P90 size pickups (sorted) for project & finishing question?

WezV

I did make myself some brackets for the traditional method.

They are relatively simple to do from an aluminium bar. But I tend to take things apart and swap pickups and they eventually stripped out. 

I swapped for the Wilkinson ones.

SteveRobinson

Teyeplayer said:

It’s been a few years but from memory the Gibson mounting brackets are/were a nightmare to obtain. I can’t remember if I was ever successful, feel like I bodged together an alternative. 

They are. I've made the bar type from aluminium billet a few times.

Creed_Clicks

WezV said:

Why not?

I was just going by where funkfingers suggested the wilkinson mounts could be troublesome 

WezV

He's not wrong, you do need to be aware of cavity depth and wiring channels. The same applies to any method of mounting a pickup inside a cavity, rather than floating over it. Looking at your pic, it won't be much of an issue here

 But there are easy solutions for all these things. After that it's merely an aesthetic choice.

Funkfingers

WezV said:

You can now buy these covers with screws in 2 of the corners which make life much easier and act like a normal ring

Unfortunately, as you can see in the photograph, the Wilkinson mini-HB surrounds are one-size-fits-all. I find them fine in a typical neck/Rhythm pickup cavity but woefully short for the bridge position on any set neck guitar with decent a pitch angle.

WezV

You can set the height of the ring by putting springs or tubing on the p90 style mounting screws shown in the picture. You can then raise the pickup higher than the ring if needed like adjusting pickup height on a traditional humbucker mount. 

2 easy ways to adjust height, really not sure what the problem is. Much more versatile than the traditional deluxe mini humbucker method

Most importantly, no special hard to get parts needed.

BlackbirdCabs

I would second the vote for Firebirds as I love my neck position Firebird, but the word 'jangle' definitely makes me think of mini humbuckers.

Either way Mojo do a surround for their Firebird-sized gold foils which would work with the P90 rout, I'm sure Marc would supply you with them if you ordered Firebirds or mini humbuckers from him.

https://www.mojopickups.co.uk/product/firebird-sized-gold-foil/

roberty

WezV said:

I did make myself some brackets for the traditional method.

They are relatively simple to do from an aluminium bar. But I tend to take things apart and swap pickups and they eventually stripped out. 

I swapped for the Wilkinson ones.

Love Firebird pickups but they're such a bloody faff

How do you rate the Wilkinson ones? They're not strictly traditional I think

The HB sized ones are probably a good shout (but not for OP)

Always fancied this combo from Paul Gilbert's Iba-phone. I thought I was mad until I saw someone else had done it. Sort of a halfway house between HH and HS

WezV

roberty said:

WezV said:

I did make myself some brackets for the traditional method.

They are relatively simple to do from an aluminium bar. But I tend to take things apart and swap pickups and they eventually stripped out. 

I swapped for the Wilkinson ones.

Love Firebird pickups but they're such a bloody faff

How do you rate the Wilkinson ones? They're not strictly traditional I think

I don't think traditional matters too much unless making replicas, but it is worth remembering the earliest Les Paul's  had corner screws on the  bridge P-90's in 1952 (along with different channels), and the early customs had it on the neck staple pickup instead

Dorothy is a good example of the unusual bridge pickup corner screws, yes opposite corners to the Wilkinson rings


I was happy to use them on this mash up of different periods, as a nod to that early mounting method.... mine was built before Dorothy was found and remade, but it looks like we both chose the same style of early 50's tailpiece favoured by Les.

I left them visible here, rather than using black screws with smaller heads to hide them


Funkfingers is right to mention wiring cavities.  Definitely an issue on an LP. I suspect I mounted the bridge pickup to a wooden shim above the channel on that guitar to solve the issue.  It will likely be a roughly P-90 shaped bit wood/ply about 1/4" thick that took  a minute or two to make.... but that wouldn't be necessary on the one shown in the OP as it has flat bottomed cavities.   

On the OP's it would either need the ring raising slightly on springs so wires can go under, or a bit of the bottom of the ring nibbling away for wires to pass through.  Just depends how deep the cavities are currently and how high you want the rings to sit.

WezV

but for balance, you can see a thread where I made some brackets for the traditional method here
https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/55672/build-thread-pancake-body-les-paul-deluxe/p11

They didn't take too much work, and probably would have lasted better if i didn't change pickups so often in that guitar, or made them from a harder grade of aluminium

Creed_Clicks

@roberty interesting guitar. An Ibanez tele style ?

roberty

Creed_Clicks said:

@roberty interesting guitar. An Ibanez tele style ?

Yeah it was based on an Epiphone Coronet. Duncan traditional Firebird neck pickup and Duncan Distortion bridge pickup. There were only a few of them made

It's not this one but looks like the same pickups (don't watch this unless you want to be completely discouraged from ever picking up a guitar again)

Creed_Clicks

@roberty True test of that Gilbert vid would be down the Dog and Duck.

Seziertisch

TV Jones T90s would not be my first choice for jangly. They are the highest output pickups (in terms of inductance) that TV Jones offers, they sound great but they really kick the front of your amp.

For neck jangle it’s hard to beat a Strat-style pickup. I got a couple from Q Pickups, built to go in the neck of a JM and a Les Paul and they sound great, they are paired with a T90 and a PAF-style in the bridge respectively. 

Before I found when I set up my sounds to optimise the bridge sound of the guitars in question the neck was too muddy and not really suited to rhythm or arpeggio playing, now it’s perfect. Changing from the Strat pickup neck to the T90 in the JM is like turning on an overdrive, but that suits me fine as the EQ profiles of both are usable at the same settings 

Creed_Clicks

@Seziertisch good to know. It’s a long way off for me so I have to time to decide but might just go standard P90s if firebird pickups are hard to come by etc 

Creed_Clicks

These could work - https://qpickups.com/qshop/product/hybrid-p90-black-soap-bar-rod-guitar-pickup-poles-strat-stratocaster-twang-fits-epi-gibson-lp-sg-jr/

Seziertisch

Creed_Clicks said:

These could work - https://qpickups.com/qshop/product/hybrid-p90-black-soap-bar-rod-guitar-pickup-poles-strat-stratocaster-twang-fits-epi-gibson-lp-sg-jr/

That looks like a P90 with magnet poles, though I’m sure he could make you a proper Strat pickup to fit in a P90 housing. In terms of jangle the latter is probably a better option

ICBM

WezV said:

He's not wrong, you do need to be aware of cavity depth and wiring channels.

And even worse than what I posted about the two screws looking odd, the corners they’ve chosen are the ones most likely to conflict with the wiring channels. If they’d used the other two I could see the logic.

Creed_Clicks

As a total noob, any recommendations on how to finish this without using any special power tools etc, which I don't own.
Crimson guitar stain and finishing oil? Any other brands? Thinking of staining it as black as I can get it, then applying some kind of protective coat over that so it doesn't get easily dinged? Any advice there?