Lawrence L705 trouble

[Stefan Comeaux]

I recently changed the stock pickup in my Sho Bud S-10 to a Lawrence L705. The tone is great but sometimes out of nowhere, my tone will get really really thin and I’ll have to tap on the pickup and it’ll go back to normal. The pickup hasn’t been used in over a year before I installed it in my guitar, any idea what could be causing it to sound thin sometimes?

[autry andress]

According to Mitchel at Msa they received some dead 705's
I think he drilled a hole or something inside to see
what might be going on inside.
His thought were the old epoxy is getting brittle & maybe be shinking & the wire is breaking....what ever the cause you can't repair them.....
I hope I got this right as I'm going by memory of what I read on the forum.
Any way good luck.
Autry

[David Nugent]

Does the pickup have the coil tap feature, if so, may possibly be changing values intermittently. A check of the wiring connections might help source the problem.

[Mitchell Smithey]

Let me comment on Autry’s post. We have seen some of the original 705s with open circuits in the shop including a couple of mine. They cannot be be repaired because they are potted in what I think is epoxy. This does not apply to the reissue 705.
Stefan, if yours is a reissue it is most likely a bad connection between the leads that connect the coils. The new pickups have 4 wires and you have to solder 2 of them together for normal humbucking operation.