Fitting Pickups

[pimpmylespaul]

*Noob Here*
Hey guys,
sorry that i sound like an idiot but i'm completely new to the inside of my Epiphone Korina V. I've always trusted other people with setting it up and changing things.
ANYWAY to the point.
i have here a Mule and a Riff Raff which i wish to fit into my guitar. HOWEVER i am a pickup fitting virgin.
Anyone got any good tips for me. how to videos. abuse?
pretty much anything that could be of some use to me.
it would be GREATLY appreciated!
Cheers

[Dr.Pain]

There's a few clips on youtube that Seymour Duncan has done.  I was in the same boat as you being a fitting virgin.  I watched those clips seeing him soldering and it helped me a lot.

[dobbins]

I've only done it a few times, but I found taking a quick pic of the cavity before starting really helped when soldering the new pickup wires in as you have a quick reference - so long as you know the colour codes of the wires that is.

[darkbluemurder]

I learned wiring a guitar pretty much the same way I learned setting up a stereo: first of all you need to figure out where the signal comes from (i.e. pickups respectively CD, tape, tuner, phono) and where does it need to go (output jack respectively loudspeakers). Everything else can be deduced from there.

Taking a picture is a good idea, so is drawing one if you don't have a camera.

Cheers Stephan

[darkbluemurder]

BTW: a "trick" if you only want to change the neck pickup but don't want to remove the bridge pickup: solder a long wire to the neck pickup wire. Pull the wire until it comes out of the neck pickup cavity. Desolder the old neck pickup and solder one of the neck pickup wires to the long wire. Then carefully pull the long wire until the neck pickup wire comes into the control compartment. Desolder the long wire and solder the neck pickup to the appropriate connections.

Be careful to (1) make solid solder connections - you don't want to break them within the wire channel and (2) not spill solder when (de)soldering the wires while being above the neck pickup cavity - tape the guitar when in doubt. 

Cheers Stephan