Pickup Mount

[ODavidIsCoolO]

Hey i am building a les paul relic guitar i want it to look really messed up and the paint is faded and i was wondering if i could mount a pickup in it without using pickup mounting rings i was thinking that i could just mount the pickup on a small peice of wood and screw that into the hole so that the pickup stays up close to the strings but i didnt know if this would take away from the tone or sustain

[Hotrock]

It's called direct mounting and some believe that it makes the tone even better as vibrations on the pup are less damped than with using rings.

Right then, we now interupt this post for someone with the accurate info on how to do it as I don't know and all my info is second hand

[Dugz Ink]

Warmouth has some basic information on their pickup routing web page... about half-way down the page. No dimensions, but simple descriptions and illustrations.

And, yes, they illustrate direct-mount techniques.

D~s

[ansil]

i direct all my guitars

[ODavidIsCoolO]

Do you mount the pickup right in the hole or do you mount it to a small peice of wood then mount that in the hole

[mushy the shroom]

Hey, most people cannot tell the difference in tone with direct mounting, or using the rings, but if you have a good ear....

As for mounting, there are a number of ways to do it. I would rout out the base shape of the pickup (including the tabs on each side), and use springs under it and around the screws for height adjustment. Are your pickup holes already routed? Or are you planning on doing it yourself?

[ansil]

when i do a retrofit i usually just use sheet rock screws and let them determine the height of the pickup wheni got it where i like it i put a piece of wood in there some times most the time its whatever is handy. lol

[ODavidIsCoolO]

The body is already routed and i wanted it to be sort of like a trashy look and so i am gonna mount a humbucker in the bridge and i was planning on mounting a single coil in the neck and show some of the wiring and stuff

[mushy the shroom]

There's not going to be many wires around the single coil, but it would still look cool. It would be pretty neat to put more wires, or a faux integrated circuit behind it. If you want it to look really trashy, you could just mount the pickup inside the hole, and use height adjustment screws and springs to affix it.

[guitar_paul1]

Put a wad of foam rubber behind the pup to give it backing so it will exert force against the screws. Jacksons and Charvels and many others did this. works fine.

I did it on my non-pickguard tele clone and I like it, for the neck pickup. It just sits in the hole on a blob of foam, and the two screws hold it down. No problems.