Check THIS out!

[GAD]

I've had these in my closet for a couple of years. Never did it until today.

Before:

After:

 

[Zelja]

Look great! Both TV Jones Classics? Replacing Fender HB-1s?

How would you describe the difference in tone - before/after?

The Classic Plus in the bridge position of my Ibanex 335 (similar to SFIV) & the Powertron in my Orville LP were my favourite humbuckers by far until I discovered HB-1s. I won't say one is better than the other now (as still relatively new to the HB-1s) but all work for me better than standard Gibson style pickups.

 

[GAD]

Look great! Both TV Jones Classics? Replacing Fender HB-1s?

How would you describe the difference in tone - before/after?

The Classic Plus in the bridge position of my Ibanex 335 (similar to SFIV) & the Powertron in my Orville LP were my favourite humbuckers by far until I discovered HB-1s. I won't say one is better than the other now (as still relatively new to the HB-1s) but all work for me better than standard Gibson style pickups.

Correct - both classics replacing Fender HB1s

It's no secret that I really don't like the Fender pickups.

It's only been a little while, and I'm still dialing in the pickup heights, but so far I'd say the TV Jones are brighter and more articulate, which is exactly what I wanted.

Downsides are that the coil tap switch is not useless, and that the screw holes don't line up on the rings. To put in all for screws, I'll need to fill and re-drill, which is not a task high on my list of things I like to do.

I may get the Fenders rewound into something wonderful. I did that on my Starfire and loved the results. We'll see. I wanted a more bluesy/rock type sound on the Starfire, where I'd want something a bit more jangly on this.

 

[taabru45]

That just looks killer too.....like 'don't argue with me, I'm the King in these parts.' 8) Steffan

 

[Walter Broes]

GAD, it shouldn't be too hard to make custom pickup rings, or have someone make them for you. (Paul Setzer on the Gretsch forum perhaps?).

You could do it by laminating a couple of layers of black pickguard material together and routing/drilling the result to match the pickups and the holes in the guitar. If it's a clean job, it'll look good, and you wouldn't have to drill the guitar at all.

 

[Zelja]

Downsides are that the coil tap switch is not useless

Do you mean the coil tap is useless due to thin sound or that the Classics aren't 4 wire PUs so not tap available?

If the former and the coil tap is useless because it is so thin sounding, them you could do a partial coil tap. Instead of bypassing one coil with a dead short, bypass it with a resistor - effectively placing a resistor in parralel with one of the coils - gives a fuller sound than a full coil tap but less than the full humbucker. You also still get some noise cancelling. A value between 1.5k to 5.6k would probably be the go. When I do this I wire a 10K pot in & twiddle it to get the result I want & then take it out of circuit & measure the resistance.

If the latter, then I don't know - you could use it as a series switch or a phase switch or a kill switch or volume/tone bypass switch etc, except wiring in hollow bodies is a pain regardless.

 

[GAD]

GAD, it shouldn't be too hard to make custom pickup rings, or have someone make them for you. (Paul Setzer on the Gretsch forum perhaps?).

You could do it by laminating a couple of layers of black pickguard material together and routing/drilling the result to match the pickups and the holes in the guitar. If it's a clean job, it'll look good, and you wouldn't have to drill the guitar at all.

I'm way too anal to do the pickguard thing. I had a friend, who back in the 80s had his BC Rich altered by a pro who did it with stacked pickguards. He loved it, but I thought it looked awful.

The Paul Setzer idea, on the other hand, is fantastic. I've sent him an email. Thanks for the idea!

I've never understood why TV Jones didn't offer Gibson style rings with Gibson spaced screw holes. I mean, if you're swapping them, chances are it will have Gibson spaced holes.

Downsides are that the coil tap switch is not useless

Do you mean the coil tap is useless due to thin sound or that the Classics aren't 4 wire PUs so not tap available?

If the former and the coil tap is useless because it is so thin sounding, them you could do a partial coil tap. Instead of bypassing one coil with a dead short, bypass it with a resistor - effectively placing a resistor in parralel with one of the coils - gives a fuller sound than a full coil tap but less than the full humbucker. You also still get some noise cancelling. A value between 1.5k to 5.6k would probably be the go. When I do this I wire a 10K pot in & twiddle it to get the result I want & then take it out of circuit & measure the resistance.

