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Good afternoon,
I had this floating pickup that was on my eastman 905 come off the bracket. (Side Mounted)
I cannot seem to find where this has happened to anyone else online. Has anyone had this happen? Should i use epoxy glue to mount it back to the side bracket tab? The flat tab is still connected to the pickguard but.the pickup just came apart from it.
Thanks!
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01-10-2025 04:46 PM
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Ooo, that's kinda nasty, because that's a weld join that's never meant to come apart. I suppose you could try re-attaching the tab with CA (crazy glue). That's sheer force and not momentary force so that might very well work. Epoxy seems like a good solution too but with CA, especially a medium viscosity one, you can feel the original join, match that exactly and it will set up virtually instantaneously against the two original surfaces.
I'm curious, were you attempting to adjust the angle of the pickup? If that's what initiated this, then no, CA won't be a good solution.
Epoxy will allow for an angle adjustment but if you don't get it right, you're stuck with what you did (literally).
I had a similar thing happen to mine but it wasn't the pickup itself that came apart from the tab. It was kind of a blessing because I didn't particularly like the Asian Kent Armstrong pickups on it. I took the opportunity to try out different floating pickups, chose the Benedetto (made by Duncan) and mounted that with small screws I piloted through the mounting tab. This allowed me to set the height and angle from the strings to a degree I couldn't achieve otherwise (once it's fixed, there's no adjusting for this), and when that was just right, I did epoxy it in place using the screws to assure the mounting position was where I wanted it.
I've been happy ever since.
By the way, I have another floater on a similar guitar, and for that, I used a D'Armond with an attachment that mated with the mounting tab on the bottom of the pickguard. I happen to love the sound of that D'Armond (it's a rhythm chief reissue) and the mounting arrangement, when mounted with the tab on the pickguard and fingerboard chin block lets me easily set the pickup the distance I want from the strings and I don't need to glue the pickup itself to the pickguard.
But yeah, in answer to your question, it's easy enough to just glue that back. If you want to save yourself the muss and fuss of epoxy, you can use the CA. And if you ever needed to take it off, acetone will make that join reversible. That's my solution. I'm curious to see what others recommend.
Good luck!
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With all due respect to you JBN, if the break is across the flat metal tab that was joined to the edge of the pickup and runs under the pick guard, that fracture interface is mighty thin. I doubt that CA or any other material will be strong enough to hold, and I wouldn’t trust that repair on my guitar. If the pickup breaks off again (which I believe would be very likely), it could drop on or across the top and damage the finish.
If I understand where the break is, the piece under the pickguard is still glued there. You could remove it, clean all metal thoroughly, and take it to a jeweler or someone else with a laser welder. But if the break is linear, it probably resulted from faulty material or assembly. If there’s a zone of embrittlement around the fracture, even the best laser welds will not solve the problem and the metal around the welds will break again.
It may require laser welding a second thin metal sheet under the pickup and broken off tab to restore strength. This could end up costing more than replacing the pickup. I’d contact Eastman to see if they’ll help get this fixed. If they’re no help, the above alternatives are what I’d explore.
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+1
Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
100% agreement. The reason I didn't consider this was the possibility of the detrimental effect that any weld would have on low temp solder joints. Plus, my limited experience with jewelers has been costly, and re-attaching it without proper angle alignment could result in a pickup that isn't suspended correctly relative to the strings.
Either way, yeah, not a good situation. Me? I'd get a new pickup.
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A few weeks ago, I used JB Weld epoxy resin for fixing a non-side mount Humbucker pickup to a pickguard.
The fix worked fine and seems to be very strong.
This JB Weld epoxy resin:
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Time will tell. IME, no adhesive of any kind is reliable enough to repair these kinds of breaks - especially those that supported a cantilevered weight. The bonding surfaces have too little cross sectional area and are very difficult to clean and prepare optimally. Worse, the only ways to test the integrity of the join are to stress to failure or wait long enough for it to fail on its own from vibration and the constant disrupting force of the weight of whatever’s hanging on the end. Originally Posted by GuyBoden
Laser welding is quick, clean, and effective if done by a skilled operator. Very little heat spreads through the workpieces because of the speed - there’s too little time. The problem with plated metals is that the plating is rarely a pure metal and often melts well before the base metal. Depending on the plating material, it can contaminate and weaken the join. It also doesn’t look beautiful, but neither does the soldering on the base plates and covers of most humbuckers. At least all the work is on the underside, so it shouldn’t be visible from the top when installed.
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If anything will fix it, JB Weld will. But IME, something that thin, reattached end to end, will not be durable. You could get a thin strip of metal - brass, steel, whatever you can find, and attach that to the bottom of the pickup and the tab using JB Weld, and it should hold, but the assembly will inevitably be thicker, and perhaps too thick, depending on the guitar and the pickup assembly. My solution would be to forget about the tab and attach the pickup to the guitar using Blu-Tack or similar. It's secure enough when done right, and is entirely reversible. However, I understand that this isn't something everyone would want to use. In that case, using a metal or even plastic strip on the bottom is about all I can think of on short notice.
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JB Weld seems ok holding together a 12 pole KA pickup.
This type of KA pickup.
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I assume the break was here - Originally Posted by GuyBoden
If so, the mating faces of the break are a lot larger than they are for a thin metal tab that fractured. There's much more contact area, which makes adhesive a less poor choice. Assuming it was a clean break with solid stable physical contact across the entire interface, I'd have used CA rather than JB Weld (assuming my guess on location is correct). I'd also have glued a thin flat piece of strong plastic or even metal to the bottom across the break (after the main repair was fully set and cured), to reinforce it and better resist failure. And to ice the cake, I'd have put a piece of EVA or similar closed cell foam on the bottom to fill any space and gently support it against the top. This would resist downward displacement if the top of the pickup is accidentally pressed. Pushing down on the pickup would put some combination of shear and tension on the repair (depending on how far from the pickguard the pressure is applied) because the tab is presumably glued to the underside of the pickguard.
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We'd need some photos so see what really happened.
If the instrument is under warranty, I'd contact my seller to have Eastman sort it out and then decide if I like the PU enough to deal with whatever hassle they propose.
Ahhh, if those floaters actually did float! (Levitate, rather!)
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Originally Posted by RJVB
Ahhh, if those floaters actually did float! (Levitate, rather!)
Looks simple enough
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You know how they did this, right? Very simple indeed, and there was some kind of suspension involved there too Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
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Suspension of reality. Like believing if you get that Gibson L-5 Wes you'll be able to sound like Wes. Originally Posted by RJVB
You know how they did this, right? Very simple indeed, and there was some kind of suspension involved there too
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Yep. With a springy undercarriage with wheels, and a skirt of mirrors angled 45° to the ground all around Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note
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Floating Biltoft pickup
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