Almuse replacement pickups/pickguard kit for Eastwood Mandocaster

[Digital Larry]

I just joined this group a week or two back to complain about the bad string balance on this electric mandolin. I got a bunch of advice pointing towards the Almuse pickups.

I decided that SINCE I WANTED TO SAVE SOME TIME, I would buy them pre mounted to a pickguard rather than soldering new pickups into the existing harness. This turned out to be a big mistake.

I took all the strings off, removed the output jack (you have to unscrew the mounting plate to do this), removed the bridge (so I could insert the grounding wire properly). Lined up the scratchplate and discovered that the neck slot was between 1 and 2 mm too narrow, and one of the predrilled holes was about 2mm off as well.

Sent an e-mail to the guy at Almuse who expressed surprise at the mismatch and suggested I use my dremel (which I told him I had) to trim the scratchplate to the neck slot. I didn't really have the right type of bits for this so I ordered a set of router bits for the Dremel, including a flush version that would follow the neck outline while trimming the plastic above, kinda like the edge of a countertop.

The router bit was actually too big for my Dremel, but fit fine in my drill press, which was better suited for that anyway. With this arrangement, I was able to easily make the cutout in the scratchplate PERFECT. I did, of course, have to remove the neck, which was a bit unnerving but ultimately turned out OK. Just don't lose those little shim pieces!

Then I went to put the bridge back on and found that about 1mm of material needed to be trimmed from the scratchplate in order for that to fit back on! So I took everything off again and did this one somewhat by hand as there's nothing in that area to ride the tool against like there was for the neck. Turned out OK, I did finishing touches with a utility knife. It's not exactly straight.

I still need to adjust the pickups which I'm hoping will work out OK based on reviews etc. from others. But I cannot recommend this "loaded pickguard kit" for its time saving properties because I had to:

a) remove the neck
b) remove the bridge
c) Purchase the router bit (it got here the next day from Amazon) along with 4 others I didn't need because it only comes in a kit of 5
d) Shave the pickguard at the neck
e) Take the pickguard on and off several times
f) Shave the pickguard at the bridge
g) Remove the output jack
h) Put all those things back together
i) fill and drill the misaligned hole

Most of which I would not have had to do had I just bought the pickups and soldered them in. Yes, my new pickguard is pearloid and has more extensive copper foil shielding than the original. However, that came at the expense of 3 to 4 hours of additional work, not really knowing what I was doing.

[MikeEdgerton]

...However, that came at the expense of 3 to 4 hours of additional work, not really knowing what I was doing...

I'm pretty sure that you're not alone in experiencing that in one way or another. My former spouse's father used to refer to this as "Moving forward with the courage of the ignorant". He was usually speaking about something I was doing.

[Digital Larry]

I'm pretty sure that you're not alone in experiencing that in one way or another. My former spouse's father used to refer to this as "Moving forward with the courage of the ignorant". He was usually speaking about something I was doing.

Thanks for the sympathy. You may have picked up that saving time is important to me. I read a lot of these music forums and it seems like many DIY guys really like doing stuff in the shop and so an hour of filing something to fit is just as great as an hour of playing. But I don't feel that way at all. I don't buy guitars or mandolins to work on them, I want to play them! I'd feel better about having gone through this if I thought it was going to springboard my career as a network support manager to new levels, but that seems doubtful.

[Ray(T)]

I suspect that the problem lies in slightly different builds of the Eastwood "Mandocaster". The Almuse scratchplate will presumably be based on a real life example with yours being slightly different. (I was once looking to buy a medium format Minolta camera and the dealer, a friend of mine, said "..... it really depends on which version you end up with". "So far, there have been 35 different versions of that model".

I recently changed the pickup in my Fender Mandostrat to an Almuse and the hardest and slowest part of the job was trying to get the strings I'd just taken off to go back on the slotted tuners so I could check if it worked. Soldering the pickup wires was simple.

[MikeEdgerton]

... if I thought it was going to springboard my career as a network support manager to new levels, but that seems doubtful...

It didn't help mine as one.

[Digital Larry]

I suspect that the problem lies in slightly different builds of the Eastwood "Mandocaster". The Almuse scratchplate will presumably be based on a real life example with yours being slightly different.

No doubt. I'm thinking (for the vendor's sake) how he might avoid this, and supplying a life size outline as a PDF one could download and print might have helped. Or at least critical measurements like the neck width; I do have some calipers.

He did say if it got out of control that if I took my old pickguard out and scanned it and sent him that, he could CNC a new one, but I was pretty invested in it by the time I got to that point, and I didn't really feel like being part of his R&D process without being compensated.

I recently changed the pickup in my Fender Mandostrat to an Almuse and the hardest and slowest part of the job was trying to get the strings I'd just taken off to go back on the slotted tuners so I could check if it worked. Soldering the pickup wires was simple.

Yeah, I had problems restringing as well since the nut fell off. But I left that out of this particular diatribe as it had nothing to do with the pickguard and would have happened eventually when I changed strings.

[Ray(T)]

I don't think you can blame Almuse for the minor variations in size between instruments. I assume you're in the UK and you had the option to exercise your legal rights and return the pickups/scratchplate. The pickup they built for me (and delivered within around 48 hours of ordering it) fitted perfectly and has transformed the instrument.

