Middle position selector switch, out of phase?

[rugby1970]

I just purchased a '91 Sunburst and the middle position is very weak, there is a distinct loss of volume and tone. An educated friend suggested that Hamers of this era were wired out of phase in the middle position. Does anyone know if this is true? I have other guitar Hamers and other guitars that have out of phase wiring but none that sound this wonky. Open to all suggestions. Thanks in advance

[Jeff R]

You can often influence the strength/intensity of that out-of-phase "both" tone by playing with your pickup heights. Assuming you have your primary/most-used pickup dialed to a height you like, try slightly lowering or raising the non-primary pickup a little. Don't overthink it and don't break out a rule or a gauge, let your ears be the judge at first - the rules of pickup height adjustment is that there are few beyond satisfying your personal tastes.

[cynic]

Have you tried making small adjustments on the volume knobs?  Going from 9.5 to 9 on one or the other can make a big difference in sound. 

[texwest]

I actually bought a 92 sunburst last year and the 59/jb pups were indeed wired out of phase.  I believe it was wired this way from the factory because the solder was untouched.  It's not a sound I like so I just rewired the JB and all was fine.

[Jeff R]

Unless there is absolutely no slack pickup wire, you can flip a pickup magnet without breaking solder joints. Remove just enough pickup tape to expose the magnet end(s), loosen the four PH screws on the back plate, push magnet out with an ice pick, flip magnet like a pancake, push back in, tighten screws, replace tape. There are two '93 Special FMs floating around out there that I out-of-phased the way I just described while I owned them. 

[texwest]

What Jeff said will work.  I really hate to disagree with him about this, because he always offers such good advice, but its so much easier and neater to just switch the hot wire and ground wire of the JB pickup.

I have swapped magnets and flipped magnets on lots of these old Duncan pickups.  Once you take that tape off of the old ones it is really impossible to get it  back on neatly.  It's often a real mess when you take it off.  The old tape has a hard time sticking back on and it will never look quite as good as it did.  I usually end up putting new black pickup tape on so it looks good.

To flip the magnet you have to completely remove the pickup out of the ring so its not an quick job.  And the wax potting usually makes it a bit difficult to get the magnet to dislodge.  You have to push it from the correct side of the pickup and be careful to not harm the wires on one side. 

Also the JB in  my sunburst has a very short lead that would make this whole operation very difficult.   If you decide to do it this way be sure to put a towel between the pickup and the body of the guitar as you work to avoid scratching your guitar!

The easier alternative is too switch the polarity with the wires in the control cavity. You need to find the hot and ground wires of the JB pickup inside the control cavity and swap their places.  It's that simple.  On a Duncan pickup, this is usually the green and black wire; the red and white wire are soldered together and covered with heat shrink.  But on my sunburst it was the red and white wires I had to switch.  Hamer had heat shrinked the black and green together, so I had to swap the red and white wires. 

Be sure to keep the bare wire connected to ground also.  The bare wire is sometimes connected to the wire you need to switch, so be sure to not switch the bare wire but keep it on the ground.

You have to do this on the JB pickup because the 59 uses the shielded wire for its ground so it won't work.

If you want to do it yourself post of pic of your control cavity and I can spot the wires for you.

[Jeff R]

Absolutely agreed, it is much, much simpler to switch hot and ground on a pot. I thought most guys here knew that. You mistook the context of what I said above ... I wasn't recommending a physical magnet flip as the best way to do it. I said you can flip a magnet, I didn't say you should flip the mag to make this mod. My point was clean, unmolested solder joints don't necessarily mean that the circuit/harness hasn't been modified - it may have been an internal pickup modification.

To clarify for the DIY'ers, I absolutely agree you do a wiring switcheroo before a physical magnet flip for many of the reasons Tex stated above, and particularly if the pickup(s) in question have metal caps and especially if potting occurred after caps were installed.

Should you choose to do a physical mag swap, "real" pickup tape is $5 a roll at Allparts.com. And to assist in moving a stubborn magnet that's held by wax, hit the back with a warm hairdryer for about 60 seconds. Put a paper plate between the pickup and the towel protecting the surface of the guitar because the pickup will very often drool a little wax.

 

 

[texwest]

OK Jeff that makes sense.  You were saying it may have been a magnet flipping mod that made it out of phase.  Now it makes me wonder if mine had the magnet flipped and that was the reason it was out of phase, but I'll never know because I changed the magnet to an A2.