How do you attach a floating pickup with no brackets to a pickguard?

[Ian Davlin The Looth Group]

Ive seen people glue a mount to the bottom of the pickgaurd and then glue the pickup to the mount.

Do you have a picture of the top and bottom of the pickup ? You could also mabe bend a bracket as shown in the picture and epoxying it to the pickup.

[Doug Proper Guitar Specialist]

Hi Elaine,

The Bartolini 5JNB has no bracket – hence the “NB” – Generally, those are used where a bracket already exists or there is a situation where the looth needs to make a bracket for a custom guard or mount. Some pickguards have screw-holes for mounts – others merely have the pickup bracket epoxied to the underside of the guard. That all depends on what you are dealing with on the pickguard side of things – that sometimes requires a bit of creativity. The trick is making and mounting a bracket to the bottom of the pickup. BTW – the pickup shown in the picture has fingerboard mounts – which a lot of players like to avoid because they have to be screwed into the sides of the neck.

I usually opt to fashion a brass bracket that can be soldered to the bottom of the pickup and then mount it to the bottom of the pickguard as the circumstances call for (Screwed or Epoxied) . Brass stock is good and strong but bendable enough to make sure you have the best angle for suspension under the strings.

Alternatively, you could epoxy the bracket to the bottom of the pickup. I have done both in the past.

I would avoid any method that involves double stick tape – that usually always comes back to haunt you.

I’ve got a bunch of brass stock in the shop – if you want to go that route – let me know and you can pop up to the shop, I’d be happy to help with it.

• This reply was modified 4 weeks ago by  Doug Proper Guitar Specialist.

[Elaine S Hartstein Hartstein Guitars]

Thank you Doug and Ian, that is very useful info. I will be making a mount from a metal sheet, and will post a picture when done.

Thanks again!

Cheers,

Elaine

[Elaine S Hartstein Hartstein Guitars]

Here’s how it turned out.

I took Doug’s advice and made a bracket from brass. I forgot to take a picture of it before I attached it and applied felt to the bottom. The lower left picture shows an earlier unfinished try, that I felt was too narrow. I did solder the bottom corners of the pickup to the bracket, but I think the heavy duty double sided mounting tape would have worked. I tried it first and almost couldn’t get the pickup off again.

[Ian Davlin The Looth Group]

Nice work !