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1983 Gibson Les Paul Custom questions

nickza

Member
Joined
Nov 2, 2010
Messages
115
I had a 1989 LP Standard that had these circuit board pickups. I changed the bridge to a Classic 57 and the neck to a PAF from 1980 I had. Does this have a maple or a mahogany neck? If it's maple it should be three piece. I think I've been told when Gibson reverted back to mahogany necks there were no three piece just one piece necks. I could be wrong I think I've red there were first three piece mahogany necks and then one piece.

Mahogany neck and it looks to be single piece. Toyed with the idea of swopping out the pickups but through a cranked Marshall its :dude:. Maybe the pickup honeymoon will wear off in the not too distant future but right now they are staying.
 

nickza

Member
Joined
Nov 2, 2010
Messages
115
So parts came and it was time to rewire the Custom.

gibsonlespaulcustom9.jpg


Pre-wire the pots using 50's wiring.

gibsonlespaulcustom7.jpg


Found some info online on how to wire 4 wire pickups with normal two wires and replaced the cat5 looking cable with braided pickup wire. According to the info you bridge Red and Green, if you have Blue wire it to ground and White is your hot lead.

gibsonlespaulcustom8.jpg


And done.. didn't turn out quite as neat as I was hoping but it's a billion times better than what it was.

Plug it in and all works till I figure out the middle position is out of phase :laugh2: this didn't phase me too much though as I never really use that position and since it now sounds different it may be useful in the future. Something told me to measure the pickup output again (through the jack) and for some really strange reason its dropped.. massively. Neck now reads 4.6 (was 8? If I recall) and the bridge reads 6.4 (was 14k). Popped off the back cover and turned the vol down to 0 and measured on the pickup wires soldered to each pot and it's the same.

Pickups sound like humbuckers, definitely not coil split so it must be something to do with bridging the Red and Green. Any ideas?
 
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