Best way to mount a humbucker direct, when it’s routed for scratchplate mount

SquireJapan

As above really - I have a strat body with a bridge humbucker route, but it’s made for pick guard mounting. 

I don’t have any screws long enough to go all the way to the wood underneath, and I don’t know if that’s a smart idea. 

Any thoughts?

If I just need “long screws”, can anyone point me at which ones and where I can buy them?

Funkfingers

Going to need photographs of the routed cavity in your actual guitar.

There needs to be enough thickness of wood at the bottom of the cavity for wood screws to bite but without emerging though the back of the body.

Suspension through the pickguard is usually the easiest option. Second choice, suspension through a Gibson-style plastic surround - provided that there is sufficient wood around the humbucker cavity in which to drill four the four screw holes.

ICBM

If you want to direct-mount the pickup and not attach it to the pickguard, you need *small* screws not long ones. You need to screw the pickup to the bottom of the hole first - it will need a long enough cable that you can do this with the pickguard out of the way. The difficult bit will be getting it in exactly the right position so it lines up correctly with the hole in the pickguard.

I would do it by fitting the pickguard to the guitar with no pickups first, and using the two screw holes for the humbucker, a set-square, and a long thin screwdriver or something similar to mark the positions of the holes on the wood directly below them, then drill small pilot holes for the screws.

Alternatively just make life much easier for yourself and mount the pickup on the pickguard as normal...

SquireJapan

Funkfingers said:

Going to need photographs of the routed cavity in your actual guitar.

There needs to be enough thickness of wood at the bottom of the cavity for wood screws to bite but without emerging though the back of the body.

Suspension through the pickguard is usually the easiest option. Second choice, suspension through a Gibson-style plastic surround - provided that there is sufficient wood around the humbucker cavity in which to drill four the four screw holes.

Thanks - I was thinking about just using a spare surround I have. 

I do worry there’s not enough wood (depth), as you say. 

The alternative seems to be one of those “FU PMT” mounts. Which is £50 and seems to be a faff. 

Will take a photo and upload. 

SquireJapan

ICBM said:

...

Alternatively just make life much easier for yourself and mount the pickup on the pickguard as normal...

Ha ... fair point

andy_k

With care, it is possible in a variety of ways.
1, drill out the pickup legs to take the correct length screw to screw pickup directly to body, checking all alignments.
2, use small enough screws to not have to drill out pickup ( tuner / string tree screws )
Both of these methods allow for no adjustment, and are pointless if the pickguard is then used- if it has pickup screw holes.
They work better on a guitar which will have a new pickguard cut, which will be made to fit the pickup position.
3, same ideas as 1 and 2, with some form of foam as a spacer, which allows for a small amount of height adjustment, kind of removes any of the tonal benefits of 'hard mounting' the pickup, and still has same issues with a pickguard.
4, careful use of original pickguard / pickup screws, threaded into pickup legs and used with a spring under foot of pickup to screw into pilot holes in body, fiddly, and same issues as 1,2 and 3.
5, same idea as 1, but avoid pickguard completely.

I have experimented with all the above, with varying degrees of success.

Flip

My wife is an artist and we've been toying with her idea of using the bodies of homemade guitars (a recent lockdown hobby of mine) as a canvas. She decided to avoid using the scratchplate as part of the canvas a) because the plastic/metal would react differently to the paint and b) because we still want to instrument to be playable as well as art, to avoid the risk of damaging the electrics.

Although we've made a prototype, the importance of the scratchplate to a Strat's design and function probably rules it out for this exercise and the photo underlines this.

I don't object to the 'revealed' pickups but I do find the minimised scratchplate less attractive. I'm also a little puzzled by the 'missing' pots and the mysterious extra 'tone' pot that's strayed in. From what I can see of the body (and I realise it's not intended as an artwork) I admire the finish of the body.

SquireJapan

Looking at it in the light of day (and taking into account the above advice), there’s very little wood to put some screws in

Pictures below, but I have a body routed for a floyd, and a scratchplate routed for standard trem. The neck I want to put on doesn’t have clearance for the scratchplate (gap on the 22nd fret overhang is too small). 

Given I only really care about the humbucker I thought I’d skip the scratchplate, but that seems like a pain. Might have to get the neck fixed up properly. 

Dave_Vader

Depends how much you care about the body.

I've got an old 90s Squier I screwed a humbucker into, the screws go all the way through, but since they're behind the trem springs, and not interfering with them, it holds just fine.

I used some ordinary woodscrews from my big pot of old wood screws.

It's not pretty, but it sounds excellent

andy_k

It should be pretty simple to work out the length of screws you need, measure body thickness and deduct depth of rout.
The next step will be to get the pickup at the right height, aim for 3-4 mm from strings fretted at last fret.
If you have long legged pickups, these may be too long, and have to be bent to get them to fit, ala EVH Frankenstein, but if they are modern short leg, you will need either a spacer ( washer / nut ) to pack up the pickup to correct height, or you could use a spring or some dense foam, as I explained above-this kind of spoils the  'direct mount ' point of the exercise.
All of this faff can be done with the guitar strung up and playable, to get positioning and allignment right.
Stick masking tape on body, fit scratchplate, and mark lines on tape to get position of hole for ref when positioning pickup.
There are blank, undrilled scratchplates available on e-bay, and I found a single ply black one last time I looked, which can then be cut to suit, if position is different, it looks like yours has a rout that would only have one correct position anyway, so it couldn't be too far out.

