Wiring issue

[Paul Burnside]

Hey folks. I'm working on an old Airline guitar and the wiring has me flummoxed.

It's a 2-pickup configuration with separate volume/tone controls for each pickup; output from these then goes to a 3-way 9-pole switch; then to a master volume; then to output. Each pickup has only a hot and lead output, but has three leads going to the switch from the control harness.

The 3-way switch is producing neck only (in position 1), bridge only (in position 2), and in position 3 produces the bridge pickup with a thin, nasally sound that sounds curiously like out of phase, but it is only the bridge pickup that's producing sound.

My question: What is position 3, if not phase reversed? Just the additional cap?

I've attached a wiring diagram. I've eliminated some of the ground traces in order to clean up the diagram. All of the components are correctly grounded in the actual guitar.

The notes at top right show which contacts of the switch are active in each position.

Thanks as always.

[Greg Robinson]

Hi Paul.
Position 3 adds a high-pass filter (the cap) to the bridge, giving a bass cut. This will sound similar to out-of-phase tones. Sounds like everything is working as it should.

[Paul Burnside]

Good deal. Thanks so much for the information.

The owner describes position 3 as sounding like "a bag of smashed ***holes", so we're going to be rewiring it for a more traditional 3-position configuration without the high-pass filter.