Bridge Pickup Playing Up

[campbellu2002]

gday trusty tdprians!

so my beautiful CIJ 50s bigsby tele has been playing up on me for a while now
for quite some time i have been running with only a neck pickup as the bridge has cut out almost completely with only a very thin quiet sound available from the bridge and series positions on my four way switch

I haven't gotten around to getting it looked at in the 6 months or so since it started screwing up and so i finally got pissed off enough last week to do a complete rewire myself

when this had no effect whatsoever i did what i should have done in the first place and wired straight from the bridge pickup to a jack and guess what, the problem wasn't with the wiring but the pickup itself

not being silly enough to stick a soldering iron near a pickup i thought i should post here to find out if you guys have ever had similar problems and how i might go about fixing it

nearly forgot, they are texas specials

thanks!

[Rod.V]

Sounds like your p-up is "open circuit". This occurs when either there's a break somewhere within the winding of the p-up's coil or sometimes when there's a dry joint at one or other of the solder eyelets.

You can check the latter by carefully touching the blobs of solder with a modestly rated iron, until the solder starts to run. If that doesn't work then examine the surface of the coil. If you can find any obvious visible disruption, try to ascertain if it's possible to unwind the outside (end) wire by however many turns required until you get to the break. Then reconnect as normal.

Sometimes it's simply a case of the coil being wound too fast and tight so as, if the p-up base moves or the end wire contracts, it breaks away from the eyelet. If this is the case (and the break lies within the outer turns of the coil) carefully unwind one turn and resolder to the eyelet. If it's the inside (start) wire of the coil it may be possible to splice in some wire of the same gauge to re-make the connection but you'll need to carefully scrape the insulation off the wire before it'll take any solder. This procedure needs a steady hand and plenty of patience.

If all else fails you will have to resign yourself to either paying for a re-wind or a replacement p-up.

Best of luck !