How to remove pickup from pickup surround ?

[Snakehips]

Hi there ! Newbie here.

I bought Antiquity Series Mini-Humbuckers to replace the bland-sounding stock pickups in my Epiphone Zephyr Reissue (John Lee Hooker 100yr Anniversary model).

The problem I’m having is I want to use these new pickups with the guitar’s own black pickup surrounds BUT I can’t get the Antiquity pickups off their cream pickup surrounds. The screws are glued or soldered or something, to the nuts, under the pickups.

What’s the best way to unscrew the nuts from the long pickup attachment screws ??

Many thanks in advance !

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

Looks like someone has put epoxy or superglue on the threads.

I'd use a Dremel with a cutting wheel.

 

[jeremy]

i think mine were soldered, so i desoldered them. took a few minutes but wasnt much of a pita

 

[Juanhanglo]

I would try just unscrewing them. The force should crack whatever that stuff is.
maybe try cutting the majority off first.

 

[Mincer]

SD is soldering these into the mounts?

No, so let's not start that.

 

[Snakehips]

Well, the combined pickup-surround mounting screws were soldered to the nuts that screw in them.
i managed to melt the solder enough to unscrew the nuts off the screws. Took a while though.

suppose I should have measured up beforehand though - the Epiphone Mini-Humbuckers are longer than the SD mini-humbuckers - so placing the SD pickups into the Epiphone Zephyr’s pickup surrounds, there is a bit of a visible gap at each end, where you can see down to where the pickup tabs stick out, inside the guitar.

Not sure this is gonna look so great.
I’ll hopefully not be so bothered about that if the SD pickups sound much better than the stock pickups.