Fitting a DeArmond Guitar Mike Pickup

[Max405]

This may not apply to your situation but I'll try to help.

A couple of months ago, I had the pickguards replaced on my 2 Archtops. Both have floaters, attached to the underside of the pickguards. Because Floater Archtops usually lack pickup height adjustability, my tech placed a flexible rubber spacer under the screw that attaches the front of the pickguard to the body of the guitar. This solution offered about an 1/8" of adjustability. While at 1st that doesn't seem like a whole lot, but it offered exactly what I needed.
Luthiers figure out solutions for this kind of stuff. They are a crafty bunch.
I hope you get it worked out. When you do, You will doing cartwheels!

[sgosnell]

I like to use Blu-Tack to mount a floating pickup. With that, it's not absolutely necessary to have any other fixtures. You adjust the height by varying the amount of putty under the pickup, and if it's too high, you can press it down and squeeze some out around the sides, then remove the excess. I find I like the sound better with Blu-Tack, because it couples the pickup to the top to some degree. It's cheap, and fairly easy to remove if you don't like it, and doesn't modify the guitar or pickup at all.

[sgosnell]

If you watch Whit Smith's videos over the past couple of weeks, you'll see some residual Blu-Tack on the guitar, which he didn't bother to remove completely. He's been using it on his Gibsons for some time.

[JazzDaddyD]

Thank you all for your thoughts. I have a replacement 4-ply pick guard already, its not real stiff, and the mounting tab on the pickup isn't very stiff at all. Seems like every time I take off the entire assembly to adjust something, it goes back on in a slightly different place. I think I will give the blu-tack a try and see if that doesn't stabilize the situation.
Thanks again for your ideas friends!