One difference between that guitar and mine is that from the pickup routs he has access into the cavity where the harness is. Mine isn't like that. There's a solid block of wood where the pickups are with just a hole drilled through it for the leads.

Whenever I re-wire anything with F-holes, I run jumpers between the pickup cavities and the harness, before the harness is installed. The jumpers start at applicable points on the harness in the cavity and end in the pickup cavities themselves. Adds a few inches of wire to the chain without affecting the signal and makes the current job and especially future pickup swaps so, so much easier and quicker. Here's a photo of the pickup end of jumpers I recently put in a Gibson Midtown. It got Duncan Alnico IIs, the Slash set (another great PAF option). The pickups attach to those wires, not through the channels to the actual harness. I trim those jumpers shorter before the actual pickup install, they're long in the photo to make it easier to see what's going on.

This post was edited on 11/2/16 at 9:58 pm

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Posted by EA6B

Member since Dec 2012

14754 posts

Posted on 11/2/16 at 11:50 pm to Ace Midnight

quote:
For the record, my stock pickups on my American Deluxe Strat (I know, subtle brag ) are fine, but I've never really pushed them. I'm more of a collector than a player.

I don't collect, but I have a 1977 Strat that I purchased in 1979. It was a 3 bolt neck CBS era Strat and were almost worthless in 1980s. Sometime in that period I replaced the tuners, knobs, pickguard, and put in EMG pickups. After 2005 or so the vintage market had driven up the price of the 50s, 60s strats and people started to buy the 70s models for decent money. Fortunately, I had kept all the original tuners and pickups and was able to restore it to stock condition. I don't think I will ever sell it, but the moral of the story is even if you think a guitar will never be collectable keep all the original parts when you change something just in case.

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Posted by MountainTiger

The foot of Mt. Belzoni

Member since Dec 2008

14974 posts

Posted on 11/14/16 at 9:43 am to MountainTiger

I wanted to circle back around and close this topic off. I installed the new PUs over the weekend and I really like the tone. The Seth Lovers (particularly through the Marshall JCM) produce a great classic rock sound (think John Fogerty) and the '59s are brighter and have more twang - reminded me of Hughie Thomasson. Both are articulate and clear with none of the muddiness of the original set. I'd recommend these pickups to anybody looking for an authentic PAF sound.

This post was edited on 11/14/16 at 9:44 am

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Posted by monsterballads