Mod Garage - Premier Guitar |

This mod enables variable splitting of humbucker pickups, allowing you to easily blend your desired amount of humbucker and split-coil tones.

Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. As a follow-up to the “Tapping and Splitting: What’s the Difference?” column in the October 2021 issue, this month we’ll take a closer look at variable splitting of humbuckers that’s also known as the “spin-a-split” mod. This mod can be applied to all humbuckers with a 4-conductor wiring because we need access to the start and end of both coils. You can’t do this mod to humbucker pickups with a standard 2-conductor wiring. Most humbuckers can be converted from 2-conductor to 4-conductor wiring; however, you need to open the pickup for this, which can be a delicate job. That job is best left to a guitar tech, because destroying the pickup is easy to do.

The basic idea of this mod is very simple. With a switch, you can split the humbucker to a single-coil pickup resulting in two very different tones: 100 percent humbucker or 100 percent single-coil. The variable coil-splitting mod uses a pot instead of a switch, so you don’t have only two given tones but also anything in between, giving you precise control over the amount of split.

This is not just about balancing tone, but also balancing hum-free operation. The more humbucker you have, the less hum and noise will be present and vice versa. With the pot fully opened you have 100 percent humbucker, and with the pot fully closed you have 100 percent single-coil. But it’s easy to dial in any tone you want, for example, 70 percent humbucker plus 30 percent single-coil, which gives a good proportion of hum-free operation.

So, you’ll have easy access to a huge range of tones from only one humbucker pickup by mixing single-coil and humbucker sounds. You can also mimic other pickups with this mod, such as P-90s or Filter’Trons. Another cool bonus is that when you have too much bass or overdrive in full humbucker mode, you can use the spin-a-split to instantly clear things up.

The idea is not new. It first showed up in the mid 1970s and Hartley Peavey is the person to whom all the credit must go. Most people think this is an easy mod, which only partly hits the nail, and I’ll explain why in just a moment.

Let’s have a look at the basic configuration and how this mod works (Fig. 1). You need a spin-a-split pot for each humbucker pickup you want to install this wiring into. As usual, I chose the Seymour Duncan color code to demonstrate the mod because it’s the quasi-standard in the guitar world. If you want to transfer the color code to humbucker pickups from another company, you can use one of the many color code transfer charts on the internet.

As usual, the green and the bare wires go to ground so there’s nothing new here. The black wire is the output, going to a pickup-selector switch or to the input lug of a volume control. The red and the white wires are going to the middle lug (lug #2) of the spin-a-split pot while the bottom lug (lug #3) is grounded. When the pot is turned all the way down, the red and white wires will be connected directly to ground, which is a normal coil-split setup for single-coil tone. When the control is turned all the way up, the red and white wires are not connected to ground at all, which means normal humbucker mode and tone.

This is where the trouble starts. In reality, both wires are still slightly connected to ground but with a large resistance, depending on what pot you use for this. This will drain a good portion of volume and tone to ground. A perfect and easy fix to get rid of this lingering connection to ground is using a no-load pot, which removes the ground connection when the pot is turned all the way up.

If you want to use a tone pot as a spin-a-split pot, you’ll find a 500k or 250k audio pot. It’s essential to replace this one with a no-load pot or convert the existing pot into a no-load pot by breaking the connection internally. If for any reason this is not possible, you should use a 100k pot, but finding them in guitar-friendly configurations is a challenge. Linear pots work best for this mod, so with a little luck you’ll find a 500k linear tone pot in your humbucker guitar, which is a perfect base for this mod by making it a no-load pot.

As you can see, it’s not as easy as it seems, and as always, the devil is in the details.

In closing, here’s an illustration (Fig. 2) of the spin-a-split mod together with a volume pot for the same pickup. Instead of connecting the wire to the input of the volume pot, you can connect it to a pickup-selector switch if you have more than one pickup in your guitar.

That’s it! Next month we’ll do a mod for Stratocaster guitars called the “Ricky King” mod, so stay tuned. Until then ... keep on modding!

