Back in 2016 I was rebuilding my old 60's (Made In Japan) Encore ES330 clone guitar. It looks like a ES335, but it's the size of a Casino Coupe and made the same way(hollow body with a small block under the bridge). A lot of Gretsch guitars are made the same way.

The pickups were large single coils the size of Tele bridge pickups with screw poles like a P90. They were decent pickups, but very microphonic(once picked up CB Radio chatter form a trucker on nearby highway) and you could talk through them. They would squeal like a stuck pig if you turned toward the amp or got too close.

I decided to change out the pickups while rebuilding the guitar and wanted to have a Firebird pickup for the neck and a mini-bucker for the bridge. I ordered a couple of pickups from Guitarfetish.com that sells GFS pickups. I got the A5 Fat Mini fro the Bridge and it works well in that position. The only Firebird style pickup they offered was a Ceramic magnet Minibird. So I got it for the neck position. I was thinking that a ceramic magnet pickup would be good for the neck position so as not to be too bassy/muddy sounding. It was decent, but not at all like a Firebird sound like I wanted and true Firebird pickups are expensive.

A true Firebird pickup has 2 magnets, 1 in each coil bobbin that are the actual rail pole. The  GFS Minibird had 2 steel rail poles in the bobbins with the ceramic bar magnet across the bottom between the steel rails. Basically just a regular mini-bucker masquerading as a Firebird under a Firebird style cover.

I'm not saying this pickup was terrible, it just wasn't what I was looking for and it wasn't delivering the sound I was looking for. It may have been fantastic in another guitar and some people have liked this pickup in many guitars that they've put them in.

But it isn't a Firebird and it doesn't sound as good as a Firebird. Solution: Turn it into a Firebird.

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First thing was to take off the pickup's cover.

It had 2 solder points. I put tape across the bottom of the pickup and cut through the solder points using my dremel tool with a cutoff wheel. Tape was to keep particles from getting into the pickup and I cut through the solder so it would be easier to re-solder when putting back together.

Using a long and thin blade on my Xacto knife, I gently separated the wax from the sides of the cover. These pickups are potted with a lot of wax.

Sorry for the pics, crappy camera.

The pickup has a brass bottom plate, some say the brass has a negative affect on the magnetic fields and affects the pickups tone. The Firebird pickup used steel base plate and a steel reflector plate.

You can see the steel rail poles and ceramic magnet running between them in the last pic.

more to come later.

I started to pry the cover off by grabbing the bottom plate adjustment screw tabs in one hand and the cover in the over hand. I wiggled it a bit while pulling, but that just resulted in pulling the bottom plate off the pickup assembly. No harm to the pickup, that had to happen anyway.

At this point I could see that the coil bobbins were plastic and no damage would be done to the coils by removing the poles. Some pickup(like individual pole pickups have the wire wrapped around the poles. In that case, removing the poles could damage the windings.

I went ahead and pulled the assembly out of the cover with a little effort. In hindsight, it was probably possible to remove the magnet and rail poles with removing the entire coil assembly. Hindsight is 20-20.

Got the assembly out, removed the ceramic magnet by gently prying up with a pocket screwdriver(flat head).

The rail poles were just pushed out with ease using the same screw driver. Then I installed the magnets, pushed them in with my thumb, easy peasy.

Stewmac.com sells pickup kits that you buy wire and wire them up. I got a $15 gift certificate from them for Christmas 2017, so I ordered just the A2 magnets(Alnico 2 for Firebird) and a bone nut for my Bo Diddly build. The magnets were $4.

Bottom pic: It's always a good idea to draw out a diagram showing the magnetic polarity before taking the magnets out. 

The usual for coils and polarity is North pole for Clockwise Wind and South pole for Counter Clockwise Wind. Some brands will mix this up unfortunately, so it's wise to draw it out so no problems arise with in phase/out of phase problems.

Nice write up so far, too bad about the pic quality, curious if they sound the way you want them to when all is said and done, anxiously awaiting results.

Old camera.

They way they sounded before I would rate a 4 and now I would rate them at 9. Big difference.

Next I saw in the pickup kit that the Firebird pickup had a steel reflector plate under the bobbins, then a wooden spacer and then the steel bottom plate.

My bottom plate was brass and the side walls were short. If I added a reflector plate, it would be kinda loose in the cover and could possibly cause a rattle noise. So I had a steel framing bracket plate about 1/16" thick and I cut it to tightly fit against the bottom plate(it's wedged in), then cut a 1/8" thick 1/4" wide wooden spacer to fit in the middle between the coils and the bottom plate.

Then I put it all together, re-soldered the solder tabs on the bottom plate to the cover, re-installed and re-wired the pickup.

Results are Fantastic. Now this pickup sounds like a real Firebird pickup and I'm in love with pickup.

The Bad: Now the bridge pickup doesn't sound as good as the neck pickup. A modder's work is never done! LOL

So maybe in a couple of months(when I get the time) I may be turning the bridge pickup into a real Firebird pickup.

That pickup sounds so good it's got me thinking of putting one in every guitar I have. Ouch

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