This may be a case of "I'm the slow kid" (again). but I recently started installing magnetic pickups (both single wound and humbucker) in my CBG builds. I like the warm, clean tone, but I cringe every time I have to deface a nice cigar box top.
I was sitting at the bench this afternoon staring at a gold single-wound pickup and wondered if it were mounted under the box top (no cut out) would it work? I noticed that the humbuckers have screws in the coils, so I wondered if the single coils may do the same (under the gold cover.
A few quick plucks with the needle nose pliers and the gold cover came off easily to reveal the six round slugs, but no screws. I tried to gently tap them out, but no luck. Then I noticed small holes between each slug. I wondered......
I checked my hardware drawers and found some finishing nails that fit snugly into the holes. I touched one of the nails with the tip of my screwdriver and it was magnetic (interesting..........)
I cut the nails off and ground the tops flat then slid them into the pickup. Next, I took a small piece of 1/4 ply and drilled small holes that aligned with my nail heads, then mounted the pickup to the ply with the nails sticking through the holes.
Using some jumpers, I connected the pickup wires to an audio cord running to my amp. Now, I needed strings. This was getting a little complicated, so I went to plan B. I turned on the amp, the sat one of my regular players on the bench. Holding my pickup rig in hand, I carefully positioned it so that the nails were about a 1/4" above the strings. Then I gave the guitar a pluck.
Wow! It picked up the strings in the nail heads and came through the amp clearly. By this time, I'm running out of hands, but my initial thought is that if I used some dense piano wire instead of nails and finished the ends cleanly, I might be able to mount a mag pickup completely in the box then just let the thin rods protrude through the box. If it worked, I would not have to feed guilty for hacking up a nice box.
So, is this common knowledge and I'm just slow on the pick up?
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Update. Took my single wound pickup (sans cover) and mounted it under the lid of one of my guitars. I did take the suggestion to lay a piece of sheet metal across the six slugs.
There pickup could detect and read the strings pretty well. Looks like the pickup can be installed inside the box without the nails and still function properly. Very interesting information for use with nice looking cigar box lids.
Thanks for all the insights and suggestions on this.
if the fret board over hangs the box,I suppose you could put your nails in there.
that would make the strings cloer would it not?
Nice one *****
You can do it with a 'blade' type pretty easy too, sandwich a little bit of sheet metal between to bits of scrap and polish it up..
Thanks Kid.
Glad to hear that someone has done this successfully on a routine basis.
Ron's idea sounds very interesting. No holes, but still have a mag pickup. I'll be hooking that test up soon.
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