New Build

[LazerBeakShiek]

They gave me a number of possibilities. Was it..

A. Something in the way like a wire
B. Foam blocks need to be stacked under the pickup
C. It was a NECK pickup not a Bridge( from Vendor)
D. None of the above

Answer was D.

Bend the tabs. Fixed forever.

This guitar is now way more satisfying to play. A true bolt on tremolo system by Deusenberg that shows no holes, and 20 or so pickup combinations. The $199 Dot/Sheraton II is kinda basic. The 500k tone control caps were stiff with .047 so I took it to .015 and .022 . A little better , on 50's tone wiring. I could have dropped the cap value even lower.

You only want to do a Hollow body once. The pieces need to be fed through the hole with string. Fish em , pulling the string up the hole.

Hey man, I like seeing your projects. What are you working on to bring it to the next level?

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

Wow my Epiphone is full of problems. I find the spacing unacceptable at the neck.


The pickup spacing is horrible. I measured 48mm at the neck E to E, and 50mm at the bridge. 50mm G spacing is easy to find. So is 52mm F spacing.
The bridge's SH-4 is 50 mm spacing as OE. That is dead on, string through the center. Who makes a 48mm narrow spaced Nickel covered Neck humbucker?

YES this is important. As was the tilt.

-Edit..I heard Dimarzio standard humbucker spacing is unusually narrow at 48mm? If this is true there is the fix.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

Ok, it is worse than I thought. I need 46mm spacing.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

A company called Revel replied. They do custom pickups. A 4 wire PAF neck nickel cover in 46mm spacing is...$150 Zoom consult + $200 hr labor + parts. $350 minimum.

 

[Gtoboy]

Or just have a new nut cut.

 

[Mickster]

Not for nothing....was looking at your picture of the neck pup in post #22. It could of course be the angle of the photo....but it looks to me as if the entire pickup frame is shifted towards the high E side of the neck. I'm just going by visual. If you measure the distance of the neck pup frame corners from the edge of the neck....is the high side farther from the neck edge?

Mick

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

The rings are ok. Not 4-5 mm off like the string spacing. Pickup is not spaced correctly. Ring orientation is ok. The pickup needs to be aligned under each string. I measure 46mm neck. That pickup is 50mm. It is not possible.

SD pickups can be ordered custom, that means F spacing 52mm or G spacing 49mm. I need 46mm.

This reminds me of when I did my Stratocasters. I argued with Seymour Duncan that a Set for Fender is 49mm neck, 51mm middle, and 52.5mm bridge. They don't listen. Duncan custom shop only sell F spaced and G spaced. So, I got them somewhere else.

What is really bizarre is the tech in support will tell you this doesn't matter much..Yes, it does. You only sell two sizes of spacing that is why you tell me this.

They make them in 46mm 48,48.5,49,50,52, 52.5, etc. But yeah, it doesn't matter use whatever....NO! Bah! Lies!

 

[TalismanRich]

The reason the string spacing at the bridge pickup is narrower than at the bridge is because the string spacing narrows to about 35mm at the nut, vs about 50 at the bridge. Its that way on all guitars to some degree. Since you're about 20-25% up the total scale length, you should be about 3mm narrower there, which is just about what you see. Standard Gibson spaced pickups have been used on those guitars for over 65 years. Its only a problem if you make it a problem.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

If you buy a seymour duncan pickguard with their single coils for your post CBS, it will SUCK. The single coils only come in 52mm. It is an EPIC FAILURE. It will never align and it will have a weak attack on the effected strings.


Fender is 49mm neck, 51mm middle, and 52.5mm bridge ...NOT THIS!

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

String up your guitar with only a single string.

Detach the pickup rings 4 screws.

Move the string off the pin.

Play a note.

See I told you..

 

[Mickster]

I just checked out all of my electrics. I have 7 of them. 2 of them have the strings perfectly aligned with all pups....a two pup Ibanez.....and a Hofner bass. One of them is a Ric 325 and I can't tell. The pups are toasters. If you prefer them to be perfectly aligned...that's your choice of course...and string position technically likely has to affect volume and tone to some degree. Variations on that theme ,however, aren't necessarily a bad thing and can result in some really nice tones. No right and wrong....just build and enjoy.

Mick

Mick

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

No right and wrong

I strongly disagree. They make different spacing in the pickups for this reason. Measure first, then search for what is available in your size. Don't be a child and buy Seymour Duncan because it is Seymour Duncan. Wear what fits your measurements.

A Guitar is a precision instrument.

I got 4. That is the only pickup that does not.

 

[Mickster]

Was just stating that what you end up liking sound wise.......is right....for you...or anyone....no matter how the pups are aligned. Why would Fender and Gibson and many others make guitars with pups that don't match string spacing then? Have they been making them all wrong all these years? There might be some who would say....hey....who cares....I'm good with it. Doesn't make them wrong of course. If you're building a project and are worried about matching string spacing to the pups....by all means do it. As an aside.....and not for nothing....the height of the pole pieces also scientifically affects volume and tone. That kinda infers that you should be matching the pole heights to your radius....and or string heights...or both.....right?

Just my 2 cents worth of nothing.
Mick

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

. That kinda infers that you should be matching the pole heights to your radius....and or string heights...or both.....right?

There is a setup order.

I suggest the book How To Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great.

The book has stencells and punch outs to make and take your own measurements.

The recipes and tech are specific to the 1/10th mm.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

Was just stating that what you end up liking sound wise.......is right....for you

There are components to the build that have NO effect on tone.

A major misconception is the type of tone cap used in the tone control. Ceramic disc, Metal film, polyester box, orange drop, rolled paper in oil...all sound exactly the same. The 5% variance vs. a 20% variance in the materials is positional in the control, not tone effecting.

The farad value is important.

The type is not.

 

[TalismanRich]

Thou art speaking HERESY! Everyone knows that Russian PIO caps are smooth and creamier sounding and that ceramics are hard sounding! Orange drops sound fruity and sweet, and polyester is just ugly and out of style.

The 5% variance vs. a 20% variance in the materials is positional in the control, not tone effecting.

The farad value is important.

I'm not exactly sure what you are saying here... there's no % variance in materials. The variation is in the uF value, which WILL change the frequency at which the rolloff happens. There's a cool worksheet available on the 'net called GuitarFreak. It lets you simulate the response curve of pickups, cap values and pot values. To get the most accurate values, its good to have the inductance of the pickup, along with the resistance. Then you can change values, even add a treble bleed circuit to see how the response changes with knob position. Very COOL.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

This is how it is done.



This is my shredder. On Fat Five switching...I'm on the fence about the neck pickup. It measures 51mm. That humbucker is 50mm. Not sure what I wanna do about it.


My other Stratocaster has blades. Not a perfect solution. That alters the playing dynamic and sounds different.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

If you do not like blades, because of the increased output. A lipstick tube design works similar. No pins to align. Bright plucky tones.

I kinda like this one..the pickguard looks like a dog playing the harmonica..


Rewired, and pickups selected to have a hum canceling position. Tone bypass on one push/pull. The other push/pull is a variable half out of phase. The suspension bridge is designed to increase body resonance. Like a piano.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

What projects have you completed ?

 

[PDP]

Finished the 60's Telecaster Replica. The body is alder wood painted with acrylic GM sonic blue which was used to make Telecasters in the 60's.