Here’s a workaround to get a similar configuration without having a third pickup. Plus, this serious tone weapon can be integrated into any given Telecaster wiring.

Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. After writing the column about the Brent Mason Telecaster wiring in October 2021, I received a lot of requests from you about a more practical and non-invasive version of it. Well, you asked, and the Mod Garage delivers.

A lot of people don’t want to route an additional hole into their Telecasters to add a third pickup in the middle position, which is a massive task. I totally understand this, so let’s see what can be done instead, and let’s add some more tonal flexibility, which was another common request after that article.

The good news is a lot can be done. We touched on this multiple times in past columns: mimicking Stratocaster in-between tones with a Telecaster without having a middle pickup using half-out-of-phase wiring, for example. Some time ago we explored the Bill Lawrence way of doing this (“Mod Garage: The Bill Lawrence 5-Way Telecaster Circuit”) and the Jerry Donahue Telecaster wiring as well (“Decoding Jerry Donahue’s 5-Way Telecaster Wiring”). These two columns are great starting points to read about the basics of half-out-of-phase wiring and what it does.

In general, there’s nothing wrong with using these two wirings the way they are. But our goal is to get a little bit closer to the Brent Mason Telecaster wiring, plus add more tonal flexibility. Brent Mason’s wiring is straightforward—basically it’s a normal Telecaster wiring with an added middle pickup that has its own volume pot. Mason’s Telecaster is loaded with three humbucker pickups for trouble-free performance regarding hum and noise in both studio and live situations. But it doesn’t have any additional switching for splitting the individual humbuckers, so there are a lot more sounds under the hood to discover. If you need them or not ... well, it’s all up to you. The basic setup works well for Brent, and he can get his signature sounds in any given situation, but it’s not a crime to want more flexibility.

The basic plan for today looks like this:

1. Swap both pickups on your Telecaster for the correct Brent Mason models.

2. Add a triple-sound switch to each of the two pickups.

I will show you how to do this in a way you can integrate into any given Telecaster wiring, but to get the most out of it, I recommend combining it with the Jerry Donahue wiring. This way, you will receive an ultra-flexible Telecaster wiring that can also cover basic Stratocaster in-between tones.

Let’s start with the pickups. Brent uses Seymour Duncan pickups. If you want to get as close as possible you should use the following models:

If your Telecaster has the traditional vintage routing under the hood, the cavity for the neck pickup must be enlarged to make the mini humbucker fit, which can be a downside if you want to plug ’n’ play. If enlarging the routing is not an option for you, there are numerous humbuckers on the market that will fit into the routing, such as the Seymour Duncan Hot Rails and Vintage Stack Tele neck pickups. Almost every pickup manufacturer has such a pickup in its portfolio, so there are plenty of options.

Choosing a Stratocaster neck pickup will result in the same problem: They won’t fit into the standard vintage neck routing of a Telecaster.

If you have a full humbucker routing under the hood, which you can find on a lot of newer Telecaster models, you’re good to go the easy way, but keep in mind that you’ll have to enlarge the hole in the pickguard as well. Don’t forget to build it in 180 degrees flipped, like on Brent’s Telecaster, to get closer to his trademark sounds.

Changing the bridge pickup should be a no-brainer: It’s an easy 1:1 swap.

For adding the two triple-sound switches, you’ll need two DPDT on-on-on mini toggle switches. You can’t use push-pull or push-push pots for this because they’re only available as on-on or on-off versions, so the third switching position is absent. But on common Telecaster control plates, it’s no problem to place two of these switches between the two pots and you don’t need Reiki hands to operate them. But again, two holes must be drilled, so it’s not an easy mod if you want to make it look good on the control plate, straight in one line.

With the switches, each of the pickups will have three operation modes and tones:

This, combined with the second pickup plus all the features of the Jerry Donahue wiring, results in a lot of different tones. While the humbucker and single-coil-esque tones are free of hum and noise, the real single-coil split mode will also behave like a real single-coil, picking up all kinds of hum and noises.