If the latter, then I don't know - you could use it as a series switch or a phase switch or a kill switch or volume/tone bypass switch etc, except wiring in hollow bodies is a pain regardless.

The TV Jones are not 4-wire. I'm also leaving the switch unused and the inner wiring untouched so that it can be easily returned to stock. Between the Fender pickups and the strange coil tap switch, I'd rather not mess with it all. If I rewind the Fender pickups, I won't have to figure out how that switch works all over again.

If the other switch was on the lower bout like it is in newer ones, I'd make it a master volume. Oh well.

 

[Walter Broes]

I'm way too anal to do the pickguard thing. I had a friend, who back in the 80s had his BC Rich altered by a pro who did it with stacked pickguards. He loved it, but I thought it looked awful.

The Paul Setzer idea, on the other hand, is fantastic. I've sent him an email. Thanks for the idea!

I've never understood why TV Jones didn't offer Gibson style rings with Gibson spaced screw holes. I mean, if you're swapping them, chances are it will have Gibson spaced holes.

I didn't mean "incorporate the pickups in to some kind of pickguard contraption", I just meant that you can make convincing rings out of a couple of layers of stacked black pickguard material. Melting the whole shebang together with acetone and buffing it afterwards could make it look like a regular moulded plastic pickup ring I think.

Weird, I thought those Gibson style rings TV Jones sells are a direct replacement for Gibson rings, and that the problems is that the Guild rings have different hole spacing than the Gibson/generic ones?

 

[GAD]

I didn't mean "incorporate the pickups in to some kind of pickguard contraption", I just meant that you can make convincing rings out of a couple of layers of stacked black pickguard material. Melting the whole shebang together with acetone and buffing it afterwards could make it look like a regular moulded plastic pickup ring I think.

Weird, I thought those Gibson style rings TV Jones sells are a direct replacement for Gibson rings, and that the problems is that the Guild rings have different hole spacing than the Gibson/generic ones?

Yeah, I know what you meant, and I bet in the right hands it could look great. The one I saw was as you described, but the guy used 3-layer guards and it looked terrible (IMO). It was also never finished as you described (which sounds great).

I just spent some time measuring. I thought they should be drop-ins too, but I seem to recall that they were designed to drop into Gretsch Electromatics.

The English mount rings have these specs (top pic): https://tvjones.com/tech_specs/techspec ... frame.html

All the specs are perfect with the exception of the vertical (as shown) distance between mounting screws. The TVJones rings are 1 7/16" apart. My guitar has these holes 1 15/32" apart. As a result, I can mount either the top two or the bottom two, but not all four. I can see roughly half the guitar screw holes through the remaining hole in the pickup ring whith two screws installed. Maddening. I checked a couple of my other humbucker-equipped guitars, and they all have the 1 15/32" holes.

I can't believe I'm the only one to have this problem, but I can't find any links online to people who've had the same issue. I usually take that to mean that I'm wrong, but I've measured 10 times, and the installed rings don't lie - I can only install two screws.

 

[cestlamort]

Even with the screw hole snafu, the new pickups look very good.

Probably too much trouble if you don't have one around, but I know some of the Fender offset guys have remade pickup covers using 3D printers and CAD software. (Maybe someone has a relative in design school who would be open to a making a project for a class).

I'd recommend Curtis Novak (http://curtisnovak.com/) for a pickup refresher/reworking.

 

[Boogie92801]

Call tom short he can rewind the pups or make some rings..he made me a set of minis for my PRS ted that i replaced the P90s with and they are really nice. He has some really cool pups and weill custome wind you anything. look him up on google.

Oh, I had an orange X170 and I hated the pups on that one but it sure was a good looking guitar.

 

[Jeff Haddad]

That's a great looking guitar. I've found the TV's to be just as you said - I especially noticed they are more articulate when I installed them in one of my Gretsches. I'd leave the mounting rings as is; if it bothers you with a screw missing, maybe just put a ground-down screw head in the mounting ring hole with a touch a glue so it's not so obvious.