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  #1  
Old 02-22-2021, 08:37 AM
JRay JRay is offline
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Default K&K PWM installation with hole in bridge plate

Hello,

I want to install a K&K PWM pickup in my Gibson J-35 (2013) in place of the factory fitted Baggs Element. As a pre-check I had a look at the bridge plate to see if there was enough room etc. and discovered that to my luck, the locating hole Gibson use is unfilled and located pretty much where the D/G sensor needs to be fixed as you can see in this pic...



I asked K&K technical support who responded very quickly and advised that if the gap between the locating hole and the front of the plate was less than 1/2" then they recommend filling the hole with wood filler and sanding flat before installing the pick-up as normal.

Can anyone advise if they think that wood filler would be the best product to use here (bearing in mind that plugin with wood or other tricks that would be easy for a luthier to perform, would be very much harder for me to pull off on my kitchen table )?

Does anyone have similar experience with Gibby bridge plate holes and K&K pickup installs and if so, what did you do and how did it go?

Cheers

Ray
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Old 02-22-2021, 06:27 PM
bisco1 bisco1 is offline
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Personally, I would prefer to use a paste made up of maple dust/shavings and hot hide glue, or if HHG is not an option, use fish glue. both dry rock hard and would be easily removable with warm water if you ever decided you needed to remove the fill. Bill
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Old 02-22-2021, 08:14 PM
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James May James May is offline
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If you are bent on installing K&K, I'd suggest getting their 4-disc Mini system and avoid the hole.
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Old 02-23-2021, 09:29 AM
JRay JRay is offline
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Bill, your solution to plug the hole certainly seems to be the most favoured way of doing things with luthiers and guitar techs and for both would be a relatively easy thing to do, but unfortunately I do not have much access to maple wood dust or shavings and having to get hold of, and mixing up the glues just for this small job alone would be a bit of a pain. I have only home utensils and tools available right now and the install was hoped to be a kitchen table affair!

Is there a reason why the job would need to be reversible? Would you need to undo the filling in order to replace the bridge plate if it became worn out or damaged etc? If using commercial wood fillers will result in detriment to the guitar further down the road, then I will not go ahead with this method.

James, I never knew there was a K&K 4 sensor version of the PWM, but I see now that the version for Classical and Flamenco guitars has 4 sensors. Certainly food for thought and thanks. I opted for the K&K PWM because to be honest I never managed to get a good sound out of the Baggs Element in this guitar as it is quite a loud and brash instrument and coupled with a UST piezo sound kind of pokes holes in your ears! There is also a slightly low volume on the top E string with the Baggs that has eluded just about everything I have tried to fix it and so this has tempered my wish to keep the pickup for its merits and go down the IR route to solve the tone.

Added to this, when the Element is removed from the saddle slot I get a more noticeable than expected improvement in the guitars acoustic tone. Finally to add to my misery, the battery bag fell off the end block the other day and this finally settled my mind on removal of the Element! The K&K will hopefully solve most of the issues I have as long as I can perform a good installation.

Thanks to both of you for your time and answers, appreciated! 😊

Ray
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Old 02-23-2021, 05:35 PM
phcorrigan phcorrigan is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JRay View Post
Can anyone advise if they think that wood filler would be the best product to use here (bearing in mind that plugin with wood or other tricks that would be easy for a luthier to perform, would be very much harder for me to pull off on my kitchen table )?
Have you considered James May's Ultra Tonic pickup? A bit more expensive, but if you look at the reviews here it is probably worth it. Also, is should negate the issue with the hole. Since James is on this thread, he could tell you if this is the case or not.

http://jamesmayengineering.com/
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Old 02-23-2021, 05:41 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by phcorrigan View Post
Have you considered James May's Ultra Tonic pickup? A bit more expensive, but if you look at the reviews here it is probably worth it. Also, is should negate the issue with the hole. Since James is on this thread, he could tell you if this is the case or not.

http://jamesmayengineering.com/
Yes, the Ultra Tonic will work fine spanning that hole, and not have the normal set of K&K issues.
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  #7  
Old 02-24-2021, 07:58 AM
Rudy4 Rudy4 is offline
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The bridge plate location looks a bit odd, and it looks like the two small darker holes in the plate reflect the bridge saddle slot location.

