Which is better, springs or rubber tubing for pickup height adjustments?

There's two schools of thought on this:

1. The tubing can't rattle around causing unwanted noise be it acoustically or amplified and they have a super snug fit.

2. The springs (especially the conical ones) are easier to work with and are more precise under certain circumstances and not prone to shrinkage.

Me, I'll take the springs every time.

As always, this is merely IMO where YMMV.

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You dig?

Martian, thank you for your imput.

Any time!

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You dig?

I prefer the surgical tubing. Metal springs on a Telecaster/Esquire bridge pickup are noisy.

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Bill

I like tubing as well, it stays on the screws if you turn the pickguard upside down.

Most of my strats have Lace Sensor pickups though, and they're a little taller than standard pickups, so I have a big piece of tubing and cut it a little longer than the precut stuff in the Fender packs.

I went with both. I have springs on my WRHB's and used the tubing around half the spring height that touches the anodized scratch plate to dampen the unwanted vibrational noise that was occuring. But I do usually prefer only the tubing for strat pickups.

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GUITAR: Fender USA JazzMaster.
BASS: Fender USA 58'AVRI
AMP: Fender USA SuperSonicTwin - Blonde.

Tubing - easier to work with and find.

Tubing worked for Leo! I really don't see the advantage for springs over the tubing.

T2

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What time is it? It's Fender Time.

Actually, if you ever get a chance to read "The Blackguard Book" by Nacho Banos (yes, that really is his name ), you'll see that on the early Blackguard guitars Fender used tubing on the bridge pickups and springs on the neck pickups.

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Bill

If I didn't know you better I would have thought you made that name up Thanks for the heads up on the book, will have to look it up. To make sure I am straight, they used the springs on the neck pickup on the early teles? Is that why they always seemed kind of loose? And to be honest I never thought of Teles, since we were on the Strat page thinking that is what we were talking about, guess I need to open my apeture a bit

T2

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What time is it? It's Fender Time.

Fantastic book. When you buy it, you get to select the serial number that is embossed on the Blackguard on the cover. Mine is "4254": My birthdate.

http://www.theblackguardbook.com/

http://www.jklutherie.com/blackguard-te ... 4book.aspx

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Bill

I use only tubing. Some people have expressed that they think it will cut down on the tone somehow. But then there are those who worry more about wood, springs, metal parts, plastic, paint, etc, than they do just playing the Geetar! Once I turn my 2 amps up past 8 and the guitar on 10 I can't tell the difference about any of that! But tubing is easier to work with when building.

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

Does any other manufacture use tubing? I haven't run across it on any other of my guitars. Tubing does get hard over the years, but no big deal to replace it when necessary. Both work good in MHO.

I always use the tubing... The springs just don't seem to go back to form when tension is released like surgical tubing... but surgical tubing does get brittle and degrade after a few years...

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"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


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