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  1. #26

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    Interesting. So the intent is to use the spacer to raise the P90 above the body of the ES-175. That only works if there's enough room between the top and the strings. What are the relevant dimensions of the spacer, pickup + cover, and how much distance between the top of the arch and the strings? This is probably not an issue at the bridge, just the neck. And do the P90 spacers fully cover the humbucker rout(s), so that the 4 corner screws can be set?

    This may be helpful with some hints and a lot of similar conversation:

    https://www.thegearpage.net/board/in...ersion.215616/

    converting a humbucker hollow body to p90 | Page 2 | Telecaster Guitar Forum

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  3. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by dreamingJazz
    Here's your answer...

    NECK
    P90 1/8" NECK PICKUP SPACER FOR GIBSON ES-175 125 225 | Reverb

    BRIDGE
    P90 3/16" BRIDGE PICKUP SPACER FOR GIBSON ES-175 125 225 | Reverb

    you might want to drill holes on the spacers thats the same on the HB rings.. hopefully there's enough room for four screws on the corners of the spacers.. use the same screws that came with the HB rings as those are flat on the surface then mount your Dogear P90 covers..

    if you buy P90 pickups, make sure you pick the short covers to compensate for the height of the spacers (or you can just sand down the spacers to allow clearance for the dogear P90 covers..
    P-90 DogEar: Lollar Pickups


    and then tweak pickup heights using these shims
    Shim Pack for Dogear: Lollar Pickups


    Ive used the shims and they are pretty good, high quality and fits exactly the same as dog ear P90 covers..

    Untitled by D Y, on Flickr

    Untitled by D Y, on Flickr




    Depending on your skill level and how handy you are, i think it will be an easy job.. but if not, you want it perfect, take all the parts to a luthier..
    Thanks!! Okay, that answers most of my questions: it IS possible to do it. Sounds great! My ES 175 has a lot of space between pickups and strings, as so do all of the ES 175 with humbuckers as far as I know. My only question left is: if doing so, do I have to screw anything from the dogear on the guitar body? Because the spacers already have the two screws for the dogear and I if try to make the same holes as those from the humbucker route, nothing new has to be drilled on the guitar, right?


    Thanks everyone for the links at the discussion, it is proving to be very helpful!

  4. #28

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    Pablo, measure the distance between the top of your guitar and the underside of the strings - typically a P90 measures about 18 or 19mm from the bottom of the baseplate to the top of the polepiece screws, so if you add a bit of clearance, you need about 21-22mm clearance for the P90 to be able to float above the top of the guitar, in that case, you will be fine with spacers, as only the pole screws will protrude into the body (the Lollar video isn't really relevant here, since it is about a solidbody guitar, where the P90 sits inside rather than on top of the guitar).

    If you've got less than those 21/22mms, your P90 baseplate will alos have to go inside the body; you will have to cut the four corners of the HB route, where the humbucker frame holes are located. The length of the P90 baseplate (without mounting tabs) is 84.1mm - almost identical to the length of the humbucker route WITH the HB mounting tabs (that's about 84-85mm, there's some variation); the length of the route for the baseplate of the humbucker is around 70mm (again: +/- 1mm); so you need to cut out the 7mm difference in length on each of the corners of the humbucker route, to make it one long rectangle (rather than a short one with "ears").
    Even if you can float the whole neck pickup above the body inside its cover, you probably still won't be able to reuse the four HB frame mounting screw holes - unless you've got so much clearance that the P90 baseplate would sit even above the shim itself - something like 30mm; I doubt that that's the case with the neck pickup...

    Now, about covering the width of the HB route with your shim: a HB route is about 39-42mm wide - there's no hard rule for that, some builders use more some less, they only need to take care that it's more than the 38.5mm of the HB baseplate, and less than the 44.5mm of the HB ring. A P90 dogear cover is 40mm wide - so it may cover the HB hole, but most likely, there will be a tiny gap on the sides. In that case, you'll need shims that are slightly wider than the dogear cover, about a mm on each side. However, if you look at pictures of vintage ES175s and ES295s, that's actually historically correct - they also had shims that were wider than the actual covers (on most ES295s they even painted the shims the same gold color as the body...)

    As for your original conundrum, I'd totally do it, and I wouldn't mind drilling for dogear mounting screws, either. Dogears look a lot cooler than HB-sized P90s; a 90s Gibson is not exactly a rare "vintage" guitar; as you said, this is a "user" guitar, so make it useable, and disregard resale value. And if you have to sell it for whatever reasons: If you check the forum here and other places, there's quite a bit of demand for P90 ES175s, but there aren't that many around - so some buyer might actually appreciate to find your guitar, and not having to mod one himself...

    And: a guitar is a tool for making music, not an investment - I never even think a second about resale value. Unless it's some historically significant, rare vintage guitar, mod away!

