Baseplate Modifications

[kevinT]

I have a dilimma. I sell a "brown sound" pickup and use the vintage-style long leg baseplates. The pickup is old school Van Halen and this is the way the pickup is designed for Frankenstrat-style bodies.

EVH pickups in Eddie's signature Wolfgang and Musicman have baseplates similar to those of DiMarzios...they have pointy or trianglular feet. The pickup routing on both guitars are also the same shape of the baseplate's (feet) and they screw the pickup directly into the wood.

I have a couple of customers who made the mods themselves on these baseplates to fit them into the cavity. I am debating whether it would be feasible for me to make the mods myself by trimming the feet (rounding off the corners) for those folks that have the later EVH guitars. I attached a pic of a guitar for reference.

Has anyone had experience cutting baseplates? If so, what did you use? Snips?

[Jim Darr]

I’ve had to do the same procedure at times in the past in order to fit a narrow routing. I have a heavy duty wire cutter that does the job well for me.

Jim

[NightWinder]

>>>>>>

Kev...

Go get some strait angle snips for aluminum- Cheap and effective and file as you said...You'll be fine as wine. Trim them befor they go out though. Less for the customer to do, more guitar playing- Its a fairly fast process. Rock with it man

[Zhangliqun]

Somebody must sell baseplates like this. But then here we go with parts sourcing again, e.g., even if they do, the material is wrong or you can't get through to them, blah-blah-blah, the beat goes on...

[Spence]

Shears

I use one of these:

[Possum]

...

Why not just use a disc sander, it won't deform the metal and you can grind it down to shape in nothing flat with the right grit stick on paper...

[soundmasterg]

Use the Force Luke!

Oh wait......wrong place...haha.

Good idea Possum!

Greg

[SteikBacon]

Eddie got his own pickup out now. Not with round feet..

http://www.evhgear.com/accessories/

[David Schwab]

Eddie got his own pickup out now. Not with round feet..

http://www.evhgear.com/accessories/

I guess for the Frankenstein it doesn't matter. That must be the secret Duncan pickup.

[kevinT]

Eddie got his own pickup out now. Not with round feet..

http://www.evhgear.com/accessories/

yep. Folks are going to have the same problem with those baseplates.

Thanks for the input. probably the quickest way is the shears/snips option. I'll try that out first.

[jonson]

I'm sure this has cropped up before. Bit long but should go to it.
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...%3D36%26um%3D1

[kevinT]

Those are cool baseplates. I wish someone over here would sell them.

However, if the baseplate were a woman, she would have/be "all feet" and no legs. I don't know if it would work without mounting rings for this particular application.

....unless you glue a block of wood in the cavity to raise it....just a thought.