not loose any fidelity.
When you hit the coil cut you can tweak the volume up a tad to compensate.

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Quote from dingobass on February 12, 2013, 17:53

Quote:

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Quote from GlennGP on February 12, 2013, 09:07
... Is the volume drop a serious concern, or easily compensated for?

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The volume drop is easily dealt with by adding a cap/ resistor gizmo.

This way you can back your volume off with both 'buckers on and not loose any fidelity.
When you hit the coil cut you can tweak the volume up a tad to compensate.

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Bingo. I've been intending to include the fidelity circuit as standard anyway, so that makes a whole lot of sense to me. Since the humbuckers on a TL-1HA get a volume and tone pot each, the wiring shouldn't be any more complicated than doing the same thing twice. I've been looking at some hellish diagrams for putting two or even three pickups through circuitry with a single volume and tone pot ... blerg!

So, if my friend decides she wants the HH Tele instead of the SS, I should be able to deliver something very versatile. Better start practicing soldering!

Thinking about it a little bit more, it would make more sense to replace the volume pots with the push-pull pots to activate the coil splitting, rather than replacing the tone pots. Since you've gotta tweak the volume up a bit to compensate for the drop in signal when you split the coils, it would be more practical to only have to deal with a single knob for the change - pull it up and give it a little twist, instead of pulling up the tone knob and then moving your hand to the volume knob to effect the volume compensation. Is there a reason for not doing it this way that I'm missing?

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Quote from GlennGP on February 13, 2013, 07:33
Thinking about it a little bit more, it would make more sense to replace the volume pots with the push-pull pots to activate the coil splitting, rather than replacing the tone pots. Since you've gotta tweak the volume up a bit to compensate for the drop in signal when you split the coils, it would be more practical to only have to deal with a single knob for the change - pull it up and give it a little twist, instead of pulling up the tone knob and then moving your hand to the volume knob to effect the volume compensation. Is there a reason for not doing it this way that I'm missing?

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No reason at all, that would make perfect sense :D

I have a Maton JB-6 and it has this built in on the Bridge humbucker. Its a great guitar with extra frets that give you two full octaves along the neck and all within easy reach. Not made anymore. Mine is an early one and they had poor pickups at that time. Way too sharp and thin. I'm trying to find some decent pickups that will give a fatter sound.

If anyone knows of a suitable pair of pickups I'd love to know about it.

nice tutorial DB. Done this on a few of my guitars. It's a great thing when you get a pup that sounds amazing but you wish it could be tapped.

wow, that was great DB, thanks

Okay so I've come along and opened up the right hand coil revealing no red wores but a black and white one the White one has a thin line of copper from the pickup, but the black had copper on it too but wasn't connected, I thought o may have snapped it accidentally? Help please? Haha

Kurt please post a photo. The wire colours vary between what DB originally posted. One wire could be an earth wire

Attachment 3741 there you g woks, sorry about that

Hi Kurt, I haven't attempted this so be best to wait for guru Weirdy to chime in.
My guess is the loose black wire was an earth wire to the casing you removed (assuming these pups had a casing/cover?)

it had a chrome casing on it yes! good guess! we should wait to wierdy to be 100% sure :P

yes Kurt in the meantime have another read of DB's instructions, if you can work out and match the wires to your different wire colours it may be more obvious. I'm pretty sure the loose wire would have been earthed to the casing and came loose when you removed the casing
If you have no joy you can get a pair of Entwistle dark star pups from the PBG shop for $66

So I opened up the other pickup and still only a black on white wire, although this time, both black and white were connected to the thin coil wire, very confused, doing my head in, 😁

just hold off before you go any further Kurt. Usually wiring guru chimes in in the arvo

It looks like you have snapped a coil wire. That black wire (red in DB's guide) is the 'series link' wire connecting the fragile copper 'end' wires of each coil together. If one of the black wire connections has broken free... that's bad. Fortunately, the black wire should be linking the 'end' wires of the coils, meaning you should be able to unwind a bit more from the coil to reconnect it, if needed (Note: The white and bare wires connect to the 'start' of the coils, so if you break one of those connections you can't unwind more coil wire to reconnect them). If you can't reconnect the broken coil wire then the pickup is junked.

If you look at the numbered Bridge & Neck diagram in this post it should explain how the wires are connected (focus on the Bridge only in the diagram and ignore the Neck with the cut wires, as you only cut the wires if you're going to do the 4-wire mod). You shouldn't need to remove the tape around the individual coils, just make sure the black wire is accessible.

Be very careful handling the wires and connections as the thin copper coil wire is very fragile and extremely easy to break. Ideally, for coil splitting you just want to strip a bit of the coating off the black series link wire and solder the extra wire to it while moving it and the other wires/connections as little as possible. It's very easy to ruin a pickup by breaking a coil wire.

Thanks wierdy!! Luckily, I was doing it on a spare pickup I had lying around, will open up my proper pickups that are being used in my guitar and have a crack and DBs guide again knowing now that the black wire is secretly red :P question though, will it be nesesaril to split both pickups (neck and bridge) If I only have one switch? Or can I split the 2 and depending on which pickup is selected is which pup is split?

With a single switch you can have a few options, depending on the switch type. If you use an On/Off/On DPDT you can choose to split one pickup or the other (or neither in the Off position), or use an On/On DPDT and split both at the same time (both split or neither split). In both cases the 3-way toggle still selects which pickup(s) are active.

So, you can mod just one pickup and split only that one, or mod them both and split both of them, and still just use a single switch either way.

Just a couple of question about opening the case... I have been looking for alternatives to sawing, but it looks like most of you do it that way, right? How do you keep the metal shavings from setting all over?

Has anyone opened an ESB pup? It seems to use the same bass plate as the guitar pups, leading me to wonder if it has bars or slugs under the hood?

Last question for today... has anyone tried to swap out the magnets for alnico?

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In this thread I removed the covers by melting the solder joins (must be quick but careful), and swapped out the magnets. Haven't cracked any of the stock bass pups open, sorry.

I popped a HB last week from a kit, i just de-soldered it, i had a screwdriver down the side of the cover to gently pop it as i have always done, gently does it.

Thanks. That thread is very helpful. Closer to what I want to do. My favorite bass has two humbuckeds, and my favorite setting is with the bridge in series, and the neck in single coil. I like being able to set then with just inside or outside coils too though. Thanks!

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