Maybe more than just rust?

[Lucius Paisley]

Bought a Samick LP copy today (LCE- or LSE-450, getting conflicting info on the Wikia page), plugged it in, noisy as hell, just not the right kind of noisy. It kind of needs a seeing to anyway, so while checking the wiring was okay - nothing loose / solder seems solid. I look under the pickups and find what looks like rust, but also like when a battery leaks...

Bridge.


Neck.


Going by the serial number - again, conflicting info - it was made in August 91, could the pickups just be old or did the previous owner just leave the guitar under a leaking pipe for the last 10/11 years*?

Anybody have any ideas?

*Edit: how do I know how long? He bought it from a store that specialises in left handed models, the website states when the guitar was sold.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Maybe more than just rust?

I've never seen that before with a pup so I'm not sure what would cause that unless the previous owner tried to solder the covers on using an acid base soldering flux.

But no matter what, it's probably not worth it to try and clean those up. Even if you could, you'd probably be dissatisfied and want to replace them anyway. Get some good Duncans and throw those into a parts drawer for when you might want some replacement parts...cover, screws, magnets, etc.

 

[Lucius Paisley]

Re: Maybe more than just rust?

But no matter what, it's probably not worth it to try and clean those up. Even if you could, you'd probably be dissatisfied and want to replace them anyway. Get some good Duncans and throw those into a parts drawer for when you might want some replacement parts...cover, screws, magnets, etc.

I wouldn't even try to clean them, not to save the horrible noise coming from them right now. Considering it's age, I'm going to replace everything, which is a shame because I would have liked to know how it sounded as stock. Oh well, plenty of options open to me.

 

[Dave Locher]

Re: Maybe more than just rust?

I had a pickup that looked like that. Japanese pickup with a brass base plate. I was surprised when I pulled it, it did not look like that when I installed it. I figured it was just from quite a few years of humidity/temp changes and/or playing it and throwing it in the case sweaty (I sweat a lot, and the band I used to be in sorta set a standard for clearing the stage fast after playing. Got us a fair number of opening gigs for touring bands passing through). Could also just be something about the metal itself.

 

[Discharged]

Re: Maybe more than just rust?

I recognize those contraptions made in Hell. The whole p'up is held together solely by the wax. Not even useful as paperweights due to the leaking.

You can thank me later.

/Peter

 

[Lucius Paisley]

Re: Maybe more than just rust?

The whole p'up is held together solely by the wax.

I had a suspicion this was the case, it just looks awful.

Well, they're out now, along with the pots and the toggle, and all in the bin.

Woohoo! New project!

 

[formula73]

Re: Maybe more than just rust?

It’s glue, dude.

Those are the worst of the worst budget pickups. ANY other pickups would be an improvement. Toss them.