This switching was made popular by the DiMarzio company under the name “dual sound,” which I think is confusing because it’s a triple-sound switch, not a dual one.

The good thing is that this switching is placed directly after the pickup, so in layman’s terms this means: The four wires from the humbucker are connected to the switch but only two wires are going out of the switch (hot + ground), so it’s super easy to add this feature to any given wiring.

You simply solder the hot output of the switch to the spot where usually the hot wire of the pickup is connected and solder the ground coming from the switch where the ground wire of the pickup is usually connected, and you’re done. So, it’s absolutely independent from the wiring that’s coming after the switch, and you can transfer it to any given guitar.

Now, let’s focus on the bridge pickup to demonstrate the wiring on the switch, as seen in Fig. 1. Please note the jumper wire on the switch and don’t forget to solder it. The middle position of the switch is the real single-coil split. With the toggle up, it’s full humbucker, and the toggle down is the hum-free single-coil-esque tone. I used the Seymour Duncan color code for this because we’re talking about Seymour Duncan pickups. If you want to use pickups from a different company, you’ll have to transfer the color code using one of the many transfer charts online.

The wiring of the neck humbucker is exactly the same: the bare ground wire of both pickups always goes to ground. After wiring both pickups to their mini toggle switches, you only have to connect four wires before you’re done. The hot output of the neck pickup switch goes to the spot where usually the hot wire of the neck pickup is connected to and the hot output of the bridge pickup switch to where the hot wire of the bridge pickup is connected to. Likewise, the ground output of the neck pickup switch goes to the spot where usually the ground wire of the neck pickup is connected, and the ground output of the bridge pickup switch goes where the ground wire of the bridge pickup is usually connected.

Congratulations, you’re done! This is a good alternative to the original Brent Mason wiring, and it adds many more possible tones and variations. Especially in tandem with the Jerry Donahue wiring, this is a serious tone weapon with an almost unlimited number of sounds.

That’s it for now. Next month we’ll continue with another guitar mod, so stay tuned. Until then ... keep on modding!

Photo 1 (left) and Photo 2 (right)

A lot of you have been waiting for this penultimate step of our guitar aging project, so let’s do some damage!

Welcome back to Mod Garage. Today we’ll continue to work on our aging project, and some of you might be wondering why there was such a long break. The reason is simple: suboptimal timing from my side. The last part of this column was in the middle of autumn, and I wanted you to do the following steps outside (if possible) and not on the kitchen table. Wintertime is not the best time for such a challenge but now is a good starting point, so let’s go!

We’re almost done with our project, can you believe it? In this installment, we’ll take care of the color, talk about fading, and we’ll crack the lacquer—something a lot of you have been waiting for—before we add some dings and dongs in the last part of this series, which is the final touch before we put it all together again.a

We also have an advice column on aging from my friend and colleague Matthias “Matti” Meyer, from the German-based Bassart Guitars. Matti is one of the best pro agers I know. Please follow his advice and recipe for aging wood at the end of this column—we will need these tools in the next and final part of this project.

Over time, the colors on guitar bodies start to fade, and depending on the type of color and the paint-job method itself, discolorations can show up. The two main factors are if the guitar was exposed to ultraviolet light and if the paint job is all intact. A famous example is the Gibson Les Paul goldtop guitars with the golden color turning greenish, or the Gibson sunburst Les Pauls losing the red color of the sunburst spray job over time. But Fender guitars also suffer similar problems.

What we want to mimic is an old nitro lacquer, but with our Harley Benton guitar we have two problems:

If you have the time, exposing the guitar to direct sunlight for some weeks or months will cause a fading of the color to a certain degree. Over the years, I’ve seen the oddest attempts to do such things, including regularly placing the guitar inside a home solarium. Using artificial UV light is also an option but building a well-working construction for such a big object, like a set-neck guitar, is not easy and you’d need a lot of UV lamps for that. Such devices are often used to make yellowed plastic materials look shiny white again. An overspray with the correct color is also an option. but a lighter color on a darker one is always difficult to do—especially with a semi-transparent color like TV yellow. And I doubt it’s worth the time and money. Not everything is doable and this falls into that category. But we’ll do other things to make it look old and cool, so leave the color as it is.

