Standard humbucker in 'F-spaced' ring

[andy]

Hi guys! Nice to see so many old faces (well, names) still here. I can't believe it's been nearly a year since I was last around!

It's been a hectic time, with moving house, leaving and re-joining a band, and I even spent some time in the states on death-in-the-family duty. Things seem to be settling down a little again, and despite my attempts to stop buying so many darn guitars, I've ended up looking to re-shuffle the tools once again, with the usual mods and tweaks running on my heels!

I'll post some pics of the new axes at some point, but anyhow- back to the point! In an attempt to get down to just one solid body guitar, I have a 'superstrat' with a humbucker at the bridge. It seems to have the 'F-spaced' size on board, and I have a nice little collection of standard sized humbuckers to choose from in my bits tub. Has anyone here put a standard humbucker in an F-spaced mounting ring/route, and does it work OK? Or should I really get onto the SD/Dimarzio sites and start saving up?

[Yew]

After a quick google, It seems F-Spacing is to do with polepeice positioning.

I ran a Filtertron in the bridge of my firebird for a fair while, and the polepeices didnt quite line up correctly, but the pickup worked fine, and Malcolm Young from acdc Actually uses a Neck Filtertron in the bridge position of his gretsch ..

Overall It should work, but you might have to adjust the polepeices to getan even output over all the strings

[newey]

Andy-

Welcome back, guy! Good to hear from you again.

What yew said is essentially right. I've never worried overly much about pole spacing, although I don't have a good sense of how far off "f spacing" is from standard HB spacing. Might be more a matter of looks than anything else.

This is probably more of an issue with Strat-type pups where the pole piece is the magnet, than with HBs.

[andy]

Thanks guys, sounds good. I'll have a rummage in my pickup box and post some pics once things are up and running.

Hunting on google, I found mention that PRS use standard spaced humbuckers on both thier fixed-bridge and vibrato instruments. If they don't worry about it, then it is probably not worth worrying about!

[chuck]

i have Gibson Dirty Fingers in one of my Floyd equipped Charvel Model 6s , and one in my Ibanez RG770 .... both work fine

[thetragichero]

i have a standard-spaced humbucker in one of my strats as well

[Yew]

Thinking about it, dont try and adjust the pole peices to compensate, you will just mess it all up

[andy]

I see my reputation precedes me!

[andy]

Thanks for all the input guys, as promised I've got some pics of the final product. It's an Aria Mac 50, cheap but spec'ed just as I wanted. The neck is a bit thin for my tree-trunk loving mits, and there is a slightly low patch on fret 15, but otherwise, a top notch guitar.

I've put a Seymour Duncan Lil '59 in the neck postion, a Dimarzio Virtual Vintage 2.1 in the middle, and a Kent Armstrong PAF-alike in the bridge, and it all seems to sound just right!

I mistakenly got the SD and Dimarzio out of phase even though they weren't that way in the last guitar they were in, and I got lost as to the coil split from the mini switch, so just wired the bridge as standard, leaving the switch unused- a Guitarnuts faux-pas if ever there was one! I hope these lovely photos will mean I can keep my badge and gun though.

[Yew]

My old bassist had one of those in blue, was a nice guitar IIRC

Now fill it up with switches

[newey]

I got lost as to the coil split from the mini switch

An easy fix, since it's got rear access. The 2 wires from the "series junction" of the bridge HB- the ones now wired together- both get wired to the middle lug of the switch. Then ground the lug either above or below that. If it's a DPDT switch, you'll just be using one half of it.

The coil that is split will be hum-cancelling with either the neck or the middle, but not both, assuming the middle is RWRP as is usual. If you find that you need to split to the other coil to get the hum-cancelling combo most useful to you, it's a matter of swapping more wires around- report back if that's the case.

An unwired switch doesn't much impress one's bandmates . . .

But it is a pretty guitar, and we're glad you have returned from the wars . . .so, yes, you keep your (virtual) badge and gun.