I have looked at some wiring diagrams on this site..still confused. before I buy a new pickup from cbgitty I'd like to experiment with an existing old guitar not being used ...i have a few questions please

1. I have an old squire stratocaster that I'd like to use one of the 3 pickups for a cbg. I've never installed a regular pickup before. Do I just solder 2 wires to a 1/4" jack and that's it? Do I need a third wire to ground?

2. Which one of the 3 pickups would you use from a squire strat? Bridge pickup?
3. Which wire is hot ? Cold?

I have no pics yet as I haven't dismantled the squire yet...

Thank you and any advice appreciated.

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The bridge pickup is hotter than the neck pickup as the strings don't vibrate as much there... (So I recall).

Before you tear apart a perfectly good guitar, you can get single coil pups and dual rail humbuckers for less than $10 if you shop around...   Hell, go to fleabay and a chinese company (or 20) will send you single coil pickups for $5 ea...  

I found a local luthier who had a box of old pickups that were just fine, but people had upgraded.  He sold me a few cheap once I told him what I was using them for.

I really like humbuckers as they are much less noisy than the single coil pickups, and are still dirt cheap.  Generally, pickups have a black wire, which is the ground, or they will have a shielded wire, where the ground surrounds the hot wire.

If you're not sure, I have a dual rail humbucker I somehow managed to break one of the coils, so now it's functionally a single coil pickup *though not as hot.  It still works, but not as a humbucker, if you want it, PM me and I'll send it to you...

The next trick is volume and tone controls.   For humbucker type pickups, I use 500K ohm audio taper pots for both, but there's been a lot of discussion over the years of what's best.  Even the various manufacturers use different values and types (Audio/linear taper).

Now you know everything I do...

John

This really helps john. I'll look around for some cheapo humbuckers to tinker with. I already have a volume pot so I'll try that once I get a humbucker.
I appreciate the offer very much! If I can't get my hands on one soon and you still have it I'll pm you!

If you look at amazon or ebay and search dual rail humbucker, you'll find it... also, the epiphone style ones can be found as a pair for less than $20 on amazon, and work fine for a CBG...  

http://www.amazon.com/Humbucker-Pickup-Chrome-Gibson-Replacement/dp...

http://www.amazon.com/Generic-Black-Humbucker-Guitar-Pickup/dp/B00E...

They can be found on ebay cheaper, but shipping can take forever...

Those look good! I already like the look of the silver type colored ones! Thank you.
John looks like only one wire per pickup...does that mean you have to use both pickups? How does that get wired?

For the silver epiphone type...The one wire is coaxial... ground/hot only... 

The dual rail humbucker you can wire a switch if you want... 

Thanks John really appreciate this!
These look just right!

If you go onto ebay and look up cbg pick-ups you can purchase then very reasonable for around $15.00 or less if you buy more than one....

You'll also need to ground the strings to the ground terminal on the jack. 

How please if no ground wire on pickup exists (only 1 wire on pickup) to ground to jack? Thank you

There is a ground wire on the pickup... The two wires that come out: one is hot, the other ground...  And Yes, George is right:  Don't forget to ground your strings. I run a wire from the jack ground, and I use either brass ferrules or pop-rivets for string guides.  Those I solder that wire to... Works great!

If you make a license plate guitar, the whole thing is automatically grounded...  :-)

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