3/8" surgical tubing for mounting strat and tele pickups

[Steve A.]

I wanted to be able the adjust the height of a George L E-66 steel guitar pickup so I routed out the cavity and was going to use surgical tubing on the screws. I have a pack around here *somewhere* but rather than dig it up I was just going to get another one from Guitar Center. Unh-uh. It had been stocked at one time but discontinued. Yikes! how am I going to finish my project?

Concord Medical Market to the rescue. They have 3/16" ID tubing for $1.50 a foot. (Damn- the Fender stuff is like $15 a foot!) They had several different diameters- I figure using 3/16" tubing with a bigger tubing around that would kinda work with a humbucker.

Steve Ahola

P.S. A higher quality tubing is used with RC planes- I was going to check with the hobby stores first but decided to see if the local medical supply house had the basic latex tubing that Fender uses.

[David Schwab]

They have 3/16" ID tubing for $1.50 a foot. (Damn- the Fender stuff is like $15 a foot!)

$15? Stew-Mac has it for $1.05 for a 1/4" diameter one foot long piece.

[jrfrond]

Latex tubing has a big disadvantage (eventually) over springs: it deteriorates over time and will harden into the compressed state. It kind of the opposite problem that you find with the compressible foam on P and J-Basses.

[big_teee]

You may want to try rubber Vacuum Tubing it's fairly cheap at the auto store.
You won't be able to tell what color it is when you get the pickups in the pickguard.
B_T

[Steve A.]

$15? Stew-Mac has it for $1.05 for a 1/4" diameter one foot long piece.

Fender has a pack of 12 pieces approximately 3/8" long for the GLP of $4.99 at GC. If you do the math you will get 13 1/2" for $14.97 so I did exaggerate a little bit.

Fender Pickup Tubing (12) at GuitarCenter.com.

By the time the latex tubing gets hard and brittle I am sure my arteries will be, too, and pickup tubing will be the least of my worries. (Yes, my arteries are in very poor shape due to smoking heavily for 35 years.)

Steve Ahola