The
Routing:
Look at my routes for the pickups:
Here, the pickups are just laying in
the openings. I wanted to
show how the pickup fits into the end area of the existing humbucker
route very nicely. When you order a custom cut pickguard, the
measurements are 2-5/8 inches from the heel of the neck to the bridge
side of the neck pickup. And 6 inches exactly, from the heel of
the neck to the bridge side of the bridge pickup. If you use
those dimensions, you'll have an easy go of the routing. You can
use the
normal bridge pickup mounting location if you want to. I decided to go for the easier routing.
The above shows the pickguard in
place, and where I used a bit of black marker to trace out the area
that needed to be cut away. Marker worked ok for the photo, but I
went back and retraced it with a sharp black pencil.
Below, you can see the area's removed in green, and the places to make
the pickup openings. The sizes shown are NOT the route
sizes, they're the PICKGUARD opening
placements! I just
traced the pickguard openings from the pickguard, when it was mounted
on the guitar, then
cut a little bigger. You can see my "score" marks. I did
that because the router was really kicking up some dust and I just
could not see too well. The light scoring helped a lot in that
respect.
Take
a look at the green areas in the picture above. See how the
back of the original neck pickup cutout had about 1/4 inch taken from
it, and the side sections had about the same taken away? See how
the bridge pickup really only had that one side area enlarged, and then
just a little nub removed at the wire opening? Another way routing is to use the standard
pickup location for the bridge pickup. There is no right and
wrong here, they're just different. Just make sure you use the
pickguard you get as a template for making the route cuts. Be
sure to screw the pickguard down, then mark the areas to be cut with a
sharp
pencil, then only cut those areas!
Thinking about it, I suppose moving the bridge pickup back just a
little also helps the bridge pickup get just a bit
more bite. I wondered why the original SG
Specials and SG
Classic had the
bridge pickup set so far forward. I thought maybe it was to help
with balancing the volume, something I see now is not the case, as mine
balanced quite nicely.
I used the Dremel
router base attachment with the 1/4 inch router
bit, which was excellent and a
woodhog.
It
ate up the mahogany like nothing! Go slow. Do a good
job. The router can hurt you
bad. Be careful. WEAR EYE
AND EAR PROTECTION. Keep in
mind the router can
kick back..
so you always
cut against the blades rotation, not with it. Practice on some
scrap wood to get the feel for it before digging into your SG!
WARNING: Please be sure to
read all the directions and safety notices in the Dremel manual (or the
manual for whatever tool your using). Don't only read them,
follow them! You only get two eyes, two ears and ten
fingers. You need them all. So be careful!
Page 6
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