Tele bridge base plates... why?

[Possum]

Stratocaster shields only consisted of a small foil patch under the controls. It wasn't until '62 they used a full size shield and I don't think it lasted for very long. The cover on the neck was probably there to protect it, I've heard of players hitting uncovered ones and ripping the flatwork off from the string catching under the top of the flatwork. It just makes sense to ground the cover. So doesn't appear he was very concerned except for basic grounding, since none of the harnesses ever had shielded wire. My G&L Legacy strat doesn't have shielded wire.

Champion steel pickups aren't true Tele pickups, they never had baseplates, and were never shaped like Tele pickups. Not having seen one in person I don't know what the coil height or magnet sizes were, but probably the same as the early Teles were. Never saw an actual Tele on a lap steel.
Here's a photo of a real one:
http://a4.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/i...a368c032/l.jpg
Tele pickups came from the lap steel pickups, I think the steel baseplate was added to avoid stripping out the flatwork because of the 3 way adjustments, the shape of the bottom just follows the 2 screws and on one side and the one screw on the other, just a logical shape for that mounting. The pickup in the GE Smith guitar is wrong, they did it so they could pull any Tele body off the racks and so they wouldn't have to make pickups with such a limited use, no profit in that.

[Possum]

Stratocaster shields only consisted of a small foil patch under the controls. It wasn't until '62 they used a full size shield and I don't think it lasted for very long. The cover on the neck was probably there to protect it, I've heard of players hitting uncovered ones and ripping the flatwork off from the string catching under the top of the flatwork. It just makes sense to ground the cover. So doesn't appear he was very concerned except for basic grounding, since none of the harnesses ever had shielded wire. My G&L Legacy strat doesn't have shielded wire.

Champion steel pickups aren't true Tele pickups, they never had baseplates, and were never shaped like Tele pickups. Not having seen one in person I don't know what the coil height or magnet sizes were, but probably the same as the early Teles were. Never saw an actual Tele on a lap steel.
Here's a photo of a real one:
http://a4.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/i...a368c032/l.jpg
Tele pickups came from the lap steel pickups, I think the steel baseplate was added to avoid stripping out the flatwork because of the 3 way adjustments, the shape of the bottom just follows the 2 screws and on one side and the one screw on the other, just a logical shape for that mounting. The pickup in the GE Smith guitar is wrong, they did it so they could pull any Tele body off the racks and so they wouldn't have to make pickups with such a limited use, no profit in that.

[big_teee]

Stratocaster shields only consisted of a small foil patch under the controls. It wasn't until '62 they used a full size shield and I don't think it lasted for very long. The cover on the neck was probably there to protect it, I've heard of players hitting uncovered ones and ripping the flatwork off from the string catching under the top of the flatwork. It just makes sense to ground the cover. So doesn't appear he was very concerned except for basic grounding, since none of the harnesses ever had shielded wire. My G&L Legacy strat doesn't have shielded wire.

Champion steel pickups aren't true Tele pickups, they never had baseplates, and were never shaped like Tele pickups. Not having seen one in person I don't know what the coil height or magnet sizes were, but probably the same as the early Teles were. Never saw an actual Tele on a lap steel.
Here's a photo of a real one:
http://a4.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/i...a368c032/l.jpg
Tele pickups came from the lap steel pickups, I think the steel baseplate was added to avoid stripping out the flatwork because of the 3 way adjustments, the shape of the bottom just follows the 2 screws and on one side and the one screw on the other, just a logical shape for that mounting. The pickup in the GE Smith guitar is wrong, they did it so they could pull any Tele body off the racks and so they wouldn't have to make pickups with such a limited use, no profit in that.

I figure the Pickup in the GE Smith, probably has no base plate either.
If it does then you would need to drill it out to attach the pickup to the bottom of the guitar.
Without the baseplate, and wound to 7.6k like the lap steel, it should sound very similar.
Makes me want to experiment without the baseplate?
I wonder what the magnet length, and winding spacing is on the Lap Steel Pickup?
T

[Possum]

Here is a photo of the Champ pickup in its guitar, to me this pickup looks taller than a Tele pickup, might be an optical illusion, but if it is taller than thats a really big difference from a Tele. A tele pickup screwed into the pickup rout in a Tele would be too low below the strings.

