Sassafrassin'

[dbeltrami]

Looks incredible.

[dozymuppet]

Not much action has occurred on this one, however I made a similar mistake as with the St Vincent project, routing for 3 pickups, but only drilling for a toggle (as opposed to a blade).

But I'm wondering if I could just wire up three separate volume pots, like a bass, and not worry about a switch at all.

[WeirdBits]

Go with a Free-Way toggle, they’re pricey but will give you all 3 pickups and combinations in a single switch.

[Simon Barden]

Or a rotary switch?

You could always use the toggle hole for another pot (some filling in required but it should be hidden by washers and the knob) and cut a slot for a blade switch, even if you need to rout out for a larger cavity?

[dozymuppet]

Yep, that's what I mean. 3 pots, and no switch. I know there are the free-way and rotary options, but I'd rather not. And perhaps 3 pots is something a bit unique for a guitar (as opposed to a bass), but that will work.

[dozymuppet]

I'm not too concerned about combinations for this build. Happy to work with "blending" instead if it works.

[Simon Barden]

I’ve never tried a blend pot for pickups except for blending two pickups on a bass. And whilst in theory this gives you wide range of sounds, in reality it pretty much gives you three sounds (IMO), so you might as well use a switch and not have the inherent treble loss due to another pot in the circuit (if you don’t increase all the pot values).

I’ve just been working on a Fret King guitar that has a humbucker coil split feed pot that provides a variable resistance from the centre split connection to ground. Again in practice, it’s basically on/off in nature and it’s very fiddly to set the pot with just a bit of resistance to thicken the split sound without it sounding very much like the normal humbucker. Better done with a switch and fixed resistor IMO.

[McCreed]

Another option is use a push-pull (or push-push) pot on either the volume or tone and use it to add the middle pickup to any of the other positions. I've seen it done with 3-pickup teles. Obviously teles have a lever switch, but it's still just a 3-way regardless of toggle or lever mechanism. A little research may be in order, but it's doable.

I'll have a look and see what I can find!

[Simon Barden]

Electrically, a toggle switch and a 3-way Tele switch are quite different. The toggle switch is composed of two x two-position normally-closed contacts. The traditional Tele 3-way switch is a double pole triple throw switch. The toggle switch has 4 terminals (3 for box types as two of the terminals are internally connected) and the traditional Tele 3-way has eight terminals (though some import switches cut this down to 4 or even 3 for ease of wiring a standard configuration). When used in the normal neck, neck+bridge and bridge configuration they perform the same function, but the Tele switch can be used to do more than the toggle switch if you really want it to.

So they aren’t just a different physical configuration of the same switch.

[Simon Barden]

You could have an on/off mini-toggle switch for each pickup. Quite a few Charvel/Jacksons had that arrangement in the 1980s, and individual pickup switching was popular on a lot of 50s and 60s guitars as well. Not to mention Brian May’s Red Special (along with individual pickup polarity switching).