The Last Bass Outpost
Gear Discussion Forums => Gibson Basses => Topic started by: Granny Gremlin on July 12, 2016, 08:27:14 AM
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Anybody else have an issue with the mounting bushings (brass, molded/embeded into the black resin pup cover) breaking off? It's driving me nuts - the pup still works great but I've had to tape it down and can't adjust it. The tape is now giving way so best case my treble side is stupid loud and worst case (when fretted a bit higher up the neck) the string is muted by the bridge pup. Tried gluing them back but they keep breaking off again. Driving me bonkers.
I can post pics eventually, but it requires some take-apart so not got to it yet.
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I have quite a few of these pickups and (only) one of them has a broken off ear.
I guess these pickups are so heavy that glueing the ear back is not always successful, as the stress of the weight is quite high.
You could try to reinforce it with a metal strip or something that gives the broken off part more to hold on to.
Or
Have you tried making a new "ear" with epoxy?
Another plan could be to make some sort of baseplate.
Get your jigsaw out and cut a piece of brass to match the pattern of the pickup with all three ears.
Then use slightly longer screws that go all the way through the metal bushings in the ears. And secure them (underneath the new plate) with a matching bolt.
This way the weak ear will not give under the stress but the pickup will hang in the "cradle".
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I do have a spare one (maybe 2; don't remember, but I doubt it), but this has happened to at least 1 ear on each pup in my Triumph (I think 2 of 3 on the neck pup, but don't recall).
Definitely undersized for the weight of the pup. Though I wonder if the foam under the pups is a bit to blame too; just one more force acting on the pup.
I think the baseplate idea might work (+ some epoxy); I have some aluminum sheet laying about. I don't think bushings under the plate would work (to allow adjustment... not without embedding them in the baseplate; better to remove original bushings in that case too), but also should not be necessary - hoping the base plate would reinforce the glue/epoxy job enough to not have it break again. Thanks for the idea; we'll see how that goes.
Thanks. I'll think this through a bit more.
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That baseplate idea is good, but I wouldn't use metal, because that could change the sound of the pickup. Using a thick piece of plastic, or some pickguard material, is better I think.
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That occurred to me, but I'm worried about there being room for the additional thickness. The pickup is sealed completely in epoxy so it won't short anything; might affect the magnetic field a tad, but it's not moving so it should not affect the signal. No more so than metal pickguards and that metal cover over the pup on a TBird II. ... I suppose I could just stick some some scrap under the pup and play it a bit before I commit to attaching it permanently.
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I don't think that an aluminium sheet underneath the pickup will affect the sound in any way.
These pickups are very deep. And the actual working magnet bar is on the top side. Plus it's cast in a thick layer of epoxy like you said.
And aluminium is non magnetic, so that would be an even better option than brass.
If there's enough room for padding or foam (who put that there?), there certainly is enough room for a thin sheet of aluminium.
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Daft question, but can a pickup's magnets be between the strings and the coils? I'm probably mis-interpreting Basvarken's post here, but it was something I was thinking about a whole ago.
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Probably lost in translation :mrgreen:
Maybe I should make clear that these are stacked humbuckers.
The coils of these humbuckers are on top of each other.
Does it make more sense to you now?
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Yes, with a blade polepiece/magnet running right down the middle.
I don't remember if I put the foam in there or if it came to me that way and I left it. Once I sort this out I might remove it - think it contributed to the damage by creating opposing tension, but we'll see.
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Probably lost in translation :mrgreen:
Maybe I should make clear that these are stacked humbuckers.
The coils of these humbuckers are on top of each other.
Does it make more sense to you now?
Loud and clear!
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Of the seven guitars I have with these pickups, none of them have broken ears. I wonder if the plastic gets brittle with age........ I have seen quite a few of them on eBay with broken ears.
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Alright, so it took me forever to locate my spares (found them ina box with a whole whack of other things that I can use right now; score). I did not want to rip the ones out of my Triumph as I didn't know how long I'd be and didn't want it out of commission.
So, the baseplate plan was a goiod idea but not very workable; the core of the pup actually hangs down out of the plastic cover by about 1/8th" so there would be a gap between the baseplate and the mounting ears. Damn. making a cutout for the guts wis doable, but I worry about a) my ability to do so as accurately as required, and b) whether that would not help structural integrity much on account of being so thin in places.
Thinking I can just make some sort of corner braces for the top and bottom mounting ears (the middle ones tend not to break on mine; they have more material around them and less stress generally). Won't be pretty, but if it does the job I'll be happy.