[Jim Shine]

No "foil" on Pre-CBS Strats. There was an aluminum plate that covered just the controls area until 59, then they switched to a plate that covered the entire back of the guard. That lasted until the late 60's.

The Tele neck pickup could have been made exactly like the bridge pickup and been protected with string. The bridge cover was supposed to be in place all the time, it provided shielding for the bridge pickup and the cover on the neck protected AND shielded it.

The Strat was the one lapse. The very next year he did the Musicmasters with their plates (first guitars made in the very end of 1955) AND introduced humbucking to the standard guitar line on Duo-Sonics. Jazzmasters in 1958 with the full shielding. That is maintained and CBS cuts those corners when they arrive.

[jason lollar]

possum did you miss this before you replied saying none of this is correct - if it was for grounding why did they tape the magnets?

"leo did have some concern with shielding and thats why he used brass plates under P bass pickups and under strat pickgaurds and why he would have grounded a tele nck cover. The corresponding lap steel pickup- the champion doesnt have a steel baseplate- its is essentially a tele bridge pickup though which many have been stolen from the lap steels and converted over to a tele. I have said this before and others dont agree but the only year i have found much alnico 3 was 1954, it so happens the 54 stringmaster had metal pickup covers and copper plated steel baseplates- very unusual.
anyone can measure the inductance difference with a steel baseplate, it is measureable but wether its a dramatic difference enough to plainly hear everytime its used in different applications is a different story. its really hard to second guess why they did what they did"

The champion is essentially a tele bridge pickup with a different bottom plate and no steel reflector. I hve seen lots of them, I make them, Jim Shine has seen the soldered brass shielding wells- so have I . i think the secondary use for the steel plate is string grounding- leo would have killed two birds with one stone but all we can do is speculate. I have read all those books- occasionally I get good tolling ideas from old fender photos

[Possum]

They "could have" wrapped the tele neck with string but if you've ever done this, its not good protection for the top flatwork, especially with the small weaker coils many had, you still have a nice lip there for a string to rip the flatwork off. I do actually string wrap one of my unique Tele necks but the coil is full enough so that the string ends up being flush with the top flatwork. Its still a risky technique, but no one so far has torn it up. The cover was for protection, not grounding, in my opinion, same reason Gibson covered P13's, P90's and PAF's, and of course you always want to ground a cover. I've actually had Tele players demand to have their neck pickups covered because they've ripped the flatwork off in the past, so I'm sure Leo ran into that too.

Jason do you have a photo of a steel Champion baseplate? I've never heard or seen of this before but I'm not a lap steel guy either, and all the ones I've seen on Ebay going back ten years never had a plate. Grounding brass in the rout doesn't exactly qualify as a baseplate since its not physically mounted to the pickup that I know of. The later Champion pickups like '57 look like big strat pickups, there's one on Ebay now that no one bought, price was cheap too.

No, no one knows for sure why the plate was there but still "elevator plate" is a dead give away in my opinion, it just makes sense they would ground it. I've not read anything on how the the actual steel bridge plates were grounded, whether they used a solder tab that mounts over one of the pickup mounts or not, I'll have to look in my BlackGuard Tele book photos and see if there's anything in that....

[Possum]

OK, so where's the baseplate?????

[Possum]

Jason: do you know what the coil height on these are, what diameter magnets were used, what alnico, and what typical DCR they were? What gauge wire?
Turns out Keith Richards "tele" pickup is also an old Champ pickup...

