https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-repair-and-maintenance/weak-neck-humbucker-after-attempted-polarity-flip/ Guitar Noise Discussion Board en-US Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:16:03 +0000 wpForo 60 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-repair-and-maintenance/weak-neck-humbucker-after-attempted-polarity-flip/#post-387692 Mon, 20 Mar 2017 19:12:35 +0000 Guitar Repair and Maintenance LessPaul https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-repair-and-maintenance/weak-neck-humbucker-after-attempted-polarity-flip/#post-387692 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-repair-and-maintenance/weak-neck-humbucker-after-attempted-polarity-flip/#post-387691 Mon, 20 Mar 2017 18:55:47 +0000 First thought was the magnets didn't get put the right height afterward. (closer to the string will give more volume). Second thought was I've never messed with the magnets on a humbucker. I always rewire it at the pot side when I'm putting something into/out of phase. So tbh idk really. Third, when you tap the pickup with a screw driver you get a significant volume difference between neck & bridge? That means something's broken. At that point, I would probably check for cold points and if they're all solid, then replace the pickup.]]> Guitar Repair and Maintenance LessPaul https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-repair-and-maintenance/weak-neck-humbucker-after-attempted-polarity-flip/#post-387691 https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-repair-and-maintenance/weak-neck-humbucker-after-attempted-polarity-flip/#post-47241 Sun, 05 Mar 2017 04:05:10 +0000
I recently attempted to switch the polarity on my Gibson Explorer's neck pickup since I have a Brian May-modded Strat and wanted the closest thing to that reversed-polarity effect using humbuckers. Whether or not it would have worked is beyond the point. It seemed easy enough to just try...

After removing and opening the pickup, flipping the magnet and putting the pickup back together, the sound output is very thin. I tried opening it up again and flipping it back, but I still get a very thin output. Even the bridge pickup is warmer than the neck pickup now.

Could it be that I broke a wire? I triple-checked and nothing looks broken.
Could it be that the magnet isn't pressed tightly enough against the poles? Could I have messed the poles up somehow? Could I have "weakened" the magnet somehow?
I tried to bring the pickup closer to the strings to no avail.
I'm running out of ideas.

One thing I've noticed is that tapping on the problematic pickup's poles produces a much weaker response than tapping on the bridge pickup's poles.

The pickup is a Gibson 496R.

Thanks in advance for the help!]]> Guitar Repair and Maintenance chaos_monger https://guitarnoise.forum/guitar-repair-and-maintenance/weak-neck-humbucker-after-attempted-polarity-flip/#post-47241