Strat-Pickup in a Tele?

[crackity_jones]

I have a SD Jb jr for Strat in my strats bridge position. It sounds OK. But I also got a Telecaster and I would like to put that pickup in my Tele´s bridge position. I´ve heard Jb´s in teles before and i love the sound, but getting a real, fullsize Jb in there would require a new bridge and routing. So my question is, Is it possible to put a JB Jr, made for strat, in a teles bridge position without too much trouble? I´ve been looking in to both of the guitars and I can tell theres some differences, the Tele has got a big metal "thing" attached under its bridge pup for example, and the pups seems to be attached to the pickguard and guitarbody in different ways.
well, hope you understand my question. english isnt my first language.
I suppose I could just get me a "Little 59 for Tele" or something like that, but I really like the sound of the Jb Jr and frankly, I dont have that much money to spend.. so this would be the best solotion for me.

Thank you in advance.

[Dave]

You'd probably be better off with the Lil '59 or the Hot Rails. The hot rails will have somewhat similar output, it's humcancelling and has a ceramic magnet, as the JB Jr.

The strat pickup is longer and deeper than the tele and it also has the mounting screws on the very ends. The "metal thing" in the tele pickup is the mounting bracket to hold the pickup in the bridge assembly. I think there'd be a lot of retooling to get the JB Jr in your tele bridge.

[mrfjones]

it would be very hard to get that jb jr into the tele bridge position. You would have to cut the mounting ears of te pickup and attach a metal plate to the bottom in the same shape as the tele bridge already has, and that would change the sound as well. you are better off with another pickup like the little 59 for tele.

[southadc]

Is it an ashtray style bridge? Or one of the flat ones? Maybe if it's a flat one, you could mount the p/u straight to the body then put the bridge over it, a flat one might cover the routing? Otherwise you'll have to mod the p/u. It'll sound different in a tele to a strat whatever you do.

[mongrollo]

I have an idea. Let's see if i can explain it:

You could take a piece of plastic and cut it to have the shape of the bottom of a tele pickup. Then you attach the JBjr to this plastic. The resul will be a JBjr with a tele mouting plate. This way you could screw the pickup thru the screw holes of the tele bridge.

You can use the original JBjr screws to fix the pickup to this plastic bottom plate. I will allways avoid using glues.. ect. Allways do things hat you are sure won't damage the guitar, so you allways can come back!

I hope it makes sense..

[Dave]

I have an idea. Let's see if i can explain it:

You could take a piece of plastic and cut it to have the shape of the bottom of a tele pickup. Then you attach the JBjr to this plastic. The resul will be a JBjr with a tele mouting plate. This way you could screw the pickup thru the screw holes of the tele bridge.

You can use the original JBjr screws to fix the pickup to this plastic bottom plate. I will allways avoid using glues.. ect. Allways do things hat you are sure won't damage the guitar, so you allways can come back!

I hope it makes sense..

Have you done this? I was always told that the issue is the length of the strat pickup vs. the length of the opening in the bridgeplate. I would be very interested if this worked-let us know.

[jeremy]

i put a fast track 2 in a buddys tele a bunch of years back, had to rout the wood underneith the bridge but didnt have to modify the bridge at all

[mrfjones]

jeremy, how did you mount that pickup, directly into the wood?

[mongrollo]

Have you done this? I was always told that the issue is the length of the strat pickup vs. the length of the opening in the bridgeplate. I would be very interested if this worked-let us know.

No, I've never done this but i really think it can work. If you check the dimensions of the pickups in the SD web you see that the 54' tele pickup sizes 2.870x0.768 and the JBjr sizes 2.625x0.703 so it should fit inside the pickup mountin plate.

If you check the complete lenth of the 54 tele pickup it has 3.239 and the JBjr has 3.280. They are really close in lenth so it probabely will fit inside the cavity.

May be the main problem will come from the string mach... And also attaching the JBjr to this "plastic mounting plate"

[Istanbul]

I have a squier Telecaster with Jb .Jr the pup was cut (the edges) and a hard plastic was sticked at bottom to give the Telecaster pup shape... It functions good.. i like that sound. But if i would have the choice (this action was not made by me) I would go with a original Tele pickup..

If someone wants to change i can give my Tele shaped JBJr. instead of LIL 59 or Hot Rails...