I too would rather be playing than fiddling around but some problems are simpler to sort out yourself than having to find someone to sort them for you.

[Digital Larry]

I'm in the US. It's not my intention to burn this guy a hole where he didn't used to have one. It was my experience and I understand many people have not had that same experience. It's simply a risk when getting an aftermarket addon - how is he supposed to know when or if the design changes? When somebody tells him the kit they got doesn't fit. I told him and the suggestion I got was to deal with it myself. So I did, lived to tell the tale, got the T-shirt, etc.

In summary - there is less risk of having a kit which won't fit if you replace the pickups into your existing pickguard (which already fits). I wish I had done this.

[OneChordTrick]

As Ray(T) says some of what you experienced is down to the variability of the model, they're built to a budget an as a result not a lot of attention is paid to build tolerances. When I took the scratchplate off mine it was very tight around neck and only just came off without removing the neck. In fact Almuse make it very clear on the website:

Please Note, some minor reshaping or drilling may be needed as small differences have occurred between Mandocasters from different countries and factories of origin. The pattern used is a direct copy from an Eastwood original.

Also to be fair a lot of the things you mentioned were inevitable considering what you were doing, for example removal of the jack and bridge. You were carrying out the equivalent of major organ transplant on your mandolin and that will be a non-trivial task.

[Digital Larry]

Clearly a case of live and learn right? Considering my tools were a rat-tail file, utility knife, and a drill press, it's amazing I didn't murder its pristine CNC outline more than I did. And like I mentioned, having some extra material in the neck area which I removed with a flush router bit gave me a PERFECT fit there.

Unless I missed it, Almuse doesn't provide step by step instructions, which I would recommend they provide. That would have done a better job of setting expectations.

I suppose my dismay was mostly reaction to a comment I read on this forum to the effect of "it took me more time to remove the strings than it did to install the new scratchplate and pickups".

NOT installing the new pickups was not going to be an option since the originals are so bad. Maybe the next person who comes along will read this and simply have a more realistic idea of what is involved than I did. Thanks for all your comments. I believe that ultimately it will all be fine.

[OneChordTrick]

.....
I suppose my dismay was mostly reaction to a comment I read on this forum to the effect of "it took me more time to remove the strings than it did to install the new scratchplate and pickups".

That was probably my comment in this thread https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/s...lmuse-Pickups? But that was just to swap a single pickup, not the whole assembly

NOT installing the new pickups was not going to be an option since the originals are so bad. Maybe the next person who comes along will read this and simply have a more realistic idea of what is involved than I did. Thanks for all your comments. I believe that ultimately it will all be fine.

Agree with you 100% there Have you had a chance to play try the new pickup? I certainly found a vast improvement.

[Jeff Mando]

"Moving forward with the courage of the ignorant"

Hilarious quote, Mike! Reminds me of myself in my early 20's -- I wanted to "collect" old cars and I didn't let being broke stand in my way! I was always trying to fix them and keep them running -- and most of the time, I did -- anyway, I had a lot of fun, back then. At one time I had three cars all parked on the street sharing ONE battery and ONE set of tags. I would back the cars up against each other's bumpers, so the cops wouldn't notice the cars without the tags. Fun stuff!

[Digital Larry]

Have you had a chance to play try the new pickup? I certainly found a vast improvement.

Just did! Vast improvement (as they say).

[Digital Larry]

Final analysis on the Almuse kit, just summarizing for anyone thinking about going down this path...

Pickups are GREAT and made this instrument usable for melody playing. It was already "OK" for making a mandolin-ey rhythm sound, but the string imbalance on the stock pickups was really bad otherwise.

Vendor's warning of "minor mods" possibly being needed if you get a pre-loaded pickguard should be amplified by the inverse of how much experience and equipment you have for cutting plastic cleanly. I was able to manage with a drill press and a flush router bit around the neck pocket, but the 1 or 2 mm of plastic I needed to cut away along 3 to 4 inches of bridge caused me a problem and doesn't look too great.

[thistle3585]

I just got back in to building replacement parts for electric mandolins since Tom Morici's passing. Despite my best efforts, modification may be necessary and the amount will vary from instrument to instrument because they have been built in a number of different locations over the years. One of the reasons I quit offering parts and distributed them through Tom, was precisely because of these types of complaints. Please don't construe this as picking on you Larry because I'm not. Its an indication of the inconsistency in the builds. I spent an awful lot of time emailing back and forth with people to get their replacement part to fit their instrument which was hard to recover. Tom was fantastic in this regard because he loved talking instruments. Returning to the business, people will find my prices a bit higher than they were in the past in an attempt to cover this added time. I'm just glad it worked out for you in the end. I really don't think you could have gotten any better and I can say with confidence that you should be able to sell it for more since it has Almuse upgrades on it.

[Marty Jacobson]

Just for the record, I don't think I have ever completed a job of any scale on an instrument that didn't take much longer than expected.
I think the only real solution is to not get too attached to your expectations. I should have learned that the time I switched to French polishing in order to save time and ended up spending 600 hours on it over the next year. I didn't learn it that time, but I'm getting there... (maybe).