Let’s begin. As usual, grab your steel wool and abrasive cloth to break the shine of the high-gloss lacquer, and don’t forget the backside of the neck. The difference can be seen in Photo 1 (before) and Photo 2 (after).

This is what a lot of you have been waiting for and today we’ll finally do it: cracking the lacquer!We all know the look of cracked lacquer on vintage guitars, which is part of their special appearance and charm. On vintage guitars this happens over time, the softener disappears, and the paint starts to crack. Here again, facing that our Harley Benton is poly and not nitro-painted, we must follow a different route to get a good result.

Generally, there are two basic methods to do this:

In both cases this is only the first step. Next, we’ll have to make the cracks more visible, but first things first.

I decided to use the second method: using heat and cold to crack the lacquer. Please note, this will take some time and patience to do it right: It won’t be done in 15 minutes. You don’t need much for this, just a heat gun and several bottles of cooling spray. The process is easy but safety first: Only do this outside, wear gloves and goggles, and place a bucket with cold water or an extinguisher near you … a heat gun gets very hot!

You can’t do this in one step, and you’ll need to work in smaller areas, one by one. Heat up the first area with the heat gun and be careful—you only want to heat up the lacquer and not melt or burn it. If you want to intentionally add some burned spots, a heat gun is the way to go, too. Depending on the type and thickness of the lacquer as well as the power of your heat gun, it can take some time until the lacquer is ready to crack. Start to heat it up from a distance and not with the heat gun directly on the guitar, checking the temperature of the lacquer from time to time with one of your hands. Never put your hand directly under the heat gun! Take the guitar body and your hands away from the gun when you check the temperature. If you feel that it’s not hot enough, keep heating it up until it’s good to go.

There are no rules set in stone because it depends on the things mentioned above. So, you have to try and see what works on your guitar. If you think the lacquer is hot enough, take away the heat gun and immediately spray the heated area with the cooling spray to create a sudden temperature gradient. You’ll likely have to repeat the process several times until the lacquer starts to crack, and usually you can hear when it cracks, which is a good sign. Work your way all over the guitar and crack it area by area. I needed approximately 90 minutes and four bottles of cooling spray until I was finished (Photo 3).

Does it look the same as cracked nitro lacquer? No, it’s not the same cracking pattern because of two reasons. On a nitro-lacquered guitar, the cracking happens because the softener disappears over time, which is a completely different thing. Poly is hard as glass and will never lose its softener. So, the vintage guitars of the future, let’s say in 100 years from now, will look much different compared to today—no more cracks. The second reason is that only in the middle of the spray is the lowest possible temperature not on the edge of the spray. But it’s the same ballpark, so don’t worry.

After you’re done with the entire guitar, let it cool down for some time before we start to make the cracks more visible. Again, there are different ways to do this. I prefer to use a strong black tea or coffee. Warm up the guitar slightly and dip some paper towels into the black tea or coffee before covering the guitar with them. Let them sit there for some hours before you remove them. The moisture will creep into the cracks, coloring them slightly, so they are more visible. This is a permanent process: The cracks will not lose their color again over time. On poly-lacquered guitars, I’ve also seen and tried alternative methods like using Coca-Cola, potassium permanganate, coffee grounds, stains, and more. The tea/coffee method works great and with good results and is, of course, harmless. But feel free to try other methods if you want to experiment, there’s no law against it.

After removing the paper towels, let it dry for some time before removing any residues from the lacquer using a dampish paper towel. Then, heat up the guitar slightly and let it cool down again. And voila, done! You can see the cracks are now brighter in Photo 4.

