I stuck with the 7s until a friend had had a go on them, and them swapped them for 8s. Certainly more controllable and almost as easy to bend strings. But I still had that thin bridge pickup sound. So today I thought I’d just check its DCR, measuring at the end of a lead to save taking the cover off. Neck was 7.8k, bridge was 4.4k-ish. ‘Aha!’, thought I. Single coil mode.

Off came the rear cover and I checked the wiring. Looked OK, so I measured the DCR again. This time it read about 9.1k. The factory heat-shrink was on the joined centre wires, but it was resting against the cavity shielding to start with and I’d moved it to check the wiring before I measured. So I replaced it with my own heat shrink, making sure there was plenty on both sides if the bare wires. Back to full humbucker mode. There must have been a single whisker of wire just poking out enough to ground the centre connection and give it single coil operation.

I wish I’d checked the DCR sooner. Sometimes a visual check alone doesn’t tell you everything, and a multimeter is a necessity for fault-finding.

Now I wonder what the bridge would have sounded like with 7s!

I could live with 8s on this guitar, though I’ll probably fit 9s once these need replacing.