Push Pull Pot

[ZackPomerleau]

Okay So I am ordering my strat today, and have Lindy Fralin Real 54's, and want to do a Push Pull pot for have a neck and bridge pickups play at the same time. I was wondering how I would do that, and how it would work, meaning would the switch deactivate itself, or what?

 

[chuck7]

I'll give it a crack.  Basically what you would do is set the push pull switch up so that when pulled the neck pickup would be hooked in parallel with what ever else was turned on.  when pushed, it would do nothing.  This way, when you have the bridge pickup selected, you pull the pot up to activate the neck pickup as well.  If you have both the bridge and mid, pulling the pot would give you all three, and if you have just the mid, it would give you neck mid.  If you select the neck pickup, or mid and neck, it would do nothing as in this setting, the neck pickup is already in parallel, thus the switch is redundant. 

You could do this by running the hot leads coming from your neck pickup through one of the non-common (probably the top pair or bottom pair) lugs on the push pull pot.  Then from there to where ever it would normal go on the selector switch. 

Then you would wire the matching common lug on the push pull pot to go into your volume pot along with the hot lead from the selector switch. 

 

[Alfang]

Heres the bottom line. the lead from the pup (neck) goes to the switch, then by moving the switch you select between whatever pup combination you have. theres a wire that leaves the switch and heads towards your volume knob

Alls you need to do is run another wire from the "neck" post on the switch, to the push/pull pot, then back to the "output" post on the switch.

This way anytime the push/pull is engaged ( either In or out, your choice) the neck pup will be on. this way you can select bridge/ neck or with the switch in the middle bridge pos. all pups will be on.

This is a great simple mod that really sounds great, especially if you have a good single in the neck and a nice crunchy humbucker in the bridge. the two dif tones really work well together.

I tried to find a schem at SD but could not

 

[tfarny]

It's a great little mod, neck / bridge is becoming my favorite strat position. You can also put it on a mini-switch if you don't like push-pull, warmoth sells the right kind. There's also push-push which are faster but don't give you a visual indication of what's on or off.

 

[jackthehack]

"There's also push-push which are faster but don't give you a visual indication of what's on or off."

Au contraire, it's very easy to see what is switched as the knob pops up when the switch is engaged, see the pic below, both pots are push-push from Warmoth; vol is engaged, tone is in "normal" position.

 

[GoDrex]

yeah that's what I thought too, but they do pop up when "up"

there's also a "blend" option you can do but I think it's more complex. The second tone mixes in the bridge if you're on the neck, and vice versa. If you're on 2 and 4 you can get all three at once. The cool part is you can vary how much you mix in. The other tone becomes a master tone, which gives you tone control for the bridge as well.