Make your own covers.

[Spence]

Jonson and myself have been working on some vacuum forming. There's a little to be learned along the way about how to produce the right shapes but here are some of the first examples that I knocked up on my Omni-Vac.
We will have to make some changes to a few of them but the signs are encouraging and no-hole covers would be easy enough for those epoxy potted pickups.









Some holes were drilled free-hand which just isn't good enough. Others were done using laser cut drilling jigs.
The aged '54 style strat cover need work on the legs but we're confident we can do it.

Better to be able to make these yourselves than pay through the nose for AllParts / Stew Mac / Guitar Jones stuff.

[Possum]

....

Pretty cool Spence! I've been working on destroying existing covers lately instead of making new ones :-)

[-Elepro-]

good job Spence

in the past i tryed with a home made vacuum former machine but without good enough results......

for me it was not easy to find the right plastic at low price..... and good results need many attempts....

but for you, comparing costs and aesthetic quality between vacum formed covers and commercial covers, really could be a advantage in home made vacum forming?

[Spence]

The cost of the plastic makes it the only choice for the vintage covers. There's a fair amount of work involved in making vacuum formed covers but it's rewarding work.
I have spent a lot of time in the past altering covers like Possum, but they never look or feel real. I still use modern covers for the post vacuum formed era. I still find them expensive even when bought in bulk.

The humbucker cover is for my forthcoming BFG replacement set which will be twinned with a soapbar cover. They make a BFG look so much better.

[David Schwab]

They make a BFG look so much better.

Anything would make a BFG look better, especially a pile of elephant dung.

(no refection on your covers... they look way better than that stupid guitar).

[Possum]

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Whats is a BFG? Big F*cking G...oose......irl....lob....?
I think the vacuum formed thing would be great for oldstyle P90 short covers, no one makes short covers and its a drag shortening them. I think Montreaux has short covers but way too expensive for wholesale users....

[Spence]

Even if you do shorten those generic P90 covers, they are too thick just like Montreaux's covers.

But anyway, it's not for everyone and some would rather make them by injection moulding.

I have seen some covers that are done with rubber moulds and epoxy resin but they take an hour or so to set and take a lot of cleaning up. Added to that the moulds wear out pretty quickly and air bubbles are an issue.

[Possum]

....

On Ebay they have a small vacuforming kit to use in the kitchen oven for under $100. Do you drill the holes in the shortie P90 covers, I mean does the form itself have the holes in it, or is it just a block form? Not sure I want to get into that since I only have one set that uses short covers and I priced it high due to the hand work involved....

[Possum]

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And yes the factory ones are too thick but they still work if you whack them down, pain in the A...

[Alabam]

Whats is a BFG? ...

Must mean Billy F ? Gibbons, the ZZ Top player, he designed a custom Gibson Les Paul guitar and he moved from this to playing a Fender, wise man.

[David Schwab]

Whats is a BFG?

Gibson's way to sell you an unfinished guitar!

"yeah, lets just pull that sucker off the CNC router and put some rusty parts on it..."

Now there's some labor saving measures for ya!

[Mark Hammer]

Those look really nice, Spence. Opens up some nice cosmetic possibilities. I can see people wanting custom plastic covers to go with the particular sunburst color they have (e.g., blue humbuckers with a blue sunburst) . The other nice thing is that one can get the protection and cosmetic advantages of a cover without having to incur the eddy current disadvantages.

[Spence]

Possum, don't get into this if your customers are happy with what they get. I don't want to lead people into something they might regret getting into.
It takes quite a lot of experimentation before you can consistently get it right and every failure seems like a major kick in the bollocks.
I certainly wouldn't buy the oven vac set-up. I've seen those in action and I'm not impressed at all. $100 is way too much anyway.
My market is almost entirely vintage repro stuff so I have to keep pusshing for the right parts as my customers want this sort of thing.
You can get a used vacu-former for as little as $35 purpose built with it's own heater and vacuum.
I mostly brought this up as a pointer for David Schwab as he hasn't been too happy with covers. By using this method, he can make them any shape he likes.
But to answer a question, all the formers have holes drilled where the poles go. This acts as a guide when lining up the drilling jig and also helps the vacuum draw the cover over the former tightly.
Also, you can get lots of colour variations with formable plastics so the sky's your limit.

[David Schwab]

I mostly brought this up as a pointer for David Schwab as he hasn't been too happy with covers. By using this method, he can make them any shape he likes.

Thanks, and it is something I've thought about. My main concern is the surface finish. Since the form is under the plastic, I'm assuming any details like logos and stuff wont show well.

My big pain at the moment is the logos... I can get covers cheap enough, and they are easy to work with, but it cost me 3 times the cost of the cover to have my logo laser etched on them!

I'm going to try and make some molds, and just cast the whole pickup/cover in one shot.

[David King]

David,
Sounds like you need a new laser guy or you could invest in a used pantograph manual engraver which will come with letter sets etc. These are cheap right now as everyone has migrated to CNC.

I have a local laser guy who charges $35 an hour. He's amazingly quick and can literally do hundreds of parts at a time if they all fit on a 18" x 24" sheet.
Even a cnc rotary engraver should be able to locate your covers repeatably and spin them out in minutes each.