Pickup Kit for Firebird Mini Humbucker
Mini Humbuckers for Firebirds differ slightly from normal Minis (which, themselves, are just miniturised versions of full sized Humbuckers) in that they use bar magnets, housed within the bobbins, rather then a magnet underneath in contact with steel pole pieces. This in turn, nessesitates the need for a different style of cover, and produces a considerablly different siganl - and whilst the Firebird maybe never got to the same heady heights as "normal" mini humbuckers, and certainly never rivalled full sized humbuckers in terms of popularity, their quirky design has gained a cult following in recent years. This is a full kit to make one Mini Humbucker, containing everything you'll need except the coil wire - on the face of it, a fairly simple thing, however, there are so many variables, and so many options, it probably makes sense to detail everything here. This Kit includes 2 xNitrate Plastic Mini Humbucker Bobbins 2 x Bar magnets (In the selected Material, Grade and Dimensions) 2 x 3/48 UNC Mounting bolts (In the same colour as the cover where possible) 2 x Nickel plated brass Eyelets (no fitted to fiber board) 1 x Close faced Mini Humbucker cover (in selected colour and material) 1 x Mini Humbucker base (in selected material) 2 x Height adjustment springs 2 x Plastic spacers 1 x Steel "Base" Focusing plate 1 x Steel "Top" Plate (supplied oversized - more on this under the "steel plates" section) Please note, this kit is not supplied assembled, however the bar magnets are fully magnetised to their maximum gauss.
As detailed briefly in in the main description, Mini Humbuckers for firebird have bar magnets housed within their bobbins, replacing the steel poles you'd normally see within a humbucker. However, theres also another quirk of the design. There is also, a steel plate, sat underneath the bobbin assembly, within the magnet field of the bar magnets. This, essentially, turns the individual bars into a horse shoe magnet. This is, in all honestly, probably done to make the whole pickup easier to assemble, rather then as some master stroke of tonal engineering, but it is having some effect on the signal the pickup is producing. Historically too, this style of pickups used a "top plate" - which was a small section of thin steel plate, sat about 4.75-5mm "in" from the edge of the bobbin- above where the G and B string would be on the guitar. This was intended to "dull" the strength of the pickup on the G string (in a polar opposite of "how staggering works" on Single coils, because the Firebird is from an era where wound Gs had been phased out) It is, nowadays, still a considerasion to be honest, but it can be a little bit "love it or hate it", and the tempremental nature of fire bird pickups meaning that, with the top plates inclusing, you risk "over muting" the G, and, potentially, the B. This can be resolved by repositioning and resizing the top plate, but, its a trail and error process, with some guitars, and some strings, being affected more then others.
