Fitting a H Plate to a HB

rpr

I have a H plate kicking about and have decided to fit it to the SD JD in the bridge of my Ibanez-partly for the look and partly(hopefully) it'll help smooth out the harshness in the pickup. Just looking for any tips or suggestions before I begin. How much solder is needed? is it just to ground the cover or does it hold it in place? I have a 25W iron, will this be strong enough, i can borrow a bigger gas powered one if needed.

excuse the questions, I've been trying to totally rewire the guitar and keep on running into unforeseen problems and hassles-Ii just want this part done with the minimum of fuss

OilCityPickups

Okay: firstly you need a big, powerful soldering iron for fitting pickup covers ... I use a 100w with a an angled tip that looks more like a bent road drill! A smaller Iron would have to be applied for longer and would allow a far too big area of the pickup baseplate to be heated, risking damage to the hookup wires that  often sit just behind the baseplate lip ... exactly where you will be soldering! You will need to remove any tape that hangs pit oner that 'lip' with a razor knife or similar ... to allow good metal to metal contact (be very careful not to slip and cut into the bobbin above it). I would then clean the areas to be soldered with some plastic Scotchbrite pad ... don't use steel wool anywhere near pickups ... and remove a little of the plating on the inside of the cover sides where you will solder. This gives the solder a better chance of taking.
Trial fit your H gate cover ... as there may be too much tape wrapping on a JB to allow it to slide happily into place. If there is you will have to carefully remove some. Now you will need a small G clamp ... I pad the jaws and clamp the long sides of the cover into close contact with the baseplate before applying a couple of good blobs of solder in the centre of those sides.
Here are a couple of pics from 'my improving a cheap pickup' from way back. This was replacing a cover ... but same difference
Get a load of the size of my tip!!! 


Oh, by the way, I doubt you'll get much calming effect from an H gate cover ... the important parts of the magnetic field can still sense the strings with nowt in the way ... that's why Gretsch designed their covers that way. You would have to but a full brass cover on to knock out much treble ... then it'd be like buying a Ferrari and complaining it don't go fast when it's in a concrete garage! ICBM will howl in protest ... but muzzling a pickup with brass is a crap way of modifying it's tone.

ThePrettyDamned

Ash, one day, I'd love to meet you and see your workshop.

I imagine it's a bit like willy wonker's...

OilCityPickups

More like Wally Wankers

I'm short on orange dwarves ... I have cats instead ... and too much stuff and mess a lot of the time.

rpr

Cheers Ash, It was only for the looks TBH. I changed my mind anyway. fitted 250 k pots all round , along with a couple of your Triple Blues and it sounds a lot better all round. I don't want to risk damaging the JB in case I decided to sell it on.

OilCityPickups

Glad you got it sorted ...