Flip said:

My wife is an artist and we've been toying with her idea of using the bodies of homemade guitars (a recent lockdown hobby of mine) as a canvas. She decided to avoid using the scratchplate as part of the canvas a) because the plastic/metal would react differently to the paint and b) because we still want to instrument to be playable as well as art, to avoid the risk of damaging the electrics.

Although we've made a prototype, the importance of the scratchplate to a Strat's design and function probably rules it out for this exercise and the photo underlines this.

I don't object to the 'revealed' pickups but I do find the minimised scratchplate less attractive. I'm also a little puzzled by the 'missing' pots and the mysterious extra 'tone' pot that's strayed in. From what I can see of the body (and I realise it's not intended as an artwork) I admire the finish of the body.

I built mine as a bit of a Jeff Beck / EVH tribute -homage, which is why the scratchplate is the way it is, JB uses a white strat, EVH built Fankenstein, I do prefer the position of the tone pot ( which is vol obviously )
The other pickups are both stacked humbuckers, so the 5 way switch has some interesting sounds.
If I was in your position, I would just sand the scratchplates to get a good key for paint, and paint away.
Clear lacquer will protect everything you put it on.

ICBM

SquireJapan said:

Pictures below, but I have a body routed for a floyd, and a scratchplate routed for standard trem. The neck I want to put on doesn’t have clearance for the scratchplate (gap on the 22nd fret overhang is too small).

Just cut the pickguard to go around the end of the fingerboard extension and the Floyd.

Better still, have a custom one made like that and with only a humbucker hole.

Funkfingers

@SquireJapan Thank you for posting the photograph. It explains several things. 

Normal practice with direct to body pickup mounting is to have either compressible foam pads beneath the pickup (à la Fender basses and offset guitars) or screws or rubber tube sections.

For me, the critical factor is the vibrato. In order to be adjusted close enough to the strings, a humbucker would need to be a long way from the cavity floor.

andy_k

How Ed did it, note- if you buy one of these pickups, it won't work, has to be a long legged PAF, in a standard depth strat rout.
I have done it with various early Seymour Duncans, but modern short legs need a wooden spacer to make it work.
There is a definite effect to having the pickup screwed down hard to the wood. 

SquireJapan

Thanks all for the help on this - I've decided to "have a go" and make the existing scratchplate fit. It's off a USA fender and matches the existing holes, but I think I got it free and has next to no value.

I realise when I properly looked that the gap on the 22nd fret overhang is actually _only just_ too small for the scratchplate. It was much worse on the other body I'd tried it on. I'll have a go at cutting the scratchplate, worse case is it looks crap and I have to ask someone to do the job properly.

ICBM

SquireJapan said:

I realise when I properly looked that the gap on the 22nd fret overhang is actually _only just_ too small for the scratchplate.

If so another possibility is that the neck overhang is finished on the underside - perhaps with quite a lot of finish build-up. If so, you can carefully scrape/file it off, leaving enough of a gap for the pickguard.

SquireJapan

ICBM said:

SquireJapan said:

I realise when I properly looked that the gap on the 22nd fret overhang is actually _only just_ too small for the scratchplate.

If so another possibility is that the neck overhang is finished on the underside - perhaps with quite a lot of finish build-up. If so, you can carefully scrape/file it off, leaving enough of a gap for the pickguard.

I think you're right - seemed like most of it was varnish, bit a tiny bit of wood.

I put the trem (flat) bit of the scratchplate against the neck, and scored it with a sharp screwdriver - you can see if barely any wood at all:

I little bit of filing with some small files I bought from a local DIY shop (less then 5 min of doing it gently) and I get this:

I'd actually written the neck off a bit to be honest (me making it fit was just an experiment), but turns out it's really nice. I'd had it on my green strat with strings on (but no scratchplate), and I thought it felt a bit crap. On here it's pretty nice - it needed a light bit of brillo pad action to take the stickyness of the neck, but now it's really nice.

"Finished" result below, with an old Dimarzio Super Distortion (I think):

Bonus bit of flame/birdseye on the neck too. No complaints from me!

Going to let it settle a bit, then get this off to @FelineGuitars to get headstock stripped, drilled for locking sperzels and a proper setup.

Thanks all above for the advice!

ICBM

That looks great - there's a proper 80s rat-rod 'throw away anything you don't need' vibe to it .

SquireJapan

ICBM said:

That looks great - there's a proper 80s rat-rod 'throw away anything you don't need' vibe to it .

Ha - thanks. 

It’s a (spare)partscaster. 

The trem I bought back when Guthrie Govern first started using them, had it years. The scratchplate came free with a set of bits long since used up. 

Pickup I got in a swap a long while back. 

Volume knob and pot someone threw in when I bought a pickup on here

It’s got a nice vibe to it. 

I actually have a Screaming Demon single coil neck pickup you’d recommended on a charvel I had ... never got to use it. 

Might throw that in too

DrBob

First the Green scalloped one and now this. I’m loving these, and in fact & @AndyK  ‘s white one too