Now here's a stupid question...

[blueruins]

What is involved in switching out pickup covers?  Is it just a lift off and replace procedure or is there something more sinister involved?

 

[Steve_Karl]

With old Gibson humbuckings it involved a soldering iron to melt the blob that was used to hold it on in the first place.
Newer ones ... I don't know.

 

[swarfrat]

For strat pickups it often is. EMG of course are epoxy potted to the cover. My nephew just stuck some ebay  DiMarzio Areas on his strat and we couldn't get them to fit inside the white stock covers and had to go w the Mint Green the pickups came in.

 

[OzziePete]

I have read about horror stories concerning old P90 pickups when you pop the hood -wire everywhere!  :sad:  Lots of care needed.

Not been game, myself, to pry into what is under a pickup cover.....

 

[Cagey]

I don't know about P90s, but back about 100 years ago me and a buddy of mine used to tear apart old Gibson humbuckers from the '60s and "balance" them. Not something I'd have the patience for today. But, it wasn't too tough to do. You just unsoldered the cover, found the series connection between the two coils, and measured the resistance from there to the ends of the coils. Whichever one read high, we'd start unwinding, taking resistance readings from time to time. When they were about the same, solder everything back up, and we had a theoretically "improved" pickup. I don't remember the details of the sound, suffice to say it was different.

 

[Steve_Karl]

I never saw any problems with older ( late 50's ) Gibson P90s.
They didn't have any covers on the bobin other than the slip on soap bar or the dog ear cover and 2 screws holding them on.
The bobins I saw always had a bit of black tape on them and even without that the wrappings were tight.