  5. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by RomanS
    Pablo, measure the distance between the top of your guitar and the underside of the strings - typically a P90 measures about 18 or 19mm from the bottom of the baseplate to the top of the polepiece screws, so if you add a bit of clearance, you need about 21-22mm clearance for the P90 to be able to float above the top of the guitar, in that case, you will be fine with spacers, as only the pole screws will protrude into the body (the Lollar video isn't really relevant here, since it is about a solidbody guitar, where the P90 sits inside rather than on top of the guitar).

    If you've got less than those 21/22mms, your P90 baseplate will alos have to go inside the body; you will have to cut the four corners of the HB route, where the humbucker frame holes are located. The length of the P90 baseplate (without mounting tabs) is 84.1mm - almost identical to the length of the humbucker route WITH the HB mounting tabs (that's about 84-85mm, there's some variation); the length of the route for the baseplate of the humbucker is around 70mm (again: +/- 1mm); so you need to cut out the 7mm difference in length on each of the corners of the humbucker route, to make it one long rectangle (rather than a short one with "ears").
    Even if you can float the whole neck pickup above the body inside its cover, you probably still won't be able to reuse the four HB frame mounting screw holes - unless you've got so much clearance that the P90 baseplate would sit even above the shim itself - something like 30mm; I doubt that that's the case with the neck pickup...

    Now, about covering the width of the HB route with your shim: a HB route is about 39-42mm wide - there's no hard rule for that, some builders use more some less, they only need to take care that it's more than the 38.5mm of the HB baseplate, and less than the 44.5mm of the HB ring. A P90 dogear cover is 40mm wide - so it may cover the HB hole, but most likely, there will be a tiny gap on the sides. In that case, you'll need shims that are slightly wider than the dogear cover, about a mm on each side. However, if you look at pictures of vintage ES175s and ES295s, that's actually historically correct - they also had shims that were wider than the actual covers (on most ES295s they even painted the shims the same gold color as the body...)

    As for your original conundrum, I'd totally do it, and I wouldn't mind drilling for dogear mounting screws, either. Dogears look a lot cooler than HB-sized P90s; a 90s Gibson is not exactly a rare "vintage" guitar; as you said, this is a "user" guitar, so make it useable, and disregard resale value. And if you have to sell it for whatever reasons: If you check the forum here and other places, there's quite a bit of demand for P90 ES175s, but there aren't that many around - so some buyer might actually appreciate to find your guitar, and not having to mod one himself...

    And: a guitar is a tool for making music, not an investment - I never even think a second about resale value. Unless it's some historically significant, rare vintage guitar, mod away!
    Thanks Roman for your kind and helpful answer
    I'll measure it and see what my options are.

    And I totally agree with your statement! Resale value is fine if is something you keep for a while, but we all have that instrument that's always there no matter what. I've been waiting for years to do this mod, and I am convinced on doing so!

  6. #30

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    The spacers can be seen in this video as well:



    Notice the first frames, it's a close-up.

  7. #31

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    Well, seems like you should buy the items snd try a mockup to see if it will work

  8. #32

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cunamara
    Well, seems like you should buy the items snd try a mockup to see if it will work
    I did some fiddling around today with a GFS P90 and a stack of shims I had in a box here. I found that two really thick shims I had would actually lift the pickup enough that only the pole screws would extend into the body cavity. The two shims together are about .2" thick. The pickup, cover, and shims altogether were about .65" thick. The space on most ES175 type guitars would accommodate that reasonably well. Just using these shims, of course, the humbucker opening is to wide. So if someone made a shim wide enough to cover the 4 holes, better, have mounting holes to use those, one could conceivably "surface mount" a P90 on an ES175.

    I've attached pictures of this very crude mock-up, which I might actually try to test sometime just for fun. I have an Epiphone Zephyr Regent Reissue which is basically an ES165 and I've tried every pickup I own in that guitar except for this P90. Maybe I'll get a free day here soon and give it a shot. But as a test of concept, I think it's clear a custom made shim of the right thickness would basically be a Humbucker-to-P90 Adapter Ring. It would require enough clearance between the strings and the top of the guitar, and as you can see, the guitar I tried it on for testing the size of the opening would NOT work due to the way the neck is mounted. But others with the elevated fingerboard might work fine.Install P90 Dogear on Gibson ES-175-img_5627-2-jpgInstall P90 Dogear on Gibson ES-175-img_5628-jpgInstall P90 Dogear on Gibson ES-175-img_5629-jpgInstall P90 Dogear on Gibson ES-175-img_5630-jpgInstall P90 Dogear on Gibson ES-175-img_5631-jpgInstall P90 Dogear on Gibson ES-175-img_5632-2-jpg

  9. #33

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    This is really helpful!
    I will definitely try it for myself as soon as possible.

    However, for the actual installation, I might try to find a luthier as I have never changed pickups on a guitar and it seems to me that beginning with an archtop would be quite hard.