Rich_S
HomeGrownToneBrewologist
Re: Restoring a pickup that was previously direct-mounted.
Dang. I was expecting the slot-top covers to arrive today, so I removed the old pickup from my Tele and sent it to its new owner, only to find no covers in my PO box. So the guitar will hang on the wall all week with a big hole where its bridge should be. No biggie, I won't be here anyway.
Why aren't those slot-top cover more popular? To me, they seem like the perfect compromise of coil-protecting practicality and open-coil looks and tone. Dimarzio sold them back in the '80s; I had them on a couple of Les Pauls long ago (see below), but when I looked for them more recently, it took some searching. I finally found them at Philadelphia Luthier's Supply, in a variety of different finishes.
I don't know why y'all are hung up on the solder. When joining metal to metal, use METAL. Epoxy or CA would work, too, but they take a while to cure, and they need provisions to keep from gluing the screw in the hole. The solder cools in seconds, and the job is done. Like, done-done. Forever.
I did an epoxy repair like this years ago on a Lawrence humbucker. Remember the ones with the all-plastic housing, including plastic mounting tabs? Bad idea. When the tabs eventually broke, I epoxied on a couple of nuts. It worked, but it was a gooey mess while the job was going on. I wonder what ever happened to that pickup? It was in the goldtop above for a while, in about 1980.
Dang. I was expecting the slot-top covers to arrive today, so I removed the old pickup from my Tele and sent it to its new owner, only to find no covers in my PO box. So the guitar will hang on the wall all week with a big hole where its bridge should be. No biggie, I won't be here anyway.
Why aren't those slot-top cover more popular? To me, they seem like the perfect compromise of coil-protecting practicality and open-coil looks and tone. Dimarzio sold them back in the '80s; I had them on a couple of Les Pauls long ago (see below), but when I looked for them more recently, it took some searching. I finally found them at Philadelphia Luthier's Supply, in a variety of different finishes.
I don't know why y'all are hung up on the solder. When joining metal to metal, use METAL. Epoxy or CA would work, too, but they take a while to cure, and they need provisions to keep from gluing the screw in the hole. The solder cools in seconds, and the job is done. Like, done-done. Forever.
I did an epoxy repair like this years ago on a Lawrence humbucker. Remember the ones with the all-plastic housing, including plastic mounting tabs? Bad idea. When the tabs eventually broke, I epoxied on a couple of nuts. It worked, but it was a gooey mess while the job was going on. I wonder what ever happened to that pickup? It was in the goldtop above for a while, in about 1980.
