Single coil covers may seem a fairly innocent little part, they are, after all, just little lumps of injection molded plastic that sits on top of a pickup, protects the coil, and makes them look nice.

Now, really? That’s all they are! But, as with all things guitar parts, there's a little more hiding in plain sight, so, they do requite a bit more a write up.

Pole Spacing
These covers, are 50mm spacing, which means, when measured E to e, center to center across the poles, that spacing, is 50mm. (actually 50.2mm, but you’ll excuse me rounding a little).

Unfortunately, that isn’t a universal spacing – and single coils do exist in other sizes.

So, you can, potentially have the following

52.5mm - common on far eastern produced pickups

52.2mm - “The Standard”, and is used by most pickup manufacturers nowadays, at least on the after market side of things. Seymour Duncan®, DiMarzio®, Axesrus®, and, frankly, most others, will all be using 52mm.

50mm – not as common as they once where, and again, usually a far eastern specialty.

48mm – fairly rare nowadays, once a common “neck” spacing on cheap guitars

52.8mm – the “original” Fender® single coil spacing, getting rarer nowadays, but VERY accurate historic recreations will still use that one.

So - 50mm covers, are, a little odd ball, because they're not "the norm" - but they do turn up, and they are, occasionally, quite handy! Especially if your working with a narrower string spacing at the trem - the bridge and middle will likely always be 52mm (or 52.5mm if your using far eastern pickups) but a 50mm spaced neck will mean the poles line up with the strings, which looks a little nicer.

Fairly straight forward at this point I suppose. Like most things when you get into “parts of parts” there’s some that fit some things, and some that don’t… but that brings us on to the elephant in the room.

Colours

As you’ve probably spotted, we’ve got loads of different colours in these covers, but not all covers are available in all sizes - so heres why.

The factory that make the 52mm spaced covers, DON’T MAKE ANY OTHER SIZES – I can’t stress this enough – if you’ve got your heart set on fitting a lovely set of purple covers to your Encore®, your likely going to be searching an awful long time. There's no magic wand I can wave to get the molds from factory #1 into the hands of Factory #2 – I wish there was!

So, as a quick run down… it goes like this.

52mm – loads of colours! Red, Blue, Pink, Yellow, Purple, all those cool Fender® colours like Vintage and Mint? No problems! And, obviously, all the normal stuff like Black and White

52.5/50/48mm – Black, some form of creamy/ivory (it changes from year to year!), Parchment, Mint (which is a little too green!) and White… You also, sometimes, see Chrome and Gold, but they’re usually a very poor quality finish, with a lot of imperfection.

They, also, come in different “heights” – a “normal” single coil cover will be about 12.5/13mm tall (which means the cover never comes into contact with the start and finish of the coil wires) – the far eastern spacing's come in 13.5mm and 14.5mm (and the usually have a “notch” to keep the coil wires safe from being crushed)

52.8mm – these are pretty niche at this point, being a purely historic consideration, so I’ve only ever seen them in Black, White and “Aged white” (which, again, changes from year to year) AND, they seem to only ever turn up in Nylon, with a slightly different bevel on the top face.

Pole Diameter

Now, this ones a bit “nice within a niche”, but whilst I’m typing, I might as well cover everything!

Single coils come with, potentially, 3 different pole diameters – 3/16” (4.75mm), 5mm and ¼” (6.35mm) – thankfully, 3/16” and 5mm are so close, that they’ll take the same covers (so much so that there doesn’t exist a specific 3/16”/5mm cover – it’s just a one size fits all thing thankfully) – but, ¼” poles require a specialist cover

So we start to see, there’s actually quite a lot to consider when it comes to single coil covers!

We’ve got at least, 15 different colours, in potentially, 5 pole spacing's, and 2 heights, and 2 different versions of pole diameter – it becomes, very quickly, a bit of a mine field!

So, to close off this thrill ride, remember, these covers are 50mm pole spacing. Its a little rare nowadays, but not without its uses, and turns up on far eastern guitars more then USA/European made stuff, but, please, just measure your pickups if your in any doubt. Centre to centre, E to e pole (our, more accurately, outside to outside, then subtract the diameter of one of the poles – and remember, you’ve got about 0.4mm of “wiggle room”)

Colours – in depth!

Remember when I said all the factories don’t have access to all the colours? There's actually a little more to it then that, and it can cause a few niggles – and they come from a few different angles, so its worth while me spelling them out too.

The Knobs/tips/pickguards also come from different factories, AND, humbucker bobbins are the same, different factory – so there is some potential for “colour mismatch” on that front.

Now, rather then lambast the entire industry for not communicating within itself, I’ll list everything here where you’ll get a good match with Axesrus® parts/where you won’t.

Black – Knobs/plates/tips/Humbucker bobbins – perfect match.
I don’t exactly relish the idea of describing colours like this, so I’ll keep them as brief as possible. Black! Its black. Gloss Black. Don’t know what black looks like? Close your eyes…. Its that. Pairs well with most other colours frankly – tread carefully trying to pair it with white, or you risk looking like Robert Palmers backing band.

White - Knobs/plates/tips/Humbucker bobbins – perfect match.

Its white! Clean, crisp, white! We use a high opacity white, so it looks very clean, and doesn’t change colour when fitted onto a pickup. Again, like black – it’ll pair well with most other colours, but if can look a little “new”, especially if you go white on white.

Parchment - Knobs/plates/tips/Humbucker bobbins –perfect match.
I’d best describe parchment as looking like old newspaper – white with a slight yellow tint to it. Pairs well with everything EXCEPT white plates (although, theres some argument that it does mimic what happened with the original Stratocaster®, where the pickup covers yellowed faster then the pickguard) – gets around that “it looks too new” thing.

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