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So I ordered a 5-way switch from GuitarPartsResource and they accidentally sent me a 3-way. Not a big deal, they gave me a refund, but now I'm in a quandary.

My question is: Is it possible to wire this 3 way they sent me into a strat to get positions 2, 3, and 4? Y'know, the two honky positions and the middle position? I've been googling it, but I don't know anything about wiring, so what's probably blatantly obvious to you guys who make pedals and stuff is a mystery to me.

The switch looks like this:



Thanks! <3

The original strats had 3 ways, and people would get them halfway between the proper positions for those 2 and 4 sounds.

In other words, nope. Not unless you somehow add a detent for the middle positions or jam a toothpick in there to keep it in place.

theshadowofseattle wrote:The original strats had 3 ways, and people would get them halfway between the proper positions for those 2 and 4 sounds.

I know that, lol. I was just curious if there was a trick where I could wire two leads together or something to get ONLY positions 2, 3, and 4. Oh well, guess I can either wire it the old school way or just buy another 5 way. Fanks!

It may be possible, if the middle pick up is wired permanently on and you can find a way to wire the switch neck/bridge/off. I'm trying to work it out.

Gabe's right, if you just want the middle on all the time and one or the other in parallel*, then assuming this pic is right:

Wire the mid pickup and the output to the Common (tab 4). Connect bridge and neck to tabs 1 and 2 as normal.


*This is effectively what the mid-positions on the old 3-way are - I filed a detent into my '73 Strat's 3-way (to make it easy to select bridge & mid), back then before 5-way switches were available. That was a different method of construction, though.