Congratulations, we are only one step away from finishing our aging project! Next, we’ll add some dings, dongs, and scratches, which is a lot of fun and a great way to individualize your guitar.

That’s it for now. Next month we’ll do another cool guitar mod, so stay tuned. Until then ... keep on modding!

Matthias Meyer of Bassart Guitars

Did you ever wonder how it’s possible to add a special gray and dark color to the exposed wood on aged guitars? Here is my recommendation for how to do this with some simple household stuff you already have.

You will need: vinegar essence, water, black tea, steel wool, paper coffee filters, and some jars.

First, twitch a good handful of steel wool and put it in a jar. Next, fill up the jar with vinegar essence, close the jar, and let it sit for one or two days. The reaction of the steel wool and the vinegar will result in iron(II) acetate, which you can use as a dye. Use a cone-shaped paper coffee filter to percolate the liquid into a new jar and you hold the panacea in your hands. By adding some water, you can mitigate the dying effect and it’s easy to make some different aging dyes this way, from very dark to light gray.

Now it’s teatime. Make a strong black tea by using 6 to 8 tea bags in a pot, let it cool down, remove the tea bags, and pour the tea in a new jar.

One way of aging the exposed wood is to use the tea first, immediately followed by the iron(II) acetate (wet on wet technique). For a different effect and color, use the tea first and let it dry before applying the iron(II) acetate. Or use both liquids individually without the other one. It all depends on your personal taste and, of course, the wood itself. Before applying these liquids directly to your precious instruments, you should try to practice the process on some wood scraps you have lying around. Different woods react in very different ways and often the aging process needs one or two days before it becomes visible.

I hope you enjoy experimenting with this process. Cheers!

—Matthias “Matti” Meyer www.bassartguitars.de

This technique works for all standard single-coil pickups, including Fender’s template design, so dive in!

It’s not difficult to replace the wiring in your pickups, but it takes some finesse. Here’s a step-by-step guide.

Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. After numerous requests, this month we’ll have a closer look at changing wires on a single-coil pickup. As our guinea pig for this, I chose a standard Stratocaster single-coil, but it’s basically the same on all single-coil pickups and easy to transfer. It’s not complicated but it is a delicate task to not destroy your pickup during this process, and there are some things you should keep in mind.

Why would you change wires on a pickup? Here’s a list of reasons I mostly hear in the shop when someone brings in a pickup for this operation:

This can happen if the wire was bent too much, or it was damaged with a soldering iron, a screw split it, etc.

Maybe one of the pre-owners snipped it out of the circuit at some point, rather than desoldering it to save the full wire length. The quick-and-dirty solution in such a case will be to extend the wire by soldering another piece of wire to it. For the “Trekkies” of us, that’s the way James T. Kirk and Scotty would fix it. Jean-Luc Picard and Geordi La Forge would solder a new wire with the correct length to the pickup to replace the old one. Make it so!

Often cheap pickups have thin and shoddy plastic-coated wires that will likely break soon. It’s always a good investment regarding reliability and longevity to swap them with a good quality wire.

Changing the wire material can alter the sound of a pickup, so replacing a cheap plastic-coated wire with a good-quality cloth-covered wire will not only look more vintage but will also result in a slightly warmer tone. Or the other way around for a slightly brighter tone. Or maybe you want to upgrade your pickups with a high-quality Teflon-coated or audiophile HiFi-wire. Perhaps you like to have neon green and pink wires on your pickups, for whatever reason.

This often goes hand in hand with shielding the complete single-coil pickup and is a logical step in such cases.

Often vintage pickups are modded with a non-original wire, sometimes as part of a repair. Bringing them back to factory specs is a good investment to keep the value of a vintage pickup alive.

So, you see there are some good reasons to change the wires on a pickup. This list is not complete; for sure there are others.

Now, let’s start our project by preparing the pickup for this operation. It’s first and foremost important to protect the windings of your pickup against any damage. It only takes a fraction of a second to hit the winding with the tip of the soldering iron and this is a scenario you do not want.