Anyone ever covered a Gibson Dirty Fingers PU - ?

[tab]

Hey Guys -

I have a Gibson Dirty FIngers PU that was given to me and I was wondering if anyone here has ever added a pickup cover to one of these pickups?

I don't know that it will tone down the PU at all, and that's not what I'm after.

The existing pickups on my SG both have the nickel covers and I like the look and it would be great if I could cover this pickup and maintain the look.

For those who don't know what this PU looks like, here's a link that includes a photo from Gibson.

www.gibson.com/en%2Dus/Divisions/Gibson%20Gear/Pickups/%5FDirty%20Fingers/

Thanks for any suggestions.

[D2o]

Hi tab, and welcome!

For some reason I am thinking that if you mount it with rubber cement or something so that the pickup cover has no direct contact with anything, it will not affect the tone to any appreciable degree.

What about a plastic cover that has the nickel vacuum coated?

D2o

[tab]

Plastic or metal - makes no difference to me really.
Covering the pickup posts should be easy enough.

I'll look around and see if I can find one and get it installed.

I felt I had to ask the question though since I haven't been able to find any posts on it. I guessed either it shouldn't be done for some odd reason, or it was so common place no one had to ask.

[ChrisK]

Adding a metal cover will affect the tone slightly. It will make the tone slightly warmer and reduce the harmonic content.

The metal cover does three things to varying degrees.

It adds inter-winding capacitance and overall capacitance to ground if the cover is grounded.

If the cover is ferrous, it changes the magnetic lines of flux from the, uh, magnets.

It acts as a low resistance widely-spaced shorted turn around the pickup.


Many folk removed the covers from their humbuckers in the past just to open up and air out their tone (ha, how's that for ambiguous specificity?).

[tab]

Having heard & played with the Dirty Fingers pickups, a slight reduction or change in tone may not make a large difference.

They're pretty hot!

I can use tape at first to test this out, and leave it off or move to a permanent solution for the cover if it's a good match.

Thanks for the info - helpful for sure.

[ashcatlt]

You know what else it could do?

It could shake around if not firmly attached. If it's ferrous, this shaking will be transduced by the pickups just the same as a string. If this is then amplified and transduced back into the air via speaker, this could cause it to shake sympathetically. You know, like feedback.

In theory anway...

[D2o]

I have done some (i.e. I am not being modest, I really do just mean a little) experimenting with wrapping pickups with aluminum and copper.

I have gone from partial wrapping around just the coil area all the way to completely encasing the pickup with copper sheeting.

I do not have any means of measuring the eddy currents or anything, but I have never subjectively felt as if there was a loss of tone that would be a cause for concern (i.e. I really didn't detect any loss of tone) although I acknowledge and accept that those who know more about this and more about how to measure this have measured something.

I'm just saying that, in practical terms, I have not found it to be an issue.

That's a good point about squeal / feedback, and is actually kinda why the back of mind was telling me that rubber cement or "something" (and I don't know what the something might be - silicone, maybe?) to isolate it and minimize the potential for that to happen. I didn't realize it until you spelled it out.

[D2o]

Related thread here, FWIW.

Cheers,
D2o