Mini humbucker conversion for full sized routs

[Anfontan]

I bought an Epiphone Firebird a few years back that came with the full size pups-it has a great feel but the tone was a little muddy to me. I also have a friend with a 70's Gibson Firebird so I knew the tone I would like it to have.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a source for an easy conversion-So I fabricated a pickup ring from 1/16" plastic.
This is the 1st version and I may rework it as time goes on-but the mini's are so much brighter, much more to what I want them to sound like-it's sure worth the effort to me. Here is the original full sized pups on the Firebird.

 

[Anfontan]

Here is the 'Bird with the mini-buckers. The 2nd picture is the bridge pickup-a hot rod Seymour Duncan.

 

[Anfontan]

Here is some background on the conversion rings, I started with a piece of textured plastic-1/16" thick-it was thick enough to be sturdy but still easy to cut using a utility knife and a metal straight edge.

 

[Anfontan]

I used a hand drill to make the rounded corners then cut from hole to hole to try to keep it looking neat.

 

[Anfontan]

The thin ring was then placed under a standard full sized neck pickup ring. It works quite well for the neck pickup. As for the bridge pickup, I put another of the neck pickup rings under the 2 rings-the 2nd ring backwards so there would be no slant as you adjusted the bridge pickup closer to the strings.

It is still a work in progress, but it's working out fine so far. Any comments from anyone out there with other suggestions would be appreciated!

 

[danw]

Looks good to me, and it seems to be working. That's what matters, right? Good to hear you've got it sounding the way you want; it would be a shame to let an instrument like that sit around collecting dust. If you'd upgrade that utility knife to a $7 coping saw, you could also just make some new rings the shape/size you want out of wood using the same drill-and-cut technique.

 

[Anfontan]

Looks good to me, and it seems to be working. That's what matters, right? Good to hear you've got it sounding the way you want; it would be a shame to let an instrument like that sit around collecting dust. If you'd upgrade that utility knife to a $7 coping saw, you could also just make some new rings the shape/size you want out of wood using the same drill-and-cut technique.

Thanks for checking out my thread and for your comments Dan. I have several guitars with humbuckers and some with single coils and I wanted to give this Firebird it's traditional sound.

Another reason I wanted to experiment it due to the cool sound of a P-90 on my Gibson Melody Maker-it's a reissue of the 1959-tune-o-matic bridge and stop tailpiece and a single P-90 in the bridge. That P-90 totally screams with some overdrive, it was a really great surprise.

I used the plastic to have a more traditional look to the mini-humbuckers-the wood idea is definitely worth considering in the future though..

Thanks again!