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Well, this is what I am thinking:
(http://www.grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZReinforceBracket1.jpg)
(http://www.grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZReinforceBracket2.jpg)
Thoughts?
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A friend of mine, (who for the record, has WAAAAAY more patients then I do), reconstructed many broken details like this with epoxy. He once reconstructed a big chunk that was busted out of a Leslie horn. It took weeks, but it is still working to this day. Epoxy seem to stick to a wide variety of plastic types. You could possibly form clay around a good pickup & fill the void on the broken pickup, casting a threaded insert like the original. Fixing broken plastic parts is an art form on to itself.
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A friend of mine, (who for the record, has WAAAAAY more patients then I do),
Is he a doctor? :mrgreen:
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On the epoxy thing might I suggest JB Weld - I've made all kinds of mechanical repairs with it as it seems to be stronger and better suited for tooling and such.
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Well, this is what I am thinking:
(http://www.grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZReinforceBracket1.jpg)
(http://www.grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZReinforceBracket2.jpg)
Thoughts?
You could easily cut and bend that out of .020 aluminum and epoxy it to the plastic. Stronger than any plastic castiing IMO. Or just use a piece of .090 pickguard material and epoxy or CA gel.
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Yep - alu was the plan, glued to the pup. I have no experience with epoxy, but I did try to gorilla glue tabs back on and that failed within a few days.
The thing that worries me with epoxy is the thickness; you can't just use a thin film of a coat can you? Maybe depending on type? I am not up to reforming the tabs with epoxy and resetting the bushings; making sure those are lined up right is not going to be a fun time.
Anyway, the gorilla glue should be good to hold this bracket to the plastic casing, but I might take a trip to the hardware store to see if there's anything better. Will look at epoxies.
Made 1 bracket from the paper template. Not particularly pretty, but impressed that I didn't bugger it up:
(http://www.grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZReinforceBracket3.jpg)
(http://www.grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZReinforceBracket4.jpg)
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Yep - alu was the plan, glued to the pup. I have no experience with epoxy, but I did try to gorilla glue tabs back on and that failed within a few days.
The thing that worries me with epoxy is the thickness; you can't just use a thin film of a coat can you? Maybe depending on type? I am not up to reforming the tabs with epoxy and resetting the bushings; making sure those are lined up right is not going to be a fun time.
Anyway, the gorilla glue should be good to hold this bracket to the plastic casing, but I might take a trip to the hardware store to see if there's anything better. Will look at epoxies.
Made 1 bracket from the paper template. Not particularly pretty, but impressed that I didn't bugger it up:
That looks great!
Epoxy will work oK, rough up the AL and pup surfaces with 80 grit sandpaper. Get the stuff in the double barrel syringe it's the easiest to deal with.
Gorilla Glue is a great marketing gimmick, I don't know if it's any better than the other brands of the same kind of adhesive.
I like this stuff:
http://www.supergluecorp.com/?q=super-glue/epoxies/quick-setting-epoxy-adhesive
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+1 on what Carlo said about Gorilla Glue - marketing gimmick for the same old products. Most of your strength comes from your aluminum - the glue just locks it together. Scuff everything well and clean the surfaces with alcohol and glue away.
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+1 on what Carlo said about Gorilla Glue - marketing gimmick for the same old products. Most of your strength comes from your aluminum - the glue just locks it together. Scuff everything well and clean the surfaces with alcohol and glue away.
Full disclosure, I haven't tried it on any of the local primates.
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Harambe didn't endorse it.
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I saw photographs online a while back of balls of Gorilla Glue as eaten by dogs. Basically the dog thinks the glue is some sort of tasty sticky food, and then the glue expands inside the dog. The dogs survive, though I imagine the vet bill is pretty steep. :o
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So now that the brackets are done I gotta install them - jam was to be last night, but got moved to Thursday so under the gun a bit (though I guess I could use another bass [twitch] NO EXCUSES!). Anywho, the current state of affairs (notice the tape - I have to smooth down the tape on the neck pup a couple times per jam to keep it from muting the G string; a pathetic way to live)
(http://grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZPupFix-before1.jpg)
(http://grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZPupFix-before2.jpg)
Also under the shop lights I realised how much I had let Paula go; just filthy. Anyway, moving on to show the root problem (I tossed the foam that was under the pups - yeah that was me who did that):
(http://grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZPupFix-Before3.jpg)
Close up of Neck (bottom tab cracked off):
(http://grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZPupFix-before5-NkCsp.jpg)
... and Bridge (both top and bottom tabs cracked off):
(http://grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZPupFix-before6-BrCspBest.jpg)
So it looks like I inheritted it (partially) this way - looks like there`s a lot of material missing from the top tab area of the bridge pup and the bottom tab on the neck pup has a previous fix along the edge of the bushing). I dunno what glue the former owner used but it was stronger than my shitty gorilla glue attempts (scraping that shit off with a razor blade was a pain, but necessary).