[jason lollar]

I didnt say the champoin had a steel baseplate i said the 54 stringmaster did

"The champion is essentially a tele bridge pickup with a different bottom plate and no steel reflector."
I just had a 54 champion in last week 6.2K 2.93 h, they seem to have 2 variations- low to high 6K ish and a rare 10k ish that pops up once in a while. the 6 k is 42 and the 10 is 43
Once again the 54 pickups i get in seem to be alnico 3 magnets are .625- I dont know how consistant that is because I usually just rewind them or modify them to fit a steel baseplate for telecaster insallation so I dont measure the length of magnet on everyone that comes in but none of them are noticeably taller than a telecaster pickup- that was some sort of photo distortion. I never bothered to measure the diameter but it would follow whatever they used on a tele no doubt for that particular year.
I also didnt say the brass grounding various fenders used had anything to do with steel baseplates - its a different issue as you point out.

[David Schwab]

They "could have" wrapped the tele neck with string but if you've ever done this, its not good protection for the top flatwork, especially with the small weaker coils many had, you still have a nice lip there for a string to rip the flatwork off. I do actually string wrap one of my unique Tele necks but the coil is full enough so that the string ends up being flush with the top flatwork. Its still a risky technique, but no one so far has torn it up. The cover was for protection, not grounding, in my opinion, same reason Gibson covered P13's, P90's and PAF's, and of course you always want to ground a cover. I've actually had Tele players demand to have their neck pickups covered because they've ripped the flatwork off in the past, so I'm sure Leo ran into that too.

They could have put it in a plastic cover too, like a Strat. Clearly the metal cover was for shielding.

By the time Leo go to the Strat he probably realized that the metal shielding on the Tele didn't do that much.

[Possum]

Well Tele bridges had covers on them too, most threw them away or used them as ash trays ;-)

[David Schwab]

Well Tele bridges had covers on them too, most threw them away or used them as ash trays ;-)

Right, I said that back in post #20. Strats had covers too, as did P and J basses and a lot of other instruments from back then.

So part of that was the style at the time (I guess no one did palm muting except Les Paul!), and as with the lap steels, they used a lot of metal around the controls and pickup for shielding and as a ground plane. Just as people once thought you couldn't drive a train faster than 30 MPH or the air would be sucked out of the cabin, they also thought you needed all the electronics on a guitar installed on metal. Times goes on and we learn new things.

But Leo might have used the base plate for tonal reasons. He added a steel reflector plate to the G&L MFD pickups too. But who knows, it might have been an accidental discovery as far as tonal benefits. The fact that it has a ground wire attached to ground the bridge makes me think it was for shielding.

[big_teee]

Right, I said that back in post #20. Strats had covers too, as did P and J basses and a lot of other instruments from back then.

So part of that was the style at the time (I guess no one did palm muting except Les Paul!), and as with the lap steels, they used a lot of metal around the controls and pickup for shielding and as a ground plane. Just as people once thought you couldn't drive a train faster than 30 MPH or the air would be sucked out of the cabin, they also thought you needed all the electronics on a guitar installed on metal. Times goes on and we learn new things.

But Leo might have used the base plate for tonal reasons. He added a steel reflector plate to the G&L MFD pickups too. But who knows, it might have been an accidental discovery as far as tonal benefits. The fact that it has a ground wire attached to ground the bridge makes me think it was for shielding.

Like I think you said on an earlier post, the P-Bass had the brass ground plate under the pickups.
I have worked on them both ways.
Has anyone ever determined if the brass plate under the P-Bass pickups, really were any quieter?
I just rewound a Fretless P/bass earlier, and it was real quiet without the blate.
Maybe it was a tonal thing also?
T

[David Schwab]

Like I think you said on an earlier post, the P-Bass had the brass ground plate under the pickups.
I have worked on them both ways.
Has anyone ever determined if the brass plate under the P-Bass pickups, really were any quieter?
I just rewound a Fretless P/bass earlier, and it was real quiet without the blate.
Maybe it was a tonal thing also?
T

I think it's too thin and too far away from the coils to change the tone. I've used P pickups both ways, and they are generally very quiet since they are humbuckers. But they are not shielded. I had a customer bring me his P bass recently because of a constant buzzing, especially if he wasn't touching the strings. It was a cheap P and had no shielding of any kind.