How to Make a Guitar Humbucker

Place a bath towel on a table. Place the electric guitar faceup on the towel with the neck facing right. Remove the screws from each side of the pickup with a Phillips jeweler̵7;s screwdriver. The pickup is just above the fret that the metal strings are attached to. Pull the pickup off the guitar and place it on the towel.

Apply a stream of heat from the heat gun to one side of the metal cover over the pickup, for two minutes. Insert the edge of a flat-edged jeweler̵7;s screwdriver beneath the side and lift up. Repeat the procedure with the heat gun and the screwdriver on the other side of the metal cover. Pull the metal cover off and set it aside.

Remove the length of electrical tape covering the pickups and dispose of the tape. Cut through the center of the insulated wire that is laying on the pickups, using wire cutters.

Strip 1/2 inch from each of the ends of the insulated wire, with wire strippers. Scrape 1/2 inch of insulation off the ends of the red and black wires that are inside the pickup, with the blade of a utility knife. If the black wire is unshielded, no scraping is needed.

Strip 1/2 inch of insulation off the ends of the four wires at one end of the telephone cable, with the wire strippers. Wrap the bare wire three times clockwise around the wires, about 2 inches from their ends. Wrap the ends of the red wires around each other, and do the same with the black wires.

Wrap the end of the green wire from the cable around the end of the wire now attached only to the left pickup coil. Then wrap the end of the remaining wire from the cable around the end of the wire now attached only to the right pickup coil. And wrap a strip of electrical tape around each pair of twisted wires.

Heat up the soldering iron. Solder the end of the red wire to the terminal at the upper-left corner of the pickup. Solder the end of the black wire to the terminal at the upper-right corner. Solder the black wire to the terminal at the lower-left corner and the remaining wire to the terminal at the lower-right corner. Solder the end of the bare wire to an inside corner of the metal cover. Unplug the soldering iron and let the solder cool for two minutes.

Wind the tape that was removed earlier back around the coils. Apply a drop of bonding glue to each side of the pickup. Place the metal cover back on the pickup, press it down and hold it there for two minutes. Let the glue set for three hours before reattaching the pickup to the guitar.