Humbucker depth

[ScottZ]

I just received a new s-type body (not Warmoth) and had asked for a direct mount bridge humbucker route.  The depth of the route is about 0.45".  The humbucker I was planning to use has long legs (EVH Frankenstein), and the adjustable poles stick through the bottom of the pickup to the same depth as the legs. This leaves the top of the pickup pretty high above the body. The only thing I can think to do other than re-routing is to swap baseplates and cut the poles shorter.  Any other ideas?  The body will have a flush mounted Floyd Rose for the bridge.  Thanks

 

[Rick]

Besides re-routing, I got nothing.

 

[ScottZ]

Well, before I do anything I need to mount up the bridge and neck and see where it all falls.  Maybe I'm just imagining that it's too high.  What is the standard depth for one of these routes?

 

[Rick]

Look at pickup routes on the Official Warmoth website.  They have pics with the standard and vintage rout depths.

 

[aarontunes]

For humbuckers there will only be one depth: 3/4"  Info on pickup rout depth here.

In my experience, wood-mounting humbuckers with long feet is problematic, and I would advise against it. YMMV.


Good news: you know that new pickup you've been dying to try? Now is the time!

 

[ScottZ]

Except...this IS the pickup I've been wanting to try.  I can always swap baseplates.  Looks like I need to chuck up a forstner bit and increase the depth a bit though.

 

[ScottZ]

I've decided to just reroute to 0.75".  The legs on the pickup stick out 0.25" below the pickup.  Is that considered long leg?

 

[Cagey]

Be aware that if the rear is routed with a spring cavity for a vibrato bridge that the amount of wood between the pickup cavity floor and the spring cavity isn't much. You may not have a great deal of material to run a mounting screw into to start with so making it thinner by routing a deeper cavity could make hard-mounting a pickup even riskier. Plus, the extended legs of a PAF-style pickup increase the amount of leverage on whatever screws you use (from bumping the pickup while playing), so that very little disturbance of the pickup makes it relatively easy to inadvertently loosen or even pull out those mounting screws.

 

[ScottZ]

From what I can tell, it looks like the screws fall outside the trem cavity.  I'll make sure first.  If the pickup route is .75, and the trem cavity route is .75, that only leaves .25 between them.  As it is right now, there's a little over a half inch in between.