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It's the same dealio with most Les Paul pickups.

Thomas wrote:It's the same dealio with most Les Paul pickups.

Never owned a Gibson...

It was the first time I'd ever come across it. I had the same "what? One wire..?" moment. Luckily I was removing them from a guitar so it was more obvious what the deal was.

i get the mojo swag but it seems odd to me, particularly as the inside live is separated by a thin bit of cotton which could wear away, and is also dead fiddly to separate properly when splicing and soldering to lugs within close proximity of each other (compared to plastic anyway). and it can take a LONG time to heat up the braid enough to get a good connection on it. just a lot of extra work to do if you want a tidy job basically.

meh, is what it is though - if the pickups you want have it you have to live with it.

Fitted the new pickups tonight, passed the vu meter test will need to wait till tomorrow to plug it in as teh bambino is asleep. think I need to ditch the black pickup ring.

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George wrote:i get the mojo swag but it seems odd to me, particularly as the inside live is separated by a thin bit of cotton which could wear away

It's cloth insulated wire inside the braid on every modern Gibson/Duncan pickup I've ever worked with (braided push-back insulation like on vintage/USA RI Fenders). I definitely think of them as a more durable scheme (say, in the case of a loose pot that spins round too far) than modern 4-conductor pickups: thicker gauge wire and the metal braid ground holds it in place on the pot. That cloth insulation isn't wearing away anytime soon, and you're unlikely to even burn through it with a soldering iron that touches it too long.

Just rewired the Tele so the control plate is the correct way round and found a problem with the braided wire being the ground, because the switch is now at the other end of the control cavity the switch touches the braided wires where they enter the cavity shorting out the guitar, had to cover them with insulating tape... Pain in the arse!

Is there a better way of doing this ^ as having black tape keep my guitar alive doesn't fill me with confidence?

Heat shrink?

PVC tape will do the same job though. It's not like it's a moving part or anything.

Bacchus wrote:Heat shrink?

PVC tape will do the same job though. It's not like it's a moving part or anything.

Aye, maybe I'm being a bit OCD.

Gibson have used heatshrink and PVC sleeving on the braided wire for the switch wiring that passes through the pot cavity to the jack, but it's just as fine with tape (and beats having to do the wiring over again).

Think I'll open it up and check that I've definitely covered it all, then leave it at that.