I have a Texas Special Fat Strat that I converted to a SSS a fewe years ago.I ordered a Texas Special bridge pickup and installed it.The polarity was different with the new pickup.It sounded tinny and after getting some advice , swapped the wires to put the pickup in phase with the middle pickup.The only problem is it was no longer reverse wound with the middle , so no hum cancelling.I decided to make another go at it, so I ordered another TS bridge pickup from an SRV.I thought maybe it was a fluke.I get the pickup and held it to the middle pickup and it repels it, but is attracted to the neck pickup.My conclusion is the new bridge pickup is the same polarity as the old one and if I install it, the results will be the same.Am I correct in my thinking?The only thing I can figure is the polarity of the TS pickups that came stock in my strat is the opposite of the ones from the SRV.Does this make sense?And what would solve my problem, since the only pickups available( TSs) are the custom shop version? Thanks in advance.

Probably. It all hinges on if it is also wound in the same direction that your current bridge pickup is. Overwhelmingly, the odds are, it is. See, your current bridge pickup only has one of the two requirements for position #2 to go humbucking. Specifically, as opposed to that OEM middle pickup, your current bridge pickup is as you know, "RP" but the co-required, "RW" one is not there.

Aside from obtaining yet another pickup, there is one hope here: Try exchanging your neck pickup with your middle pickup in the pickguard and rewiring them accordingly. As you know, the neck and the bridge pickups are HB in position #4 of the pickup selector switch. Obviously, this means that the middle and neck pickups are RW/RP to each other. Consequently, there is a distinct possibility that that neck (now, middle) pickup may be RW/RP to that of the bridge pickup. You MAY have to reverse the bridge pickup's leads again too. Give it a shot.

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Thanks Martian.I will try that .The resistance of the middle and neck are pretty close, so I cant seeing there being a difference in tone.And I believe you are right, I will have to swap the leads to my bridge back again to put them in phase again.I will give that a go .I appreciate your help.This is new territory for me.All I can assume is the stock set that came with my Texas Special strat had the opposite polarity of the custom shop sets.I wonder if anyone else has run into this problem.

You're quite welcome.

The resistance between the two is virtually irrelevant. Remember, it's all done by computers nowadays.

Believe me, your's is not an obscure dilemma.

Good luck!

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This is a strange problem indeed. A Texas Special uses three different pickups in the SSS neck, middle, bridge The fat strat one uses a Seymour Duncan HB in the bridge. That means if you ordered a Texas Special bridge single coil you would have the proper three single coils where they belong as if you bought a SSS Texas Special strat. I would leave the neck and Mid where they are and rewire it with the texas single coil bridge and see if you have done something wrong.
P.S. Make sure you did get a Texas special Bridge pick up

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Thats why I ordered a new pickup , because i was concerned whether i got a TS pickup to begin with .

They are three different pickups. The Henries are much higher on the bridge pickup then the Mid and neck plus the resistance is higher.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

This much i can tell you , the neck and middle are stock pickups.I know the middle is right because of the yellow wire.I know the one i purchased measures out at 6.9kohms .I wired everything initially using the TS strat wiring diagram.The neck and middle are in phase with one another and hum cancelling, the middle bridge is in phase with the middle , but not hum cancelling.Initially the bridge pickup when added was out of phase with the middle pickup so i swapped the wires .It is now in phase but not hum cancelling due to the polarity of the thing.It was suggested that if i swap the middle and neck pickups and change the wires on the bridge pickup everything should be ok.This sounds like a good idea.I will recheck my wiring just in case though.

Did you change the switch to the 5 way used in the SSS Texas special.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Yes, I used the part number found in the part list from the Texas Special strat.The original one was a super switch used for humbuckers.

Just was wondering because I no it had a superswitch.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

someone had me compare the magnetic properties of the pickups.He told me to take the pickups face to face and see whether they repel or attract.The bridge pickup repeled the middle pickup and was attracted to the neck.My understanding is this means the polarity is the same as the middle pickup, but opposite of the neck.I checked it against my SRV and the bridge pickup repels the neck pickup , but is attracted to the middle.

If they repel face to face (top to top), they are of the same polarity. Don't be doing this type of comparison for polarity too many times with the same pickups as it will weaken the magnetism in their polepieces and not necessarily all evenly.

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I only did the comparison once to verify, but i never thought about the magnetism pull.It probably would have been safer using a compass.Well I took your advice and swapped the middle and neck and then swapped the leads on the bridge and everything is normal now.I have hum cancelling in positions 2 and 4.I played it and there isnt any tone difference at all in the before and after versions.I appreciate your help .Thanks.

Glad to help, enjoy!

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