body too shallow for humbucker, Humbucker too long for route.

[Jet-Jaguar]

I saw this body in the showcase that had a route for a wide-range humbucker.  Called up W to see if a normal humbucker would fit and the said that it would fit. So I bought it.  Also, somewhere else, saw a Seymour Duncan '59 pickup for sale cheap (it was going out of business sale - someone I know from the SD forum and this one had a web site.)

Anyway, I've got them together, and well, the humbucker doesn't fit. I think I have a long-legged humbucker. It looks longer than another one that I have. Also, the other one that I have looks too deep, too. So I think maybe the humbucker route is kinda shallow.

So what's the easiest way to deal with this? I'm wondering if I could just buy a Forstner bit and drill two holes and make it work. 

Not sure if putting a new plate, with different legs is an option ... or is it? Stew-Mac sells a base plate but it says "vintage" which I'm interpreting as "long legs."

 

[Cagey]

You don't really want to play with Forstner bits If you don't have a drill press, but that would work. Or, you might want to check out the base plate selection at Mojotone. There's quite a variety of plate styles and depths.

 

[Danuda]

The easiest way is using a router with a pattern bit (flush cut) and running it along the edges of the pickup route.

 

[Jet-Jaguar]

I'm thinking I'm gonna have to drill it no matter what I put in there.  It just seems really, really shallow. I don't think I'm going to put the '59 in there, though, seems too deep and I might end up going through the other side.  I should measure it, but the warmoth said "fender pickup" and as wide as it is, it looked like a wide-range.

I've spent so much money on guitars, I think I'm going to just put a GFS pickup in it for now. I see a gold one up on Ebay, that should approximate the sound I was going for.

 

[Cagey]

You might want to check the prices/styles on new ones before you buy a used one off eBay. They're really inexpensive and you'll get a proper cable,  no scratches & dents, etc.

 

[Jet-Jaguar]

You might want to check the prices/styles on new ones before you buy a used one off eBay. They're really inexpensive and you'll get a proper cable,  no scratches & dents, etc.

Well, I'm buying from GFS, from their ebay store.  Funny enough, I saw their split humbucker on their ebay store but didn't see it on their website earlier today, (but now I see it on the website.)

Really though, I just want to finish this build. I have pieces of three guitars here, and I don't really know when I'll be finished with any of them.

 

[Cagey]

I see. I didn't realize they had an eBay store. From the looks of it, they do a lot of business that way, what with over 62,000 feedback points.

 

[Jet-Jaguar]

So, got the GFS pickup, had to drill holes for the height screws but otherwise, easy-peasy. Got all excited, started to put the pots on the control plate and ...  :doh: 

Tonight's lesson: If you're going to buy a cheap plate off ebay, make sure it fits your (empirical, not metric) potentiometers. Why doesn't Warmoth carry these?

Man, the builds I've been trying to do have all been like this.  The last show-stopper was I forgot to order 250k pots for the strat.  I think once I have them all done, I'm going to write a post that says "don't do this, that, and the other."