Thu Jun 03, 2010 9:37 am
I was frustrated with the tendency of my z-coils to always adjust into a tilted position. By this, I mean that when I got their two ends to the heights I wanted, the pups were tilted when looking down at them from the playing position, and this would always result in the G string getting closer than I wanted, and the D string further away. This can be compensated, a bit, with the poles, but the result isn't the same as getting the COILS the right distance from the strings as well.
So, I took off the scratchplate and pups, and VERY CAREFULLY taped the pup covers gently to their metal bases, to prevent the covers moving (which can, incredibly but very scarily, tear the coils) and removed the pups. I then carefully drilled holes for three new 6/32 pup mounting bolts, in line with the existing treble-end holes and 17mm to the "neck" side of each, and then reassembled the pups to the plate.
I then took three pieces of brass bar, 25mm long, 8mm wide and 4mm thick, and drilled two holes, for 6/32 tap holes, into the 8mm faces of each, at 17mm from one another, and tapped them all to 6/32. I threaded one end of each bar onto the treble-end fixing bolt behind each pup, placing a thin felt washer between the pup and the brass bar to prevent rattles. Then I inserted a new 6/32 fixing bolt and screw through each of my new holes in the scratchplate, with a regular pup-mounting spring, and threaded these through the holes in the free ends of the brass bars.
This has made a reliable, tidy tilt adjustment so that the pup can be angled in any way I want and be sure of staying there. I can get string-to-string balance better than ever before.
Hope this may be some use. The scratchplate gains three new bolts, and looks a bit more "technical" as a result, but I don't mind this at all on my silver-and-chrome Will Ray model.....