I’ve got a box of “above average switches” (not quite normal, not quite super!) under my desk waiting for photos to go on site this week, so how about a little quick and dirty guide to lever switches? (see if I can save myself a embarrassing emails eh? ;-))

Right – lever switches!

Lets break this down into “USA” and “import” – this ones just about the “USA” spec switches – big semi circular things, designed the better part of 100 years ago – still turn up on most Fender guitars, pretty reliable in the long term, feel nice and chunky when you use them… but not without their little quirks.

First point to note – they aint all made in the USA. Oak Grigsby switches are made in Mexico, ours come out of Korea, and you’ll see a similar looking thing coming out of Japan, CRLs are about the only US made ones – the name is more “these pitch up on USA guitars” more than “these are made in the US of A” – but they all function the same way. You’ve basically got between 3 and 5 inputs, they almost always take a 5mm push on tip, and are usually threaded for 6/32 UNC bolts (although some of the Japanese ones turn up with M3… law unto themselves some days )

They function REALLY simply – but they look confusing! Basically, its 2 switches in one, each “side” has 3 inputs and 1 output (I know… I know… they’re not strictly input and output, but in most cases, they are!) – each input corresponds to the position of the switches lever arm.

so on a 3 way, you click the lever arm as far forward as it’ll go (Neck!) its connecting the furthest “back” input to the “output” – and if you look at the side of the switch, you can see what’s happening – the outputs got a slightly longer “arm” which is always in contact with the metal track – just under enough tension to allow it to slide through. At the “input” end of the metal track, it’s slightly larger, because it’s going to be passing through the input “arms” which are slightly shorter.

Outputs always on, input is on/off (and it’s officially, break before make on that connection)

Now, 3 way switches are easy – each position corresponds to a terminal – and the way we wire up guitars gives us the middle position (usually with both pickups “on”, but there’s some weird stuff where it doesn’t – Fender Esquire for example) – and that’s why we need this “two switch in one” setup – the way a 3 way switch works, you can’t have 2 pickups on one side – you’d have to make the parallel connection external to the switch, it wouldn’t be switchable, and that’d just mean you’d have both pickups on at all times (I’ve seen it done) So yeah – you think about it as “when do I want the pickups on?” – bridge has to be on in bridge and middle, hook it up to those terminals, neck wants to be on in middle and neck – cant jam them all together on a single switch, so you use the other side – you join the outputs, and take the signal off to the rest of the circuit (usually, you know? Telecasters work in reverse of that for some reason I’ll never quite fathom, where “inputs” are actually outputs and outputs become inputs – but as long as you remember “the terminals with the short legs are switched, the long ones aren’t” you’ll get your head around it.

And that’s true of the 4 way and super switch too – 4 way has 4 “inputs” 1 “output” and its 2 switches in one. Super switches have 5 inputs, 1 output and its actually 4 switches in one – looks scarier than it is really.

Normal 5 ways are a little bit smarter – and with those, you’ve still only got 3 inputs (bridge, middle and neck) but the switch jams inputs 1 and 2 as well as 2 and 3 in position 2 and 4 (bridge + middle and middle+neck… it was designed for the Strat basically) – so with 5 way switches, you can jam pickups together on one side of the switch – simply because the wiper blade on the metal track is wider (and the switch has 5 “stops” instead of 3)

Same goes for Oak Grigsbys 6 way switch – 4 inputs, the last one jams “neck” into whatever you want (usually bridge).

This means we can use the other switch to handle the tone pots (you really don’t need to, you can hook up tone pots directly to the pickups inputs, but it does make everything look a bit neater)

So yeah, that about covers it really – 3 4 and super switches you’ve no internal jamming, so wiring can be a bit more convoluted, 5 and 6 way switches, everything’s being done internally – so you’re stuck with the standard options – input 1 and 2 are always going to be joined in pos 2, 2 and 3 are always together in pos 4 – it is what it is – you can do some stuff with them, but it’s all pretty dyed in the wool.

Now – what to watch out for with any switch in this style – soldering the things up!

ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALLLLWAYS, solder from “the top” – never try to get a soldering iron under the terminal so your soldering “upside down”. Basically, you’re looking to get a tiny blob of solder on the end of the terminal, ready for the wire to connect to – if you go “underneath” you risk the arm heating up, the solder flowing down it, and at best, constricting the “mouth” (at worst, you’ll solder the entire thing together – see the photo )

Constricting the mouth causes stress on the mechanism, which will, eventually, cause the switch to break apart. Completely blocking the mouth will mean you can’t get the switch past the blockage, and soldering the thing together… well… you’ve soldered the entire thing together.

Doesn’t matter if its an Axes switch, a CRL or an Oak Grigsby, they all suffer the same problem if you flood them out with solder, so go steady. In and out with the iron! If anything, super switches are the worst of the bunch (smaller arms heat up fast) and CRLs are the most robust (great bit brass eyelets holding the terminals in place suck out a hell of a lot of heat!)

Its not actually too bad when your connecting wires to the things though (wire acts as a heat sink, pulling heat away from the switch, and solder with it) – but when your tinning terminals? Always from above, always as fast as you can!

I have lost count of the amount of “you’ve sent me a bad switch!” emails I’ve had over the years – and they almost always come back with a completely flooded mouth, it’s the usual killer!

Beyond that though, they’re pretty simple bits of kit – just don’t fill them with solder