Wood Pickup Covers

[ibob74]

I thought somebody might find this interesting;

 

[ibob74]

And one more;

 

[ibob74]

Oh, sorry at http://www.allparts.com/

 

[Alfang]

Very interesting, is good food for thought for future builds

 

[nathan a]

Wow. That is the epitome of classy

 

[Jwheeler]

I wonder how that would affect the sound.  Looks awesome though.

 

[jackthehack]

Shouldn't have any effect on sound, they're wood....

 

[CD]

Just a guess but they wouldn't dull the attack like metal covers would.

 

[thepriebster]

Check out "Thorn" guitars...high end custom stuff, they do single coils in quilt maple etc. Pickup rings too, Very impressive!

 

[Ted]

They look cool, but I'm not a fan of "furniture" guitars.

 

[Shmoopie]

same here, i don't like that wooden look :laughing7: , i don't get why people dig the clear finish. at least stain it.

 

[JR]

i love it. adds class, and im generally not a fan of plastic. i like to avoid it where possible.

 

[riarojr]

will Thorn make covers for you to put on different pickups?  in about a year or so my neck thru design will need some swamp ash covers...

 

[thepriebster]

I don't think so, but I sure do like them, very classy...furniture?

 

[Nando Vallart]

Awaking the Dead!  :evil4:

Does anybody has a clue how to do this:

I know it can be done with those very thin saws used to cut gold, pearls, etc... But I have no clue how to do the first step/hole, as I cannot see any in these guitars and bass with that kind of construction...

 

[ByteFrenzy]

I'm not sure how they do it. I'm not 100% sure if the PU covers are the pieces removed from the top or different pieces that were selected to match. The seem to come very close but not perfectly... If it's the first, it seems likely to me that they use water or laser cutting to remove the PU covers from the lam top before it's fixed to the body proper. It would take some serious indexing to get the routing done afterwards though. The other possiblity is that they just have a huge pile of similarly figured maple to pick the best matching PU covers for each body from.

 

[Nando Vallart]

I agree this one is not 100% matching, but there is plenty of bass from luthieres that matches... I'm really intrigued...

 

[SkuttleFunk]

Awaking the Dead!  :evil4:

Does anybody has a clue how to do this:

I know it can be done with those very thin saws used to cut gold, pearls, etc... But I have no clue how to do the first step/hole, as I cannot see any in these guitars and bass with that kind of construction...

this is done by first drilling a very small hole (the diameter of the saw blade used in the second step) on the cut line. next the top is set onto a scroll saw with a very fine blade

and carefully cutting along the outline. since you need some clearance between the pickup cavity and the pickup cover, the thin kerfed blade is no problem if you cut skillfully


there are several ways to craft the pickup cover itself, and the piece cut above is simply glued onto the top similar to what is done with the body. it's not technically difficult to perform each of the steps - the difficulty is in having the tools/skills to work to a very tight tolerance when making the pickup covers since a little slop in the pole holes really stands out (you don't usually see the gap in the pickup cavity unless the original cut out was done very sloppy

all the best,

R

 

[Nando Vallart]

These saw is perhaps less than 1mm thick, is that the size of the bit??? Where can I find it?

 

[SkuttleFunk]

look for an ultra thin blade like these (.026" wide x .011" thick)
http://www.scrollsawbladespatterns.com/Scrollsaw_Blades_1/scrollsaw_blades_1.htm

or these omni directional spiral blades which can be very difficult to control until you have spent significant time with them (.027" dia x .008" thick or .03" dia x .011" thick)
http://www.scrollsawbladespatterns.com/Spiral_Scrollsaw_Blades/spiral_scrollsaw_blades.htm


for reference, here's an interesting reference on scroll saw selection and usage
http://www.scrollsawbladespatterns.com/Guide_to_the_Scrollsaw/guide_to_the_scrollsaw.htm

all the best,

R