Hi. Not stricly about wiring, but about mounting magnetic pickups. Normal parctice seems to be to have two screws that allow the pickup to be adjusted for height and those are normally visible either side of the pickup. The question that I have is about mounting the pickup with the screws the other way round, accessible either from inside the box (the way I had planned to do it) or through holes on the back of the box.
Here is a little picture showing the normal way on top and the way I would like to do it underneath.
In the pic. the screws are dark grey, and the light grey piece in the lower version would be an aluminium bracket. The yellow strip is the brass plate on the bottom of the pickup.
So, is there any good reason why I shouldn't do this? Many thanks. John
Replies
Sounds good to me. I'm too new to this to glue the fretboard to the body. I might want to remove the neck for modification. I've lost count of how many times I have taken the neck off the first one that I made.
Look forward to seeing what you make next.
John
carverman said:
Makes sense to me. My next one will have a lid on the back, so that the back opens rather than the top.
This way, I can glue the FB to the top and I don't have to detune the strings to get at any electrical connections
to change something. I would think that as long as the back is a bit thicker than the top, it should work the
same way as the more traditional approach of using a CB where the lid has to open.
John Maw said:
Hi Carverman, and thanks for the reply.
The plan that I have is that the neck will be attached to the lid of the box and the box will open to give access to the adjstment screws, so it will be possible to open it with the strings still tight and check the adjustment. It won't be quite as convenient as top mounted screws but as you say, will look cleaner. I am keen to minimise the visual impact of the mag pickup so for me this is a good trade. Presumably the adjustment doesn't need to be carried out often unless something else is changed, such as neck angle or bridge height.
Thanks again for the help. John
carverman said:
The only comment I have is that you don't have the convenience of pickup height adjustment from the top.
but it eliminates two visible screws.
Absolutely it will work. In keeping with the whole 'nothing is really new' thing, this is exactly how Danelectro mounted their lipstick pickups into their masonite guitars.
On some pickups, the spring was permanently attached to the pickup shell, so it didn't get lost down in the body when mounting the pickup - trying to hold the springs on the screws and align everything at once can be tricky. Of course, if you can still open your box, then the mount should be a lot easier.
Hi and thanks for the reply. You are absolutely right. I didn't have the patience in Photoshop to add springs but they will be there. I was going to try to reproduce the same range of movement that it would have if mounted in the conventional way.
The main reason for thinking about this is that I think it should make the top of the box look a lot cleaner. In my opinion the standard plastic surrounds look horrible and quite out of keeping with a nice cigar box lid. I am also thinking of putting very thin veneer over the pickup itself (rail humbucker). Have to see if that works.
Thanks again.
Skeesix said:
I think it would work. You may have to play around with height of the mounting bracket and/or length of the screws
You're not showing the spring/rubber tubing, but I'm assuming it would be there.