If that's the case it appears that the sensor location would only slightly overlap the large hole, and that shouldn't effect the sensor disk response enough to matter much.

The K&K Pure Mini mounting instructions mention that the disk can be installed in situations where the sensor doesn't fit the bridge plate in an ideal manner, overhanging the bridge plate edge slightly, and that looks to be the same situation you have. The majority of the disk would be in contact with the bridge plate directly below the saddle location, which is what you want to do when mounting the Pure Mini transducers.

I personally wouldn't be afraid to install a Pure Mini on the bridge plate as shown. If the senser is bonded to the bridge plate correctly with gel CA glue then the brass sensor plate will work fine in the bending mode it is designed for. My guess is it won't effect your tone or volume enough to matter.

I base my opinion on having done somewhere around a dozen Pure Mini installs, some with less than ideal bridge plate size. They have always worked well for me.
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Old 02-24-2021, 09:06 AM
jonfields45 jonfields45 is offline
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I think just mount the K&K and all will be fine.

BUT, it would really bother me to have that hole so close to the D and G string ball ends. It seems like a wear out risk and if it were mine I would have a pro plug it with hardwood.

The DIY fix would be slow cure steel filled epoxy (will cure harder than the maple bridge plate, has excellent adhesion, and be of similar density as it is mostly epoxy) from your local Home Depot, which I have used for bridge plate repairs with good results (for home repair on an instrument not destined to be collectable someday).
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Last edited by jonfields45; 02-24-2021 at 09:50 AM.
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Old 02-25-2021, 05:27 AM
JRay JRay is offline
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Thanks for your insight Rudy, your comments are reassuring as you have had good experience with K&K installs. I am just a little wary of just installing the PWM discs where I must, due to the hole, rather installing them precisely where there should be. This is because I have spent so long with guitars having pickups that have very slight string volume in-balance, including the factory fitted Baggs Element in this J-35, where the top E is noticeably quieter than the other strings.

I have a K&K PWM fitted in a Martin J-41 and overall it sounds wonderful through a good preamp, but in this installation the bottom E is very slightly quieter than the rest, I can compensate for that with my thumb or pick, but it drives me crazy after a while.

To be honest, if the Element installed in this J-35 had even string volume, I would be more inclined to just keep it and go the IR route, particularly with a Tonedexter as I have to say that all I have seen and heard with this device has been outstanding, but it would be a waste of money with uneven string volume and despite everything I have tried, I cannot seem to get that top E string up in volume to match the rest.

I think as there is a hole also drilled on the treble end of the saddle slot (to accommodate the dead 1/8” of the end of the Element) this may be a contributing factor, as there is possibly not enough saddle length at the treble end in this guitar for an optimum Element sensor install. I have tried pushing the treble end of the element further into this hole but this had no effect on the problem unfortunately.

Jon, you made a good point here and thank you. You can see in the photo that the D string (closest to this ****ed hole) looks to be already making an impact on the bridge plate. So maybe I should be looking into getting this put right even without considering pickups. I do not think filling the hole would be too difficult and your suggestion of epoxy metal seems like a good one, but I would like to know that if I did this, it would not cause issues with the guitar later on in life should the bridge plate need to be removed or replaced/repaired for any reason.
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Old 02-25-2021, 06:25 AM
jonfields45 jonfields45 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JRay View Post
To be honest, if the Element installed in this J-35 had even string volume, I would be more inclined to just keep it and go the IR route, particularly with a Tonedexter as I have to say that all I have seen and heard with this device has been outstanding, but it would be a waste of money with uneven string volume and despite everything I have tried, I cannot seem to get that top E string up in volume to match the rest.
Besides feedback resistance, typically active output, and easy perfection with an IR, you've hit on the other advantage of a UST; manipulating string balance is a DIY exercise. I usually give the high E extra volume to make classic rock single note leads easier to play.

The quick and dirty approach is a little strip of masking tape or Post-it tacky paper attached to the saddle bottom under the quieter string(s).

The more effort approach is to paint the underside of the saddle with Cyanoacrylate glue instead of using tape.

Regardless you reassemble, test, and iterate as needed.
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  #11  
Old 02-25-2021, 07:28 PM
Rudy4 Rudy4 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JRay View Post
Thanks for your insight Rudy, your comments are reassuring as you have had good experience with K&K installs. I am just a little wary of just installing the PWM discs where I must, due to the hole, rather installing them precisely where there should be. This is because I have spent so long with guitars having pickups that have very slight string volume in-balance, including the factory fitted Baggs Element in this J-35, where the top E is noticeably quieter than the other strings.

I have a K&K PWM fitted in a Martin J-41 and overall it sounds wonderful through a good preamp, but in this installation the bottom E is very slightly quieter than the rest, I can compensate for that with my thumb or pick, but it drives me crazy after a while.

To be honest, if the Element installed in this J-35 had even string volume, I would be more inclined to just keep it and go the IR route, particularly with a Tonedexter as I have to say that all I have seen and heard with this device has been outstanding, but it would be a waste of money with uneven string volume and despite everything I have tried, I cannot seem to get that top E string up in volume to match the rest.

I think as there is a hole also drilled on the treble end of the saddle slot (to accommodate the dead 1/8” of the end of the Element) this may be a contributing factor, as there is possibly not enough saddle length at the treble end in this guitar for an optimum Element sensor install. I have tried pushing the treble end of the element further into this hole but this had no effect on the problem unfortunately.

Jon, you made a good point here and thank you. You can see in the photo that the D string (closest to this ****ed hole) looks to be already making an impact on the bridge plate. So maybe I should be looking into getting this put right even without considering pickups. I do not think filling the hole would be too difficult and your suggestion of epoxy metal seems like a good one, but I would like to know that if I did this, it would not cause issues with the guitar later on in life should the bridge plate need to be removed or replaced/repaired for any reason.
Regarding imbalance of the high E, do note that K&K recommends that the disk for the B-E string should be located directly on the E string center line precisely to help with the low volume E string problem in many installations caused by the bridge plate / X brace location.

Do also note that K&K dropped the "W" from the PWM a few years back, so the proper designation is "Pure Mini".
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Old 02-27-2021, 02:04 PM
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Yikes, That Bridgeplate Looks Gnarly! Another alternative would be a Dazzo System dual-transducer set that would avoid the hole. A compressor would help solve your current Element string-imbalance woes as would an LR Baggs Acoustic Session DI.
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Old 03-08-2021, 02:09 PM
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^^^^
String imbalance will NOT be cured with a Tonedexter or any other preamp. String imbalance on an Element is caused by one (or both) of the following: Saddle slot is not flat or saddle bottom is not flat.
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Old 03-09-2021, 02:47 PM
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Not sure where you stand with your install, but in order to keep things somewhat simple, I would just glue that transducer in the same location, but on the other side. I always use a gel CA glue, as proper contact is essential. Eyeballing the geometry, you might get away with it. If not, you can remove or replace.
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Old 03-09-2021, 05:26 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jimmy bookout View Post
^^^^
String imbalance will NOT be cured with a Tonedexter or any other preamp. String imbalance on an Element is caused by one (or both) of the following: Saddle slot is not flat or saddle bottom is not flat.
Sorry for the confusion, Jim, somehow I had ToneDexter on my mind when I meant to say a compressor or compression would help with slight string imbalance problems with the Element, at least it does with my Emerald X20 when using an LR Baggs Acoustic Session DI. I made the correction in my above comment.
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