Any advice? Replacing humbucker covers and pole screws...

[duhvoodooman***]

I recently worked a little barter deal with Mudcat to trade a pedal build for a set of Gibson 498T/490R humbuckers he had laying around. Put them into that used Epi G-400 SG I bought on eBay a couple of weeks back, and they sound great. The 498T is noticeably smoother than the stock HotCH Epi bridge p'up, with a sweet, singing top-end. And the 490R has it all over the Epi '57CH neck p'up, which I found rather dull and lacking character. So it's a big tonal upgrade! Thanks, Mud!! : :

However, the appearance needs some work. First of all, they have the gold finish covers and don't match the rest of the hardware. Secondly, Mud obviously put a fair amount of mileage on them, because the covers (mostly the bridge) are pretty worn and some of the pole screws are quite rusty/corroded. None of these things affect the tone, but I'm like a little old lady with my gear. No "relic" stuff for me--I work hard to keep my gear looking as new as possible. The rest of this SG is in very good shape and I want the p'ups to match that look. So I have a couple of chromed humbucker covers coming from StewMac, along with two sets of screw pole pieces.

Looks to me like swapping the new ones for the old should be straightforward enough, but since I haven't done this before, thought I'd just float it out here for comments advice. Y'all got any??

[mrmudcat]

Vood made some calls last night and was told to just make sure the pole pieces are not epoxied in ? (shouldnt be but some are and im clueless as I cant see them being adjustable that way. I assume some pups have non adj.p.p.'s??? again clueless) Also if you can swap out p.p.'s...... try to get the head size close to originals as some aftermarket have smaller or bigger screw heads which effect tone/ sound IMHO

You can use different sized than stock but just a FYI on the tonal part and it might not reflect accuracy as it is my opinion and you and tung are the electronics techies around here!!!

[kiteman]

Maybe you can change the hardware to match the pups.

[markb]

Here's how to fit covers. Just work backwards for removal.

[Ascension]

We are always talking about tinkering with pickups things like swapping mags,mixing coils and building hybrids, swapping poll types ect over on the Duncan board. Here is a thread on swapping covers http://www.seymourduncan.com/forum/s...d.php?t=168545
The best one I have found though is this one on mag swaps. It also goes pretty in depth on how to remove and replace the cover.
http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/barmagswap.htm
BTW there are a number of us over there who are BIG fans of the Alnico 8 mag in particular in the Custom wind. So many of us were fans of the A8 Duncan first did a forum only Crazy 8 pickup then released the Alt 8 as a full production pickup. The Custom 8 however is still my personal fave and lives in the bridge position on 4 of my guitars:. It's IMO the ultimate hairband toned pickup : :
Custom 8 in my MG 102 through the Red Prosonic solo voice clip
http://www.box.net/shared/bnc3ghqvrr

[duhvoodooman***]

Thanks for those links! I've got the new screws and covers, just haven't gotten to doing the work yet....

[Ascension]

Good luck bro on the cover and poll replacement. For info on that kind of stuff check out the Duncan Board. It's one of the better forums around for helpful info on pickups and wiring + just an overall solid group of folks: .
Later
Richard.