Today's task is to remove the worn cover from a Bareknuckle Warpig humbucker and replace the cable. The old cable is only 10cm long, so I'm going to replace it with a 4-conductor cable, which is better suited to this type of very powerful pickup. Coil-splitting the coil will bring back a bit of warmth to this otherwise aggressive pickup.
Removing the cover from a Bareknuckle pickup isn't as simple as it seems. Contrary to what one might think, it's not enough to just unsolder the two points that attach the mounting plate to the cover. The British manufacturer's pickups are wax-coated with the cover already in place. This means the pickup needs to be heated to melt the paraffin and detach the cover. BKP even offers a "pickup cover removal" service, because removing the cover yourself voids the manufacturer's warranty. It's easy to see why: the operation isn't for everyone and carries some risks if not done correctly. First and foremost, you'll need a good torch—sorry, a wax heater—and paraffin wax to safely heat the pickup in a paraffin bath.
Once this operation is completed, we can remove the badly damaged cover of this Warpig and access the coils.
The next step involves detaching the coils from the mounting plate to access the connection between the two coils. Excuse the gruesome sight; it's a bit gruesome, a microphone with its guts hanging out.
I remove the 2-conductor cable and replace it with the 4-conductor one. Then, we solder the wires according to Bareknuckle's code to avoid confusion:
– Black: south coil input
– White: south coil output
– Red: north coil input
– Green: north coil output.
This pickup has two rows of screws, so it's difficult to know which is north and which is south once it's mounted. For your information, south is on the side where the cable enters the nickel mounting plate.
The important thing is that the microphone works in the end, so we test it. We test the two coils while they're separated, OK, we reassemble it. We then test during reassembly at each stage of soldering a coil. We reassemble, we test, we protect the coils, we test, we make ourselves a coffee, we test… etc., until we put it in the box. Here, still all sale, it reads 22 kOhms. Note that the resistance varies depending on the ambient temperature. If it's 40°C in the shade, your microphone will easily gain 1 kOhm. After the paraffin bath, it reads 23.5/24 kOhms.
Once the wires are neatly arranged between the two spools and slightly underneath, the whole thing is taped with fabric. I then choose to add an open, raw nickel/silver cover, which gives it a very rock 'n' roll look. I solder it on without re-paraffining, so the cover can be easily removed.
Here is the wiring diagram for the humbuckers from the British manufacturer. As explained previously, the colors used are as follows.
Screw spool (south): black start / white finish.
Slug spool (north): red start / green finish.
If you don't want to split the wires, solder the white and green wires together. Then connect the black wire to ground and the red wire to the hot lead, and that's it. You can find all their wiring diagrams microphone
