It's a crime to cut pickup leads this short!

Issue 100 November 12, 2009

Here’s how I salvaged a valuable old pickup long after the crime had been committed.

This classic 1960s humbucker was knifed and left in a junk drawer! But with a bit of easy soldering, this freebie is again worth some real $$$.

I was looking through this parts drawer in Dan Erlewine’s shop; it’s a Pickup Graveyard, with discarded pickups dating back over forty years!

That’s where I found this 1960s Gibson humbucker. It’s not a holy-grail PAF (Patent Applied For) pickup, but it’s almost as good: a patent-number version made right after Gibson got the patent. I've seen these selling on eBay for $300-$400 bucks.

Long ago, somebody (I’ll bet it was Dan) yanked this out of a guitar by snipping the braided lead right next to the pickup. That made it easy to solder a new pickup to the old wiring harness, but it trashed this great old humbucker.

What a crime!

I'm going to restore it by giving it a full-length hookup lead again.

The connecting wires coming off the bobbins are really fragile, and with such a valuable old pickup the last thing I’d want to do is loosen one of them. I decided to leave the braided stub intact and splice a length of new shielded wire onto it.

Step 1

Push back the braid and insulation on both the old and new leads to reveal the center wire.

Step 2

Push those center wires together, end to end, and solder them.

Step 3

Keep the solder joint small so you'll be able to slide the cloth insulator over it. If the joint makes a big lump, your braided lead wire is going to look like a snake that swallowed a rat.

Carefully work the cloth insulation back over the solder joint until it’s completely covered up.

Wrap the joint with paper pickup tape and carefully work the braided shields together to cover it.

Just pushing the outer braids together without solder creates electrical continuity according to the multimeter, but to be on the safe side a tiny dab of solder connects the two braided shields for sure.