Franz Pickup reference post

fronobulax

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Interesting. Thanks. I have a vague recollection there may be a reference thread on Franzs around here somewhere. If anyone finds it and wants me to Merge then let me know.
 

guildman63

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It would be nice to see the comparable views of one of the new Franz pups coming out of New Hartford and Korea.
 

Walter Broes

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It would be nice to see the comparable views of one of the new Franz pups coming out of New Hartford and Korea.
A friend of mine came by yesterday afternoon with his brand new Korean X175B to adjust the pickups some, and the new Franz pickups' construction is shockingly similar to the old ones. The baseplate mounts to the guitar with four screws instead of two, and apart from that, they look almost identical.

The new ones sounded a little bit thicker and mellower to my ears, but they were definitely in the same ballpark.

I did have to shim up the lead pickup some to get proper balance with the neck pickup - which was a good deal louder straight out of the case. And as the new pickups' baseplates sit directly on the body, there was not a lot of room for adjustment - you can't lower the neck pickup without shaving a little bit of wood off the bracings it sits on, it appears the "trench" they routed out on the old ones was a little deeper.
 

JHJ

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A friend of mine came by yesterday afternoon with his brand new Korean X175B to adjust the pickups some, and the new Franz pickups' construction is shockingly similar to the old ones. The baseplate mounts to the guitar with four screws instead of two, and apart from that, they look almost identical.

The new ones sounded a little bit thicker and mellower to my ears, but they were definitely in the same ballpark.

I did have to shim up the lead pickup some to get proper balance with the neck pickup - which was a good deal louder straight out of the case. And as the new pickups' baseplates sit directly on the body, there was not a lot of room for adjustment - you can't lower the neck pickup without shaving a little bit of wood off the bracings it sits on, it appears the "trench" they routed out on the old ones was a little deeper.

Excellent information. I am seriously considering swapping my NS PUPS into the '57 while the originals are out for rewind (if they need it).
 

JHJ

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This photo is of a Franz single coil from my '57 Aristocrat, showing the output wire run underneath the pole piece mount. The PUP was non-functional and all I can determine is that this situation had existed for decades, before the insulation wore through and shorted the output. I re-routed the output lead and got a DC resistance of 6.85K after correcting the problem.

 

SFIV1967

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AcornHouse

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Since it was asked about in another post, I thought I’d add some dimension pics here to refer to.

D3771BDC-E61D-4807-B802-ED7FF83DC310.jpeg

EEE1DF1D-84BD-4BBA-9E73-D48F8A4BDB79.jpeg

7A060E6E-538D-4FC5-8B35-D68E3FC5326E.jpeg

03E0A6D0-A9E8-49A1-880F-E1F0139601E0.jpeg
 
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