BriGuy1968
New member
So I have two electric guitars that need to be Seymourized, but have to wait until I can justify the cash outflow with Mrs. BriGuy1968. That means that they will certainly be one-at-a-time and will take a while.
The first one is that I plan to get P-Rails with Triple Shots for Rachel. She plays wonderfully, but I feel like I really need some tonal options beyond what the stock ACH-1 & 2 from Ibanez are giving me. She definitely is the priority.
The other one is for Lita. She's eventually gonna get a Pearly Gates set, but her upgrades are further down the road. She's a 2010 Ibanez RG3EXFM1. I honestly don't hate the sound of her stock V7/V8 pickups, but they're just so freaking quiet! It's a noticeable drop in volume going from Rachel or The Phoenix to Lita, and it makes me a little crazy. I also have always kind of hated the look of the black plastic covers over the pickups.
Anyway, this weekend I got a wild hair up my you-know-what and decided to try removing the plastic covers... and the pickups underneath cleaned up quite nicely... but they were still kind of ugly. Black pole pieces and slugs on black bobbins... yuck. I liked the covers better. I started longingly thinking of the zebra-striped Pearly Gates that she was going to have one day and then it hit me... "Bri, you run a paint store... paint the freakin' pups!"
So here we go...
After removing the pole pieces and then masking off the coil to remain unpainted:
I hunted through our mistints at work until I found a light-colored product used for painting plastic in industrial applications... PERFECT. I adjusted the color to match the inlays and then started carefully painting...
...and here's the finished product:
You know what's really cool? Without the dumb plastic covers in the way, I was able to raise the pickups a smidge more and also am now able to adjust the pole pieces to "fine tune" the sound. I like the pickups much better now (although I still plan to upgrade eventually) and on top of that, Lita is damned sexy with her new stripes!
The first one is that I plan to get P-Rails with Triple Shots for Rachel. She plays wonderfully, but I feel like I really need some tonal options beyond what the stock ACH-1 & 2 from Ibanez are giving me. She definitely is the priority.
The other one is for Lita. She's eventually gonna get a Pearly Gates set, but her upgrades are further down the road. She's a 2010 Ibanez RG3EXFM1. I honestly don't hate the sound of her stock V7/V8 pickups, but they're just so freaking quiet! It's a noticeable drop in volume going from Rachel or The Phoenix to Lita, and it makes me a little crazy. I also have always kind of hated the look of the black plastic covers over the pickups.
Anyway, this weekend I got a wild hair up my you-know-what and decided to try removing the plastic covers... and the pickups underneath cleaned up quite nicely... but they were still kind of ugly. Black pole pieces and slugs on black bobbins... yuck. I liked the covers better. I started longingly thinking of the zebra-striped Pearly Gates that she was going to have one day and then it hit me... "Bri, you run a paint store... paint the freakin' pups!"
So here we go...
After removing the pole pieces and then masking off the coil to remain unpainted:
I hunted through our mistints at work until I found a light-colored product used for painting plastic in industrial applications... PERFECT. I adjusted the color to match the inlays and then started carefully painting...
...and here's the finished product:
You know what's really cool? Without the dumb plastic covers in the way, I was able to raise the pickups a smidge more and also am now able to adjust the pole pieces to "fine tune" the sound. I like the pickups much better now (although I still plan to upgrade eventually) and on top of that, Lita is damned sexy with her new stripes!
