Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by William Powell on July 20, 2010 at 5:13pm

Thanks, Jim. A lot of folks here have made me fell right at home. I'm in St. Pete. I'll check out Rev. Nix.
unclebill

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Permalink Reply by Wichita Sam on July 23, 2010 at 3:49pm

I think that one of the reasons piezo pups are so popular is that they don't present installation problems that wound pups do... I like wound pups of all types, so, I am building a lot of pocket/bolt-on neck design CBGs.... One way to get around the problem is fill the bottom of the box (under the neck) with wood, glue the neck (thru) to the fill and get your router out...

Do it right and it should be strong enough... but with that much hassle, just go ahead and build a pocket style (fender-ish) CBG...

the best,

Wichita Sam

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on November 8, 2012 at 8:39pm

Hi, William,

When building a CBG with a magnetic pickup (pup), there is usually an immediate conflict between where the mag pup should ideally go and where the neck needs to fasten to the sound box.  With acoustic CBGs, and stringed instruments in general, the instrument sounds best when your picking (or strumming) hand is near (or over the neck), as opposed to playing closer to the bridge. So, this is the ideal location for your pup. But it also is where the neck meets the sound box and this area is usually occupied by extra bracing and bolts (or wood screws). This can be seen in my drawing below:

This far, my first and only CBG with a magnetic pickup in it was done like in Design 1, but that meant the humbuckler pups had to be located about mid-box, and the bridge had to be located near the tail end of the box. This proved less satisfactory than I had hoped, as when it's played acoustically, it doesn't sound that good. This could be due to the box, or maybe all the hardware (pups) on the soundboard, or the location of the bridge. Not sure which. But on my next build I'm pretty sure I will use a bolt-on neck with a heel so I can move the humbuckler pups nearer the neck end of the sound box, and I can move the bridge nearer to the middle of the box (66% across the soundboard would be a nice target for the bridge).

Maybe some more experienced builders can comment on how better to locate the pups without weakening the neck joint excessively. I'd also like to know more about this before attempting my next magnetic PUP build.

-Rand.

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