Need help with Strat/Hot Rails wiring

[Michael Nolan]

A few months back the piano player in our band *gave* me a Mexican Strat to mess around with. Then, a few days ago we *gave* me a SD Hot Rails to try out in the bridge position. Awesome fella, eh?

Now, I want to drop this baby in the bridge, but I'm a bit confused as to what goes to where. The other two stock pickups only have two leads coming out of them, whereas the Hot Rails has four. Red, black, green, and white, if I'm not mistaken (I'm at work presently).

I was curious if one of you gents could tell me which wires go to what, so I can get some fat humbucker tone out of my project Strat!

PS - I looked aorund for a bit at the SD site, but the only schem. I could find was for a two lead pup.

Thanks!

[Michael Nolan]

I found this diagram, but there are a few questions I have still:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/website/support/schematics/lil_hb_2sgl_vol_2tone_5way.html

1. I solder the red and white together, then just tape that off and leave them alone?

2. The green and bare are the grounds for this pickup? If so, can I solder them to another ground point?

Thanks.

[Jim Collins]

The red and white are, indeed, soldered together, and the joint is taped off.

The bare wire is the ground for the base of the pickup, and the green wire is the ground for the coils. Both of these are soldered to the volume pot casing. However, it is a good idea to avoid twisting them together, when you solder them to ground. In fact, solder the bare wire to a different spot on the casing. It may just be that this pickup could be out of phase with the other pickups in the guitar. If it is out of phase, the solution is to use the black wire for ground, and the green for hot, but still leave the bare wire to ground. If you had twisted the green and bare together, you'd have more work to do.

[Michael Nolan]

Jim, thank you so very much.

You are the master.

[Clorenzo]

Hi Michael,

I thought you'd find this one interesting:

http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/lonestar.php

It splits the bridge humbucker in the bridge+middle position so you have a more authentic Strat sound that's also hum cancelling.

If you would like to make it even more interesting, some time ago I designed some very simple mods for a setup just like this (single - single - humbucker) with a push-pull pot to give you some cool additional sounds such as bridge-middle in series and bridge-neck in parallel. I don't have them handy but if you're interested let me know and I'll dig them out for you.