Anyone ever put a Biltoft floater on their Ibanez GB10?

[jzucker]

I've been going back and forth with Pete on this. He's a great guy to work with. I'm considering his slim, full size humbucker but the dimensions of the bracket seem slightly off for the GB10 so I'd have to get someone local to do some fabrication and/or dowel the existing holes. Looks like the height might be a little wonky too.

I just don't want it to turn into a huge project.

[jzucker]

i just asked pete if he can make this pickup with a side mount option...

[jads57]

I have had Peter Biltoft make me some custom pickups, including a Double CC Floating pickup with great success!
He is easy to communicate with and will get it right for you!

[jzucker]

i know his work is great. I'm specifically asking about the GB10 mounting though. Pasquale Grasso also uses a biltoff pickup in his trenier...

[Woody Sound]

I have had Peter Biltoft make me some custom pickups, including a Double CC Floating pickup with great success!
He is easy to communicate with and will get it right for you!

Wow, that's nice. Is it humbucking? Doe it sound like a CC, or a humbucker?

[jads57]

Humbucking, and sounds like a CC Rider he makes in single coil. It replaced a Kent Armstrong 12 pole piece floater that came with the guitar originally.

I got the idea from an article featuring Tonight Show guitarist Bob Bain. He had Seymour Duncan custom make one for his Gibson L-4C.

[sgosnell]

I bought a Johnny Smith type pickup from Pete, and the bracket didn't fit. I had previously asked him if the bracket could be resized, and he said he thought could. It can't. Once it's bent, any further bending will break it. It really needs to fit the end of the neck. I ended up mounting the pickup in place with Blu-Tack, which worked well enough, but I didn't like the tone so much, so it's sitting gathering dust now. As I've said before, my favorite floater, by a huge margin, is a DeArmond Rhythm Chief 1100. It sounds great and the adjustable polepieces can be necessary. But Biltoft will provide whatever style pickup you ask for. Just measure the end of your neck, and make sure the pickup bracket is identical before you buy.

[jzucker]

I bought a Johnny Smith type pickup from Pete, and the bracket didn't fit. I had previously asked him if the bracket could be resized, and he said he thought could. It can't. Once it's bent, any further bending will break it. It really needs to fit the end of the neck. I ended up mounting the pickup in place with Blu-Tack, which worked well enough, but I didn't like the tone so much, so it's sitting gathering dust now. As I've said before, my favorite floater, by a huge margin, is a DeArmond Rhythm Chief 1100. It sounds great and the adjustable polepieces can be necessary. But Biltoft will provide whatever style pickup you ask for. Just measure the end of your neck, and make sure the pickup bracket is identical before you buy.

it seems impossible to get a bracket that will match without having the guitar in his hands. There are all kinds of geometries at play:

• the neck taper not matching the width of the bracket arms
• slot in the GB10 neck for the bracket is smaller than the biltoff bracket
• relative position of the bracket on the pickup puts the pickup too high and would touch the strings
• bracket screw-holes don't match the existing positions. (I asked him about getting one with no screw-holes but they come with the holes already drilled in them.)

All appear to be significantly different on the biltoff pickup than the GB10. The only thing that would work would be to use the tab and glue it to the pickguard unless your luthier is willing to do some bracket fabrication.
So...I'm not sure what I'm going to do at this point. Leaning toward getting the one with the tab.

[jzucker]

I bought a Johnny Smith type pickup from Pete, and the bracket didn't fit. I had previously asked him if the bracket could be resized, and he said he thought could. It can't. Once it's bent, any further bending will break it. It really needs to fit the end of the neck. I ended up mounting the pickup in place with Blu-Tack, which worked well enough, but I didn't like the tone so much, so it's sitting gathering dust now. As I've said before, my favorite floater, by a huge margin, is a DeArmond Rhythm Chief 1100. It sounds great and the adjustable polepieces can be necessary. But Biltoft will provide whatever style pickup you ask for. Just measure the end of your neck, and make sure the pickup bracket is identical before you buy.

was this on a GB10 or different guitar?

[Cunamara]

Pete made me a floating CC humbucker-sized pickup for my archtop; it came with four machine screw receivers in the front lower edge of the pickup, for which I fabricated the bracket to match the neck (no recess under the fingerboard) and the four screw holes for the pickup. He sent a template for the screw spacing for the pickup that made that part really easy.

It might be worth asking if something like that would be an option for your pickup; then you could just have a bracket fabricated from a strip of brass to fit the holes in the neck.

[sgosnell]

was this on a GB10 or different guitar?

Different guitar. I've never had a GB10 in hand. But fretboards can very widely in width at the end of the neck. Perhaps he could bend the bracket to size if you used some calipers and measured the width at the height you plan to mount it. There is no solution for the holes that I know of, though, other than making new ones to match the new pickup. A side mount to a pickguard may be the best choice.

[2bornot2bop]

Pete Biltoft is the man!