During the past few months I have seen so many variations in pickups, bridges and nut spacing. When companies start changing dimensions it causes a whole new problems with after market components such as covers, mounting rings, bridges etc. We have American Standard measurements and Metric and many parts being made overseas to fit American made products. There needs to be an international standard if so many products are going to be made. When guitar builders buy components from a different number of companies, it causes problems with drilling templates and placement of parts with different spacing.

Gibson and Fender have always made pickups with the same pole spacing for both neck and bridge pickups on most of their instruments like the Stratocaster, Jazzmaster etc. Fender started calibrating the pole spacing for the position of the Jazz Bass with the bridge pickup wider than the neck. Now days, you find calibrated humbuckers, replacement P-90 pickups and it may be more perfect but it causes many companies a lot of grief.

Soon there might be calibrated repro Stratocaster for bridge, middle and neck position. Most bridges when new can be notched for desired string spacing and others are fixed. When you put a Gibson spaced humbucker pickup in a Stratocaster, the strings don’t line up to well with the pole pieces. You don’t see very many Fender style pickups put into Gibson instruments except for players like Alvin Lee and “Ten Years After”. You need to look and evaluate the product you are using and putting into your instrument to make sure the thing works. Good luck.