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Permalink Reply by John Sawyer on August 27, 2015 at 1:55pm

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

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Permalink Reply by Jon Leslie/Runaway Veal Music on August 27, 2015 at 2:28pm

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!

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Permalink Reply by John Sawyer on August 27, 2015 at 5:51pm

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...

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Permalink Reply by Jon Leslie/Runaway Veal Music on August 27, 2015 at 9:34pm

Those look good! I already like the look of the silver type colored ones! Thank you.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Leslie/Runaway Veal Music on August 28, 2015 at 11:32am

John looks like only one wire per pickup...does that mean you have to use both pickups? How does that get wired?

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Permalink Reply by John Sawyer on August 28, 2015 at 3:09pm

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... 

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Permalink Reply by Jon Leslie/Runaway Veal Music on August 28, 2015 at 4:34pm

Thanks John really appreciate this!

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Permalink Reply by Jon Leslie/Runaway Veal Music on August 27, 2015 at 6:38pm

These look just right!

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Permalink Reply by Mad Mike's CBG's on September 1, 2015 at 4:25am

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....

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Permalink Reply by George Forster on September 1, 2015 at 12:35pm

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

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Permalink Reply by Jon Leslie/Runaway Veal Music on September 1, 2015 at 1:15pm

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

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Permalink Reply by John Sawyer on September 1, 2015 at 5:38pm

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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