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Post subject: Staggered pole piece height spec
Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 9:34 am
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I have a feeling I have some pole pieces that are no longer at the right height.

Is there a spec available for the correct height?

I can find numbers for the pickup height but not the individual pole pieces.


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Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 7:53 pm
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Are your pole pieces loose?

What kind of pickups do you have, specifically, do they have plastic bobbins or fiber bobbins?

You should only try to adjust pole piece on pickups with plastic bobbins.
Otherwise, you could damage (break) the coil.

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Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 7:42 am
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O - Thanks for the reply.

No, the pole pieces are not loose. In fact, they are quite snug, which is a good thing, right?.

A brief history:
This is an '85 Squire strat (which I'm slowly learning is possibly all american parts assembled in Japan or at least the body and neck are) and I'm replacing the pickups.
The pickups are '08 "hot" Alnico 3's, used, of course. While installing them I noticed the middle pickup pole pieces weren't at the same height per string as the neck and bridge pu's.
So, this got me researching for the correct pole piece height. I did find on the Stew-Mac sight some instructions for building single coil pu's that describes the pole pieces. But I have some doubts that this is what Fender does and I'm looking for a confirmation concerning the height.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

RT.


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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 8:53 am
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Not sure whether you're talking about the overall height of the pole pieces or the stagger.
Be aware that the perceived overall height can often be a function of how far the cover is pressed down over that particular pickup ;^)


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Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 6:09 pm
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To the best of my knowledge, I'm referring to the stagger. By this I mean the D and G are the highest, then the low E and A, then high E and finally the B is the lowest. At least this what I see in pictures.

The covers are firmly down against the bobbins and the pole pieces aren't hung up on any of the holes.

Maybe I'm just being too anal about it. I have heard that the pickup height is very critical so maybe the pole piece height isn't so worrysome.

Still looking, thanks for the help so far.


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Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 6:40 pm
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I am insteresed in this topic also. I just got a new Deluxe QMT and the SCN's are very nice. Only issue is the D string pole piece is quite higher than the others. It is the same on both the neck and middle pup. \

The other pieces are just above the covers (.75mm) while again the D string is 1.5mm off the covers.

Is this normal?

Appreciate the help.


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Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:54 pm
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Premising you use an unwound G string, the stagger you've reported of your polepieces is, believe it or not, correct.

See, different strings pick up at different volumes. Plain strings pick up louder than wound ones and among the plain ones, the heavier the gauge, the easier it picks up. The same holds true for wound strings but again, wound strings pick up at a much lower volume when compared to plain ones. So, the staggered polepiece heights are designed to balance each string being picked up at one even volume. I know it looks goofy sometimes but that's the way it works.

To those whose D and G string polepieces are even, this is because when Fender originally designed his pickups, all G strings were wound. Hence, the G polepiece had to be up there like the D's. Yes, even today, some players still use a wound G and some pickups still do come with the high G polepiece but not so much any more to accomodate the wound G player, rather, more so for the vintage look and/or the mismatched sound many players of the 60s and 70s experienced when they had high G polepieces and unwound G strings..

CozmkDebris wrote:
I am insteresed in this topic also. I just got a new Deluxe QMT and the SCN's are very nice. Only issue is the D string pole piece is quite higher than the others. It is the same on both the neck and middle pup. \

The other pieces are just above the covers (.75mm) while again the D string is 1.5mm off the covers.

Is this normal?

Appreciate the help.

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Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 6:03 pm
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Thank You Martin, like I tell my kids you learn something new everyday.


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Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 6:10 pm
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CozmkDebris wrote:
Thank You Martin, like I tell my kids you learn something new everyday.


Glad to help!

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Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 6:45 pm
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Yes, thank you, Martian.

Excellent information. Just plain physics, eh?

So, back to my original question, is there a number available for the string to pole piece distance?

Or maybe a more appropriate question might be how critical is the string to pole piece spacing?

BTW, yes, it's a plain G.


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Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 7:08 pm
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You're quite welcome. Yep, just plain physics.

Actually, there is no "in stone" number. However, the generally accepted distance is no closer than the thickness of a nickel for wound strings and that of a dime for plain ones.

In terms of criticality, the further away the string is from the polepiece, the more mellow the tone and lower the volume of that string. If it's too far away, the string will simply not be picked up. Conversely, the closer the crisper. However, if it's to close, the magnet will actually begin to suck the string in and cause all sorts of weird sounding double tones and out of tuneness.

5not4 wrote:
Yes, thank you, Martian.

Excellent information. Just plain physics, eh?

So, back to my original question, is there a number available for the string to pole piece distance?

Or maybe a more appropriate question might be how critical is the string to pole piece spacing?

BTW, yes, it's a plain G.

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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 7:35 pm
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CozmkDebris wrote:
I am insteresed in this topic also. I just got a new Deluxe QMT and the SCN's are very nice. Only issue is the D string pole piece is quite higher than the others. It is the same on both the neck and middle pup. \

The other pieces are just above the covers (.75mm) while again the D string is 1.5mm off the covers.

Is this normal?

Appreciate the help.


Hay there

Individual pole heights are set to even out the volume of the strings in the overall mix coming out of the coils. I've dropped my E & A poles at the neck to thin things out. If you get too close the magnetizum will dampen the string and you'll get muddy. Louder but muddy.

If it came that way... document the heights and have fun fine tunning your tone. don't forget to document the overall height so that you can go back to factory setup.

Cheers


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