Zebra pickup conventions

Dave_Mc

OilCityPickups said:

barnstorm said:

Pink inner coils would look better to me, especially with matching knobs – then there's a nice line of your accent colour through the knobs and bridge pickup.

Nowt like a matching pink knob 

It's actually ridiculously hard to get it to match! They never seem to be the same shade...

OilCityPickups

My reversed zebra 'Green Man' pickups in my LP Studio 

noisepolluter

OilCityPickups said:

My reversed zebra 'Green Man' pickups on my LP Studio 

Scratchplate really looks good with them too

OilCityPickups

noisepolluter said:

OilCityPickups said:

My reversed zebra 'Green Man' pickups on my LP Studio 

Scratchplate really looks good with them too

All the plastic was looted from an R9 or an R0 I think ... it's the only way I could get all the creams to match. The original plastic on the 2014 'anniversary was a horrible french mustard yellow ... someone had converted all to cheap black aftermarket which made the guitar look really 'blobby' so I bought a complete set of high end Gibson stuff from another Fretboarder. who was converting to black plastics. There's a subtle but nice amount of flame on that top ... I'm not usually a lover of flame, but it sort of makes this guitar stand out a bit.  

Funkfingers

noisepolluter said:

Scratchplate really looks good with them too

Don't start that argument again, puh-lease. 

Dave_Mc said:

OilCityPickups said:

barnstorm said:

Pink inner coils would look better to me, especially with matching knobs – then there's a nice line of your accent colour through the knobs and bridge pickup.

Nowt like a matching pink knob 

It's actually ridiculously hard to get it to match! They never seem to be the same shade...

Different materials and, in all probability, different dyes. Gibson bobbins and surrounds are one material. Stratocaster control knobs are another. The selector switch cap and vibrato arm tip are a third. 

DiMarzio is keen on boldly coloured accessories but they never match exactly. The pink humbucker bobbins were notorious for fading to a sickly shade.

I deal with this matter by reminding myself that, from twenty feet away, almost nobody can see the difference.

Philly_Q

Dave_Mc said:

OilCityPickups said:

barnstorm said:

Pink inner coils would look better to me, especially with matching knobs – then there's a nice line of your accent colour through the knobs and bridge pickup.

Nowt like a matching pink knob 

It's actually ridiculously hard to get it to match! They never seem to be the same shade...

Same with cream, I find.  It's not too bad with mounting rings, but cream Strat-style knobs are rarely anything like the colour of cream pickup bobbins.  And not all cream bobbins are the same either.

Dave_Mc

Funkfingers said:

Dave_Mc said:

OilCityPickups said:

barnstorm said:

Pink inner coils would look better to me, especially with matching knobs – then there's a nice line of your accent colour through the knobs and bridge pickup.

Nowt like a matching pink knob 

It's actually ridiculously hard to get it to match! They never seem to be the same shade...

Different materials and, in all probability, different dyes. Gibson bobbins and surrounds are one material. Stratocaster control knobs are another. The selector switch cap and vibrato arm tip are a third. 

DiMarzio is keen on boldly coloured accessories but they never match exactly. The pink humbucker bobbins were notorious for fading to a sickly shade.

I deal with this matter by reminding myself that, from twenty feet away, almost nobody can see the difference.

Yeah that's pretty much where I got to, too- probably different materials and dyes, so pretty much impossible that you're ever going to get it to match exactly. I'm not exactly happy... but realistic that I'm just wasting money buying more stuff which is no more likely to match!

Philly_Q said:

Dave_Mc said:

OilCityPickups said:

barnstorm said:

Pink inner coils would look better to me, especially with matching knobs – then there's a nice line of your accent colour through the knobs and bridge pickup.

Nowt like a matching pink knob 

It's actually ridiculously hard to get it to match! They never seem to be the same shade...

Same with cream, I find.  It's not too bad with mounting rings, but cream Strat-style knobs are rarely anything like the colour of cream pickup bobbins.  And not all cream bobbins are the same either.

Oh yeah I've got into difficulties with cream before too (with humbuckers and plastics)! Luckily it was just a toggle switch tip which cost around a pound IIRC, but I kept the one I already had as I thought it was a closer match!

noisepolluter

Thanks all for the contributions. New pickups are on hold at the moment due to the realisation that I’d initially wired the existing bridge pickup wrong! 

Now that’s corrected I’m going to spend some time with the existing pickups as they’re actually meant to sound. If I end up eventually going pink zebra I may stick with the knurled black metal knobs for the time being, taking on board folks’ experiences trying to get an exact match with bobbins.