Pole spacing of Explorer pickups

[enuenu]

I’m replacing the pickups on my 2007 Gibson ’76 Explorer. The winder asked for the dimensions of the stock pickups (500T and 496R) so he gives me the correct sizes. The results of my measurement have left me wondering what size pickups I should get. Here are the measurements;

 

Overall pickup width;

Bridge & Neck both 66mm

 

Centre to centre of poles;

Bridge - 52mm

Neck - 49mm

 

The width of the strings over the centre line of each pickup is as follows;

Bridge - 49.2mm

Neck - 46mm

 

 

I believe the 496R in the neck is regular Gibson spaced but the 500T in the bridge is F-spaced. The strings are narrower than the width of the poles in both pickups but I guess this is normal as the strings are approx 3mm wider than the poles in both the neck and the bridge. While this puts most strings in fairly good alignment with the poles, the high E string is a bit misaligned from the bridge pickup poles (see photos - E string in each photo was centred to avoid parallax error in view).

 

This has left me wondering if the poles of my new bridge pickup should be the same distance apart as the neck pickup (49mm) or if I should tell the winder to replicate the 500T width (52mm pole to pole). What do you think?

Bridge Treble

Bridge Treble

Bridge Bass

Neck Treble

Neck Bass

[pfox14]

The pole spacing on many pickups can be problematic. A lot of times they don't line up with the strings which is why you have the ability to adjust each individual pole to compensate for any unbalanced tone. I would not worry about the spacing and concentrate on adjusting the pole pieces to balance everything out.

[enuenu]

The pole spacing on many pickups can be problematic. A lot of times they don't line up with the strings which is why you have the ability to adjust each individual pole to compensate for any unbalanced tone. I would not worry about the spacing and concentrate on adjusting the pole pieces to balance everything out.

Thanks. I'll replicate what is in there now then.