Coil Tap?

[brian1]

I have this lovely 70s vintage "Artist" that's in great shape and appears to be all original but has this dumb looking cheesy toggle switch on it. Gutiar buddies tell me it's a "coil tap" and was original to the guitar. I would think if Ibanez installed it, it would be chrome or have a plastic "hat" on it or something. Is it really original? How does it work? What way is single coil and what way is humbucker? up or down? Does it work on both PUPS? Somebody walk me thru how this works, would you please?
Also...anybody know where I can find replacement gold tuners, pup covers, strap wings, bridge, etc to trick this guitar out?
Thanks so much everyone,
Brian

[ChuckE99]

Post a picture, Brian. If your Artist has the three EQ knobs, that tap could be the on/off for the EQ. Otherwise, the Ibanez coil taps are usually all black, no plastic knobs on them. As far as how to tell the settings? I believe down would be humbucker, middle would be out-of-phase humbucker, and up would be single-coil. Someone else should confirm that, however.

-CHuck

[ChuckE99]

Actually, further testing of my own MC400 Musician reveals that the switch options are: Down = Humbucker; Middle = Single coil; and Up = Out of phase humbucker. Here's a picture of my switches. The two black ones are the coil taps:



-Chuck