Is there a reason why when you look for humbuckers to buy, they generally come in different pole spacing options to accomodate different guitars. But when you look for single coils there are no different spacing options? Especially neck and middle singles.
I just had a look at Seymour Duncan and Suhr for example and their single coils are "one size". Take or leave it. Not even any measurements on their spec sheets. But googling this and I can see people say there are different spacings on singles - 48, 50 and 52mm for example. I found the same to be true when buying single coil pickup covers. It's like it's automatically assumed that all single coils have a pre-defined pole spacing from a cookie cutter template - which is false because I searched for some covers recently and none had options for different pole spacing, and therefore the ones I ended up buying didn't fit at all.
Problem is the stock neck single on one of my strats has poles too spaced out that the high E string is literally too far inside its respective pole, so much so that the string is not even on top of the pole anymore. You'd think that manufacturers would cater for these different spacings - but they're smarter than me so I clearly must be missing something
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If it did, bending a string would cause it to drop out, no?
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Bridge 52.5mm
Middle 51mm
Neck 49.5mm
And they really do align beautifully if you have a 54mm bridge.
https://i.imgur.com/SZfn6gF.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/0N4q2P5.jpeg
Look at a genuine Pair of Wideranges from the 70s and the strings miss the top and bottom E pole screws completely at the neck - yet nobody complained ... perhaps they were busier actually playing in those days rather than obsessing over unimportant details ;-)
Oh and budget brands tend to buy in plastic unitary bobbins which come in graduated widths for some reason ... and ultra cheapo covers are available for em ... go figure
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
Back then maybe guitarists also noticed it too but options were limited to fix them then and they just lived with it. Fair enough and no complaints from me. But the guitar industry has come such a long way since the golden vintage days that I just found it surprising that this is still a thing.
When he subsequently made the Stratocaster, all three pickups looked identical, so he did the cheapest thing and made them all the same spacing
I've had plenty of Japanese 80s strat style guitars that came with rubbish pickups but spaced correctly, and with 50mm bridge spacing, changing them out for 52mm is not only an aesthetic issue, but very definitely can cause issues with quiet E strings, Low and High.
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/61134/sarge/p1