Strat pups not centered. Need to move a tiny bit.

[Jerryatrick]

I’m in the process of mod’ing a strat. I noticed that the location of the middle and bridge pup is slightly biased toward the high end and a bit shy of the low E. If as planned, I put a new neck with wider string spacing at the nut I think the low E will be moved far enough from the magnet to cause a noticeable volume drop in that string.

Does this sound like a plausible approach or not really? Thinking this would require routing the upper edge of the pickup cavity like 1/8 then cutting the pick guard and drilling new holes for pup screws to accommodate the upward shift.

 

[supertruper1988]

have you tried just shifting the neck a little? Ultimately it doesnt matter for just 1-2 mm alignment. The magnetic field wont care at such a small amount.

 

[JohnnyHardtail]

It’s less common for the bridge pickup to be out of alignment. For typical vintage style strat bridges the pickguard bridge cutout is shaped to fit around the bridge plate with little more than 1mm clearance either side. If the gaps are the same on each side of the bridge plate, I’d describe it as “centered” and there should be no issue for the bridge pickup.

 

[TBurst Std]

Loosen strings, lossen neck screws. Now shift the neck towards the low E side. Retighten.

 

[Jerryatrick]

Loosen strings, lossen neck screws. Now shift the neck towards the low E side. Retighten

It’s less common for the bridge pickup to be out of alignment. For typical vintage style strat bridges the pickguard bridge cutout is shaped to fit around the bridge plate with little more than 1mm clearance either side. If the gaps are the same on each side of the bridge plate, I’d describe it as “centered” and there should be no issue for the bridge pickup.

Thank you. The original bridge was slightly off center. Had to cut some of the pg to get the term to float freely.

 

[JohnnyHardtail]

If you loosen the neck to shift the neck alignment, the strings will move relative to the edge of the fretboard. That is a separate issue. I would avoid shifting the neck alignment unless you really intend to relocate the position of the strings relative to th fretboard edge.

 

[TBurst Std]

OK. You didn’t reference in your OP that you already knew the bridge was not located correctly. This is important info to k ow at the beginning.

The solution is remove the bridge, fill the holes, redrill, and locate the bridge correctly.

 

[TBurst Std]

Your issue isn’t that the pups aren’t centered, you have now said your bridge isn’t centered.

Reminds me of stories my atty friend tells me.
Client: I have no previous
Atty: yes you do
Client: well that was dropped
Atty: obviously it wasnt
Client: well I was out of $ to file that paperwork and I was to lazy to do it myself