Paging Walter -- NS X-175 pickup placement

[kakerlak]

Hey guys, I've noticed (from photos) that the Newark Street X-175s seem to have the bridge pickup mounted noticeably farther from the bridge than old Franz-equipped 175s. My question is how far one could cheat it towards the bridge if willing to make a second set of mounting holes. Is there a fairly large/rectangular hole underneath the pickup, or just a drill-hole for its wire? If the latter, is the hole on the bridge side, neck side, or dead center?

Obviously there's going to be some gap at the pickguard, but I was thinking that, if the pickup is primarily a surface mount on top of the guitar's top, then you could move it in a fairly reversible way. I'm betting there's probably even a 1/4-1/2" or so of range where the pickup cover's footprint would hide the extra set of mounting holes at the dog ears (meaning the original holes wouldn't show with it mounted in the new spot and, likewise, the new holes wouldn't show if you moved it back where it originally sat).

All of this is probably pointless if there's a big rectangular cutout under the pickup, as you'd be talking a pretty trivial range of movement before you're staring at an open hole. I thought I remembered photos of the old Franz Guilds having no real cutout under the bridge pickups, though, so I've been curious about the new ones.

Anybody have a photo with the pickup removed?

 

[Walter Broes]

Just like on the old ones, there's just kind of a small, rectangular opening for the polepieces to go through, they extend under the pickup baseplate. That's it.

I've sold my NSX175 (regret it a little bit now, but it wasn't getting played much next to the real thing - twice), but when I still had it, I was thinking about doing the same thing. The bridge pickup by itself was a little more useable moved toward the neck a little, but I found the middle switch position - where I spend most of my time - a little too mellow.

I think the limit of how far back you can move it is dictated by the cover screws. You have one or two mm leverage there, IIRC. Extending that polepiece slot some towards the bridge with a dremel shouldn't harm the structural integrety of the guitar any, if you see how large the pickup rout for a typical humbucker is on similar laminated, parallel braced guitars. You'd still only have an opening in the guitar's top that about half as big as a humbucker rout, and it would still fall neatly between the braces.

 

[kakerlak]

LOL, that was fast, Walter! Yeah, I didn't have any concerns about structural integrity, just curiosity regarding how far you could "push it" before something showed. I think even if they were visible, the extra pair of screwholes for the cover wouldn't be that ugly, but if you start to reveal an actual routed-out hole in the top that the cover no longer hides, well... Brings to mind pawnshop guitars with cockeyed Super Distortions sitting in chiseled-out holes, ha ha.

 

[Guildadelphia]

Having no real frame of reference with regard to vintage 175's other than seeing pictures and a handful of Paladins shows, I'm pretty happy with the placement of the bridge pu on my NS X175B. The pu is really usable by itself for both leads and rhythm. Nice clear fat tones but still has plenty of bite. Being further from the bridge also helps out with balancing the volume with the neck pu too. That being said, I certainly can understand why you would want to move it back closer to the bridge. The increase in distance between pu's would certainly create an even bigger distinction in the tone produced by each individual pu which is nice.