Pantera

[guybergman]

uh oh, braid? im scared now.......

[PhilKing]

It really is not too bad at all - even if you get the 4 wire.  But with Bare Knuckles you can ask Tim to make it with just 2 wire.  You have a ground and a hot.  The ground is the braid, the hot is the centre.  The braid pushes back so it is easy to get out of the way.  If you don't feel confident, see if you have a friend who has done any soldering or electrical stuff, this should be a piece of p**s for them.

[guybergman]

is there any way for me to confirm that my hamer will be able to fit in a covered pickup, it has covered ones at the moment, but someone else on the forum had a problem with ftting a covered bucker in to a hamer sunburst- a 1979 one, mines a 2004 model so  there will be allot of changes

[PhilKing]

If it already has covered then I think you will be OK.  Mine is really old and has open coils.  

You can take out one pickup (undo the 4 screws in the pickup ring), and measure the size of the bottom of the pickup, where the cover is over the baseplate.  Take the outside measurement so that you have the maximum size.  The other thing you can do is measure the size of the cavities to see.  On my Hamer, the corners of the cavities had big quarter circle pieces where the surround screws in.  These are what stopped the covered picups fitting.  I could have changed it, but because it is a 26 year old guitar, I decided to leave it.  I might fit some open h/b's later, but for now I have a couple more guitars that I am changing the pickups on anyway, so I am not in a rush.

If you let Tim know that sizes, he can tell you if they will fit.

Good luck.

[guybergman]

right had a peek inside my guitar, the covers on the humbuckers have two soldered joints so i cant get them off, how would i get the wire out to wire in a new pickup? model no is a seymor duncan HB103N,

there apears to be no way of getting the cover off without a soldering iron?

i know little about these things

[Steve-Mr Pig 2U]

If you buy a new Pickup, it would probably be best to take it to a local guitar shop/tech to do the work for you.
If your pickups are already covered you shouldn’t have a problem fitting new covered ones in.

[jt]

:D Yep have to agree with Steve take your guitar & MM to a guitar tech let them do it all you can get your guitar set up as well while your there the whole thing should cost you between £30- £50

[PhilKing]

You don't need to take the cover off.  The wire goes down to the control cavity and will connect to one of the volume controls (depends on which pickup).  This is where the soldering is done.  

However, if you never did this before and you have no one to help you, then it might be better to get a local shop to do it.  It is less than 1 hour to change pickups and set up the guitar (assuming that you are keeping the same string gauges and that it was set up OK in the first place).

Depending on who is doing it, they will probably have no problem telling you what they did.  However, most people don't like you to watch!

There are also some great books and videos on how to do this yourself.  Hideo Kamimoto and Dan Earlewine both have good books.  THe Stewart MacDonald web site (www.stewmac.com) has a lot of these.

[Ratrod]

It can be done quite fast. Putting a set of EMG's in a LP took me less than an hour. Strings off, electronics out, new electronics in, pickups in, soldering and restring.

Changing just one pickup can be done in 20 minutes. When I pigged my Mockingbird I only took 3 strings off and loosened the rest. The pickup in the mounting ring simply slides into place.