Pickup polepiece spacing on Gibsons

[Dave Sloven]

I ordered a Miracle Man bridge pickup for my SG Standard yesterday, with a 53mm spacing.

Looking at the 50mm spaced Cold Sweat currently in that guitar, the strings do not line up properly with the poie pieces but rather seem to be spaced a little wider.  As I am contemplating eventually fitting a Floyd Rose FRX floating trem to this guitar a 53mm spacing would seem prudent, but it also seems justified by the current setup.  I had the same issue with the stock bridge (the pickup in my guitar was a 498T originally) but it now has a Tone Pros Nashville pre-notched bridge in it.

I wonder if other Gibson owners have had the same issue?  53mm definitely seems like a safer choice even though 50mm is the Gibson PAF dimensions

[AndyR]

I'm at work so can't get the ruler out, BUT...

I've just ordered some of these:

http://www.axesrus.co.uk/Humbucker-Cover-German-Silver-Nickel-p/lpc003-4-5.htm

There's some very interesting info there (look at the String Spacing dropdown as well as the essay) - looks like they believe vintage Gibson was 49.2 mm and modern Gibson is 52 mm. That 52 would bear out what you've found (especially when they say that the 52 covers will fit 498T)

I've just ordered a 49.2 set for an uncovered Classic 57 and 57+ in a new Les Paul.

Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating! Assuming they arrive on time, I won't be fitting them until the weekend at the earliest... but I was encouraged by the reviews that said "ordered 49.2 for my 57s".

[Dave Sloven]

Looking at all of my guitars with the TonePros Nashville bridges and 50mm BKPs the pickup spacing is all a bit narrow relative to the string spacing.  53mm will be better.

Epiphones with TonePros as well.

[AndyR]

My 49.2mm covers from AxesRus arrived last night, and they fit the 57 Classics perfectly and... the bridge pickup matches the string spacing perfectly. This is a brand new "Gibson USA 2016 Limited '50s Les Paul Standard (Faded Honeyburst)" - shoulda done a NGD, really...

I checked the other two Gibsons in the room (a 2012 Trad LP and a 2016 61RI SG). Both have 50mm Stormy Mondays (and both originally came with 57s), and they're both looking fine too.

But I've just realised (at work again, though) that I have one Gibson that came with 500T and whatever the matching neck was (498T?) - an Explorer. So possibly that was 52mm spacing? Anyway, it's got 57 Classics now - I'll check it out tonight, I'm expecting the pickup spacing to be ~2mm narrow now (not that I worry too much about this kinda thing, so I've never really looked that closely). There's also a Faded SG that came with ... what? I can't remember, it was the stock 4nnX something... if it was 4nnR then AxesRus wisdom says that's 49.2mm, if it was 4nnT they say 52mm... It's got 50mm Riff Raffs now. I'll check both tonight (if I remember!)

By the way, I haven't touched any of the bridges on these guitars, they're all stock, some Nashville (at least one with the longer travel for saddles) and at least one ABR (the 61RI SG).

[AndyR]

Yep, my Faded SG with it's stock bridge matches the 50mm Riff Raffs perfectly.

But on the Explorer, stock bridge, the 57 Classics (49.2) are about 2mm too narrow.

[briggo]

I have a 2003 Les Paul Classic with the old style ABR bridge it has wider spacing, so I ordered bridge Mule with the wider "F" spacing and standard spacing at neck. my advice ? measure twice, buy once 

[Dave Sloven]

Got the Miracle Man into my SG Standard with the Tone Pros pre-notched Nashville locking bridge and tailpiece set and I can definitely say that 53mm is the correct spacing. It lines up much better than the 50mm Cold Sweat I had in there.  I wish that I had ordered all of my BKP humbuckers in 53mm because the others are all a bit narrow for my guitars.

Worth keeping in mind if you are ordering pickups for a Gibson with Tone Pros hardware, or even certain Gibson bridges (e.g., with 498T pickup).

[AndyR]

Ooh crumbs, you just made me wonder - can you get the tonepros bridges at different spacings?!! (Thinking about it, you must be able to)

The reason I ask is that I have a 2016 61RI SG. That one had 57 Classics in it, I got 50 mm Stormy Mondays to replace them over a year ago. All well so far. It's actually the best "lined-up" Gibson I own with regard to the edges of the neck (and also the pickup pole-pieces).

Unfortunately...

The stock ABR-1 bridge is a complete PAIN IN THE ARSE!!! 

It rattles and buzzes like a rattling and buzzing thing and, even worse, the "4mm" holes for the posts screwed into the body are too big for those posts - the thing moves around like a COMPLETE GIT!!! (tuning and intonation all over the place sometimes)

I'm coping with it for the moment, but I was planning some Tonepros goodness. I'm obviously going to have to be very careful on the spacing of the bridge I get. This guitar needs the vintage "50mm". I'm not particularly worried about pole-pieces lining up, but I love where the strings are in relation to the edge of the neck on both sides on this one - I DO NOT want that screwed up just for the sake of getting the thing to stay in tune occasionally!

[Dave Sloven]

You can buy them one of two ways:

(1) Notched.  From my experience these are all 53mm, at least the Nashville ones (Gibson and Epiphone fitments)

(2) Unnotched. Same as the above but no notches, you have to do them yourself or pay someone to do it for you.

Based on my experience to be safe maybe you should go for option two.\

If you look at their site you will see that they specify when it is notched, otherwise it needs to be notched.  I was lazy/cheap I guess.  Also the sets tend to be notched, so you might have to buy bridge and tailpiece separately if you want both.

http://www.tonepros.com/bridges/

[darkandrew]

How about Gotoh TOM bridges? I have a feeling that they are slightly wider as well.

[Dave Sloven]

They are probably the same, I would measure them if I had one

[darkandrew]

They are probably the same, I would measure them if I had one

I just ran upstairs and measured my ESP Eclipse - just a fraction under 51mm across the lower screws on the bridge pickup.