WOOD MOUNTED PICKUPS?

[fair.child]

Hi Folks,

Just want to ask here. What are the suggested steps to drill holes for pickup mounting? Wood mount, no mounting rings, please.

I have prepared the EZ-Lok 4-40 Wood insert for Humbucker and 6-32 for a Single Coil. The drill bit size suggested from EZ Lok is 17/64 but I have found out 1/4 works the best. I am not sure how to drill the finished body with 1/4 drill bit for a wood mount.

Any suggestion?

 

[Cagey]

You'll probably want to use a 1/4" Forstner bit so you get a flat-bottomed hole that has the same diameter all the way down. Also, you need a drill press with a depth stop. If you try and do it with a portable drill motor, you'll have a much harder time of getting a Forstner bit to work, and there's no putting a collar or anything on them to prevent you from drilling through the back of your body and forcing you to invent all sorts of new cuss words.

 

[fair.child]

You'll probably want to use a 1/4" Forstner bit so you get a flat-bottomed hole that has the same diameter all the way down. Also, you need a drill press with a depth stop. If you try and do it with a portable drill motor, you'll have a much harder time of getting a Forstner bit to work, and there's no putting a collar or anything on them to prevent you from drilling through the back of your body and forcing you to invent all sorts of new cuss words.

I do have the drill press and lowered the speed for wood drilling. Plus I think I got Forstner bit for 17/64 and 1/4. I plan to start with 17/64 and go with 1/4. What do you think?

 

[AirCap]

Now that Gibson is getting rid of pickup mounting rings on some guitars, and putting height adjustment on the back of the guitar..... What are we gonna do about that?

 

[Cagey]

I do have the drill press and lowered the speed for wood drilling. Plus I think I got Forstner bit for 17/64 and 1/4. I plan to start with 17/64 and go with 1/4. What do you think?

Forstner bit sizes move in 1/16", 1/8" and 1/4" increments, so you won't have nor can you get a 17/64". The bits are designed for woodworking, and wood usually can't be held to tolerances like that anyway. But, it doesn't matter. You don't "grow" holes with that style bit, you drill the hole size you want right away.

Also, keep in mind that with body-mounted pickups, the height of the pickup is set by the height of screw head, not the position of the pickup's mounting base on the thread. That means the screw is going to be feeding into/out of the body (insert), rather than maintaining its depth like a trapeze mount does. That also means your screw has to be cut to probably within 1/4" to 3/8" of the length you need to put the pickup at the right height without screwing through the back of the body or having the screw unthread from the insert.

I say all that to say this: you may want to buy some spare mounting screws. Between wrecking threads cutting them and cutting them to the wrong length, you may go through several before you find the right length to suit your pickup/body/height combination.

 

[Cagey]

Now that Gibson is getting rid of pickup mounting rings on some guitars, and putting height adjustment on the back of the guitar..... What are we gonna do about that?

Why would we have to do anything about that? It's probably a good idea in the first place, at least for their styles of bodies, for the reasons I gave in the post above. If you're not going to trapeze-mount the pickup, you end up with adjustment issues due to the trapeze style base most pickups have.

Never could figure out what the design consideration for that was in the first place. Not that there's anything wrong with a trapeze mount, but why did the base have to have its mounting ears dropped so far below the pickup? It's caused extra steps in cavity routing and other kinds of consternation for years, and there doesn't seem to be any good reason for it.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

Now that Gibson is getting rid of pickup mounting rings on some guitars, and putting height adjustment on the back of the guitar..... What are we gonna do about that?

I haven't heard of this, do you perchance have a link with more info?

 

[Logrinn]

See here for instance.

 

[stratamania]

You'll probably want to use a 1/4" Forstner bit so you get a flat-bottomed hole that has the same diameter all the way down. Also, you need a drill press with a depth stop. If you try and do it with a portable drill motor, you'll have a much harder time of getting a Forstner bit to work, and there's no putting a collar or anything on them to prevent you from drilling through the back of your body and forcing you to invent all sorts of new cuss words.

I do have the drill press and lowered the speed for wood drilling. Plus I think I got Forstner bit for 17/64 and 1/4. I plan to start with 17/64 and go with 1/4. What do you think?

Do some trial runs in some scrap pieces of wood to see what yields the best results.

 

[amigarobbo]

See here for instance.

next they'll be bringing back the volute,

 

[AirCap]

next they'll be bringing back the volute

THAT'S GREAT! Especially with all the rough shipping problems evident these days with cracked pegheads on eBay and Reverb on spanking new guitars.

 

[ghotiphry]

I did fake rings on this guy.  Granted it's a jazz bass, which have wood mounted pickups normally, but it seemed like there was something missing.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

See here for instance.

That is interesting....

 

[amigarobbo]

next they'll be bringing back the volute

THAT'S GREAT! Especially with all the rough shipping problems evident these days with cracked pegheads on eBay and Reverb on spanking new guitars.

It's only on the custom Modern range at the moment.


http://www.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/2017/Custom/Modern-Les-Paul-Standard.aspx#MLPSPSL11060


$3,999

 

[AirCap]

Gibson may be using the volute to reduce counterfeiting.... After all, it's more wood and more work.

The best part? Those idiot robot tuners won't fit on the peghead!!!!!!!

 

[Cagey]

Speaking of idiots, seems like I read somewhere that Mr. Justabitch spent something like $11M developing those Robo-tuners against the advice of nearly everyone who had an opinion. Seems kinda steep for something that uses a lot of existing technology so I'm not sure it's true, but on the other hand, those guys aren't really known for their sound business decisions (no pun intended).

 

[arealken]

My own personal opinion is that body wood makes a huge difference, particularly old wood or wood that has been roasted to dry yhe sugars and whatnot. IMHO, a direct mounted pup does make a difference because although the strings see only the mechanical vibrations of the strings, the strings do not exist in a vacuum, but  they vibrate is a correlation to the body wood, and thats the tone, and thats why a premium tonewood guitar vibrates and resonates  differently to a dead sounding cheap wood  guitar(  the cheap plinky thin tone body that seems to resonate but does not have body of a fine guitar that will sustain and have a thick tone)  .
So a direct mounted pickup does have a positive  effect because its now an integral part of the strings "seeing" the  vibrations and also the pickup will be vibrating.

 

[DangerousR6]

I myself prefer wood mounted, but as mentioned previously, there's no tonal pluses or minuses that I can discern. i just like the look, although height adjustment can be a bit more taxing, and you have to be careful not to put the screws thru the back... :toothy12:

 

[fair.child]

You'll probably want to use a 1/4" Forstner bit so you get a flat-bottomed hole that has the same diameter all the way down. Also, you need a drill press with a depth stop. If you try and do it with a portable drill motor, you'll have a much harder time of getting a Forstner bit to work, and there's no putting a collar or anything on them to prevent you from drilling through the back of your body and forcing you to invent all sorts of new cuss words.

I do have the drill press and lowered the speed for wood drilling. Plus I think I got Forstner bit for 17/64 and 1/4. I plan to start with 17/64 and go with 1/4. What do you think?

Do some trial runs in some scrap pieces of wood to see what yields the best results.

I do have Mahogany as real testing. The titanium drill bit works the best for me so far. I just ordered new 17/64 Forstner bit from Amazon. I'll test that out on the Mahogany and see how it goes.

 

[Cagey]

I've never heard of a Forstner bit in that size. Although, I notice the metric sizes have some strange imperial equivalents. But, I still couldn't find a 17/64". I did find a 32mm (1-17/64"). Bit large for what you're doing, though :icon_biggrin: