Asat Special pickup poles

[NickHorne]

I have just received a new Asat Special, and it sounds fabulous.
I had also bought, ahead of the guitar's delivery, a spare neck pickup. I have separated the backplate earth of this pickup from the signal ground, so that I can wire it with a 4-way with the Jerry Donahue / Bill Lawrence "fake strat" circuit. This involves reversing the phase of the pickup, and connecting it via a capacitor rather than directly.
I bought the spare pup so that the original could be kept as new, in case I ever wanted to return the guitar to the stock arrangement.
I was just about to fit the pickup, and was idly measuring the coils / wiring whilst checking my work, when I found that the poles on the spare pup are a different shape to both the original pickups of the guitar. The new poles are flat-topped, and project somewhat further above the bobbin, whilst the originals have angled / rounded / chamferred tops and are lower.
Is a noticeable difference in use, between these two pole types? If so, I might use the original after all.

[Craig]

I have just received a new Asat Special, and it sounds fabulous.
I had also bought, ahead of the guitar's delivery, a spare neck pickup. I have separated the backplate earth of this pickup from the signal ground, so that I can wire it with a 4-way with the Jerry Donahue / Bill Lawrence "fake strat" circuit. This involves reversing the phase of the pickup, and connecting it via a capacitor rather than directly.
I bought the spare pup so that the original could be kept as new, in case I ever wanted to return the guitar to the stock arrangement.
I was just about to fit the pickup, and was idly measuring the coils / wiring whilst checking my work, when I found that the poles on the spare pup are a different shape to both the original pickups of the guitar. The new poles are flat-topped, and project somewhat further above the bobbin, whilst the originals have angled / rounded / chamferred tops and are lower.
Is a noticeable difference in use, between these two pole types? If so, I might use the original after all.

Please post some photos of this spare pickup and the current neck pickup, showing the pole pieces. Which ASAT Special pickup did you purchase and where did you get it?
Is the bobbin depth the same as the current pickup? If you got the pickup from the G&L On-Line Store, I'm thinking you might have gotten the ASAT Classic Custom neck pickup
instead of the standard ASAT Special neck pickup.

[NickHorne]

Thank you, Craig; I'll have to learn how to post pictures now!
But the pictures we need are already on the G&L online store (where I bought the spare).
What I bought was their "Jumbo MFD single coil (standard)", and that picture (the black one) has the poles that are on my spare, online-store pickup.
The poles that are on the pickup that came with the guitar actually look like those in the online store's picture for their "Jumbo MFD (other)" (the cream picture).
Both pickups' coils measure the same, pretty much 5Kohm.
My only query was whether there's any known difference between the pole types, as the poles on my spare are higher above the bobbin flatwork. So, for the same bobbin-to-string distance, the poles will be closer; or, for the same pole-to-string spec, the bobbin will be further away. The difference is probably only 0.5mm, but this amounts to 30% of the pole spacing for the top E...

[Craig]

Thank you, Craig; I'll have to learn how to post pictures now!
But the pictures we need are already on the G&L online store (where I bought the spare).
What I bought was their "Jumbo MFD single coil (standard)", and that picture (the black one) has the poles that are on my spare, online-store pickup.
The poles that are on the pickup that came with the guitar actually look like those in the online store's picture for their "Jumbo MFD (other)" (the cream picture).
Both pickups' coils measure the same, pretty much 5Kohm.
My only query was whether there's any known difference between the pole types, as the poles on my spare are higher above the bobbin flatwork. So, for the same bobbin-to-string distance, the poles will be closer; or, for the same pole-to-string spec, the bobbin will be further away. The difference is probably only 0.5mm, but this amounts to 30% of the pole spacing for the top E...

See this post: Tutorial: Posting photos.

Here are the photos from the G&L On-Line Store:



I don't see any differences in the pole pieces between these. Only thing I see is that the Creme pickup cover on the pickup is not fitting over pickup poles completely.
This could be because the wax potting has elevated the cover slightly or just not aligned on the pickup in the photo.
You should be able to adjust the pickup and the individual pole pieces to compensate for this. Is this the difference you are seeing?

[NickHorne]

Dear Craig
Thank you very much for your clarification; it had never occurred to me that the waxing might affect the seating of the cover.
My observation re the poles stands, as it happens; my spare pup looks just like the black one, and both the originals look much like the cream one.
I had been thinking that there were two types of polepiece in use, perhaps in some random fashion based on availability, and that if this was so, perhaps I should separate the ground on my original pickup and not use the spare, in order to preserve the tone I liked so much at first meeting. But if the cover is just displaced by wax, then of course it will be simple to adjust to suit.
I am very grateful for your help with this. I think I am just rather sensitised over the string alignment issues, and perhaps prone to uncertainty over other things as a result!
The Special is my first, and I am just amazed by it, it's the best Tele I could ever have dreamed up plus quite a lot more. And quartersawn + stainless have given it a big voice. Ace.