Surely you want to tap that center pickup as well. Otherwise you won't be able to get those in between tones like from a strat. Of course that also means another switch somewhere or fitting a 5 position switch instead of the standard 3 position. You could use a 6 way rotary in place of one of the tone pots and use a single tone pot for the pickups.

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.guitarel…"]Here's[/]="http://www.guitarel…"]Here's[/] some wiring options for a coil tap.

Yeah that would be great but I gotta draw a line in the sand somewhere, or do I? already looking at $400.00 in parts and the guitar cost me only $50.00 dollars more than that. The original pickups are 2 conductor can you easily split these? I thought they had to be 4 conductor and can't really justify the $ on another pickup. I have read that alot of people don't like rotary swiches, a 5 postion maybe (but will it fit in the toggle position?)

I am not a fan of 2 conductor pickups. I had to re-wire a guitar for a friend, it having two conductor pickups, and it is a lot different if you are used to 4 conductor wiring methods. It's not impossible, it's just different.

I think you should still be able to coil tap with 2 conductor pickups, but you might need to get fancy. You could try grounding out the base of the pots themselves (since in a 2 conductor setup they carry hot signal) rather than the wires. Or you could rig a separate pot completely that's connected to the bases of all volumes and have that pot grounded so as you roll it down all pickups effectively coil tap. i.e. Have the A wires (which come from the pot outputs) go straight to the switch and have the B wires go through the pot before going to the switch so you can control how much gets grounded. A simple on/off switch works too if you'd prefer it that way, but I think it would be cool to be able to control how much is grounded.

...Hey, it could work :lol:

With re: to the wiring of the pickups, the replacement pups neck and bridge are 4 conductor, the Epi pup (center and not being changed) is two conductor. I know that terms coil tap and coil split are sometimes used interchangeably but it was my undestanding (or misunderstanding) that a coil tap is different than (coil) splitting a humbucker, and really refers to adding a wire to shorten the number of windings in the coil. I am definitely referring to splitting the dual coils of a humbucker to single coils. I guess I'll try one of the Les Paul forums for a wiring diagram. Thanks for the link Hueseph but it seems that most of those diagrams are for Strats and I can't make the leap to adjusting them to suit my purposes by my lonesome.

You, JG, are indeed correct. According to the Seymour Duncan glossary, "tapping" a pick-up if you are pulling the signal off some shorter winding length of the coil(s). "Splitting" is switching a humbucker to a single-coil. Over the years, the term "coil tapping" has been used in place of "splitting", right or wrong.

I got the pick ups today a set of Texas BBQ from Rio Grande, I bought them through a friend who owns a guitar store and he gave me a generous discount off the posted web one. Now thatI am officially a winter bum I'll get started on this little project after Bird Day and once I whittle down the honey-do list a little. Still have not found the wiring diagram I am looking for but I guess I'll experiment this might become the Franken-guitar but it isn't surgery so hopefully no one will die, LOL.