Tele Neck Pickup Routing

[Perry Combover]

Does the neck pickup rout seem a little shallow on a standard flat top Warmoth Tele? I suppose my neck pickup may be a little taller than average, but after installing my neck pickup today, it seems to rise a little too high.  The fix seems fairly easy (a deeper rout) but I thought I'd ask.

 

[Updown]

:dontknow:  What pickup you using ?
Some can be taller ...

I've got some Dimarzios that where taller, but I had no problem as they where going on a pickguard on a strat.

 

[AutoBat]

On the off chance you actually have the vintage body, that could explain some shorter routes.

Unfortunately there isn't a standard pup height, so some can be a bit of a bother even with generous routing.

 

[Perry Combover]

Thanks AutoBat.  I think even if it is vintage body, the 1/8" isn't enough.  I think it is more the fault of the pickups.  Updown, they are Fender N3's which seem to be pretty tall.  I'm guessing that it has something to do with being noiseless pickups.  Stacked maybe?

 

[AutoBat]

Yes, the noiseless series is stacked humbuckers.  I have the originals & my brother-in-law has the 2nd gen. Neither had a problem fitting in a MIM strat body though.

 

[mayfly]

That's pretty strange - I don't have that problem with any of my warmoth tele bodies.  I can have those pickups pretty low down.

I suspect it's your pickup as you say. 

 

[Patrick from Davis]

The only thing left is to measure the route and the pickups.  Is there anything getting caught under the pickup?  I have managed to make some interesting messes under a pickguard.
Patrick

 

[Perry Combover]

The only thing left is to measure the route and the pickups.  Is there anything getting caught under the pickup?  I have managed to make some interesting messes under a pickguard.
Patrick

I am going to pull it apart this weekend, but I am pretty sure ther is nothing holding it up.  It was so tight that I couldn't even get the wires past the bottom of the pickup.  I had to chisel out a little space at the bottom of the cavity right where the wires connect to the base of the pickup. 
Again, not a huge issue, but it was tighter than I was expecting.

Here is a shot before I had done the work.  just a reference point for the depth on this particular body.

I will post pics of the pickup when I get home tonight for reference.

 

[Perry Combover]

and here is the pickup...

 

[Perry Combover]

And this is how high it rises out of the body, with the pickup completely flush with the bottom of the cavity...

 

[mayfly]

and here is the pickup...

That pickup looks about 1/4" taller than a regular tele pickup.

 

[Perry Combover]

That's what I figured.  Well, I guess it's time to break out the router...

 

[rapfohl09]

and here is the pickup...

That pickup looks about 1/4" taller than a regular tele pickup.

Yeah that thing looks huge, maybe the cover didn't get seated all the way? Router is probably the easiest (but scariest) way to go.

 

[Perry Combover]

and here is the pickup...

That pickup looks about 1/4" taller than a regular tele pickup.

Yeah that thing looks huge, maybe the cover didn't get seated all the way? Router is probably the easiest (but scariest) way to go.

No, the cover was seated all the way.  I took it off and replaced it with a black cover.  When I did, I could see where the poles were embedded in the wax on the inside of the chrome cover.  The thing is just meaty.  The router does make me nervous.  I may just grab a dremel and work it down a little at a time.  It won't be as purdy, but no one will ever see it but me.

 

[stubhead]

It's quite a fine pickup there, worth a little woodwork. Some of the "stacked" ones were just that - one coil over the other, and it's got some humbucking dullness to it. The earliest DiMarzios and Duncans were mushville, at least to my treble-loving ears. Bill Lawrence did some funny things to the Fender "samarian cobalt" pickups where the hum-canceling coil is drastically different from the regular coil, and doesn't remove so much tooth & claw. Of course you can make humbuckers scream, nowadays you can make anything do anything else, but I like what a clear signal does as a starting point.

 

[Updown]

What's the height measurement ?  ..... of that pickup
.... for future reference.

Thanks  :icon_thumright:

 

[Perry Combover]

Updown: 15/16"  Not sure what the metric conversion is, but the answer is: tall.

 

[Cagey]

My current favorite "single coil" is a noiseless part from GFS they call a "Tru-Coil", and they're an inch (25.4mm) tall. I haven't had any trouble fitting them in anything, but I've only put them in 1 Strat and a couple Teles. I've used a lot of noiseless single coils, and nothing else is quite as pure. If you like that sound, they're the way to go. They're not completely noiseless, but they're close enough to satisfy me, and I'm a real bitch about that.

 

[leo12.]

15/16" =23.81mm
http://engvalves.com/itemfiles/ctbvp46.pdf
This should be of help in the future.

 

[stubhead]

Looks like the GFS people have cloned the basic Fender/Lawrence idea - it doesn't take long these days! And they probably work just as good. I'm pretty much appalled by people who have actually let advertisements (and secret forum "knowledge") physically rewire their ear->brain connection to run through their bank accounts and/or credit cards - they can actually hear the difference between $50 pickups and $250 pickups! As long as it's one at a time, and not in an actual dirty underhanded comparison format (communists, you know...)  There must be FIFTY companies/people who can make a pickup with better materials, better tolerances and far more consistency that anything Gibson or Fender were able to luck into during the wild wacky 1950's when Abigail Whozit at Fender had the secret magic Mexican housewife fingers that imparted the shimmering pineapplesque-yet-filthy boingity-rumdedum nahnahnah... it's an electric component, how many collectable hand-made, "scatterwound" computer motherboards do you see up on Ebay? Mojo.....