hmm guitar souping

hi im ben iv just started guiat on an acoustic...

wel my cuisin just gave me an old guitar and its got 3 singe coils is it possibel to change them in2 humbuckers or am i shut talking sh*t? also its prety knackered what can i do 2 make it look good again?

help?

ben

Mr Pip
Make sure that the guitar your cuz gave you isnt some classic that might should be left stock. If not, switching to hummers isnt to big a deal. But my suggestion is to play the single coils for a while and explore their tone. you might find you like it. If not humbuckers put in a strat with 3 singles could require some routing. This could be risky and destroy what tone you have. But if the guitar isn't to good anyway; go ahead and experiment with different components. Not only is it fun but you might just create a masterpiece. If the body looks a little rough, leave it alone. Thats called character and it makes it look like you been playin awhile. Or if you're looking for that funky look, cover it with stickers. Refinishing a guitar with spray paint usually looks like s.... For a natural classy look, sand it down to the bare wood and let it mellow with sweat and oil from your hands.

Guitars save lives!!!

o it isnt a good guitar and its a chap copy of a strat. sanding it down would look ace cos theres chips in it and its some funky colour wood underneeth. also what kind of cost are we looking at if it did neeed re routing? also u recomned any decent pick up brands? or al they all good? cherrs ben

Routing by a pro would be very expensive. Find a wood worker friend and show him what you want removed. Buy the PU before routing so you can see how much to remove, Humbuckers come in all flavors. Talk to friends who's sound you like and find out what hummers they use. I like EMGs because they have a mellow tone for the blues I play. Order the stewart McDonald parts catalog, I'm sure you can find something in there plus It will help you with your modification project. Good luck!!

Guitars Save Lives!!

If you wanna give somthin else a try, instead of taking all three single coils out leave the middle one in, and replace the bridge and the neck pickups with somthin like the seymour duncan hot rail...i have a strat that i took the bridge PU out of and put one of those in and now its got some serious balls. I can only imagine that if you did both neck and bridge it would be seriously heavy metal.

ok wel i probably need to basically experiment? i wank a kind of blues-esque tone but not limit me so i cant play stuff like back in black by acdc? ok cheers

Have you taken off the strings and looked under the scratch plate ? Some guitars wired with three single coils are actually routed for two humbuckers and a single coil.

A nice idea is to get a second scratch plate that will accommodate the pickups you want and build, using all new electrics onto it. It is not that much more expensive and means that instead of mucking up the existing config you can just do a scratch plate transplant.