I grabbed some JD Weld (Quickweld, because a. dries clear, b. claimed it sets in 5 minutes, though more like 10 and c. only one that explicitly said it was good with plastics and metal on the package). The stuff smells like ass. Never used it before so figured I'd try fixing the neck pup first, but mixed too much so did the one side of the bridge pup as well (what a pain - due to the missing material I kept having to adjust and was worried it'd set up when not in position - eventually I taped it in place and hoped the tape wouldn`t stick - it didn`t).
(http://grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZPupFix-Cleanup&1TabEaEpoxied.jpg)
You may have also noticed that I cleaned her up a bit while I was at it (had to clean the pups to prep for glue anyway) ... cleaned and conditioned the board too - been a while and the studio is a bit dry (except when we had that flood last Jan); Paula deserves better, I've been neglectful (I just realised the other week that since my beer gut has grown, my belt buckle has really done a number of her back side; shame on me).
Next comes test fitting the brackets (I may have to shave a bit more off the curved edge as each pup is a bit different), then glue on the 3rd cracked tab and I think I will fill that gap between cover's inside edge and coil with epoxy so as to increase the surface area of the broken tabs that is contacting the main unit. I tried to do that a bit on the neck pup there, but I didn't mix up enough and it kept flowing away down the pup, so figured I could do that in a second layer - any opinions if that's a good/bad idea? I just never wanna have to worry about this again.
Anyway, after setting up it already feels damn strong.
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I dig that pickquard :thumbsup:
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I like the trapeze . I did the same on my eb2.
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I dig that pickquard :thumbsup:
Thanks. Original came with a crack at the jack. Scanned it, took a negative and mirror imaged it, and then printed it on transparent film to use as an overlay on top of the pc of Aluminum I cut out. I have that up online somewhere; think a few dudes have used it now.
Trapeze are just cool and generally a good idea - great way to resolve the Evertilt problem on an EB2
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A masterful repair - urine Triumph, Jake, no doubt!
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Not even done yet.
Epoxied on the 2nd tab on the bridge pup and filled in the gap (as mentioned above) on both pups. I would have glued on the braces while I was at it, but I think I should sand off some squeezeout / clean the things up generally first (need to let the epoxy fully cure before that - says full cure in an hour but it still feels soft so giving it the overnight). In any case I had to do some fitting for the bridge pup brace because, as I expected, the coil on that one is much closer to the edge of the cover than on the spare that I used as a model (hardly any gap to fill ); had to file back that curved edge considerably.
(http://grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZPupFix-TabsEpoxied2.jpg)
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And the good thing is: Whenever you're busy with your hands, Jake, you don't argue as much! :rimshot:
Now that wasn't me just now, evil old Dave W possessed my soul and made me write this - vis absoluta!
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NO I DON'T!
:P
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Sanding off the squeezeout and other messy epoxy drips was easier than I thought. Used a razor blade as well as a mini sanding drum on a Dremel with flex extension.
I had fit the brackets to specific pups last time so it was just a matter of epoxying those into place (had to clamp to keep them from moving around) and then filling the gaps with a second layer once that cured.
(http://www.grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZReinforceBracketInstall.jpg)
I found that after installing the brackets it was a very tight fit into the pup routes in the bass. I had anticipated this - test fit them dry, and it seemed like it just might be OK, but the epoxy adds just that extra mm of thickness that makes it not quite work, so after all the epoxying was done and cured, I had to break out the Dremel again to take the edges off the bits of the brackets around the tabs; smooth and round things over so they wouldn’t catch on the route walls and chip paint off. This was just enough and they fit in there nicely now.
(http://www.grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZReinforceBracketInstalled1.jpg)
So my baby’s back, and ears are gonna be in trouble (hey la, hey la, my baby’s back). …. especially after I finish off the tall style dual use 4x12 project later this weekend (so stoked for that). It really is amazing how much difference this made. Not only does she look better, but she feels better and, somewhat counter-intuitively, sounds better - the top strings are no longer disproportionately louder due to the pickup being closer to them than the bottom strings…. never mind the G string being partially muted half the time before. Don’t be a dink like me and put shit like this off.
(http://www.grannygremlin.com/projects/LoZ%20pup%20fix/LoZReinforceBackInBass.jpg)
Fin.
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Nice fix Jake