GK-3 pickup cover?

Started by experimenthouse, July 11, 2020, 08:05:33 PM

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experimenthouse

Hey everyone,

Long-term reader, first-time poster.

I've been using a GK-3 (guitar) external unit for a couple of years, but recently decided to switch to an internal kit, which I'm in the process of installing. The main reason for switching is that I play left-handed and the external unit isn't great for lefties (I'll make a post about this soon!).

One thing I was wondering about is the possibility of a pickup cover for the GK-3. I've got a Stratocaster with white pickups and would like the GK-3 to blend in similarly to the Roland Ready GC-1.

I was wondering if anyone had come across or designed a pickup cover for the GK-3. It doesn't seem like a difficult thing to do, and I've toyed with designing one myself. Unfortunately I don't have my own 3D printer to make prototypes, so before I go too far down that route I thought I'd ask.

A few people discussed this issue some years ago (I found topics from dayn and dead_lizard) but no one seems to have pursued it much further.

Thanks in advance!

mooncaine

I toyed with the idea, and got a hesitant start on it, but was too lazy to make measurements of my internal GK pickup because, well, COVID. I have access to free 3D printing, normally, so I put aside my 3D printing hobby till when/if we overcome COVID and reopen the makerspaces. For me, it can wait.

If you're interested in doing it yourself, I'd be happy to help. I could show you how I'd do it. I haven't done a pickup cover before but I have made a couple functional parts for my guitar, one of which is a mounting shim to go under the GK wart. I also have a custom clip for a Virtual Jeff, angled to suit my guitar. I recommend it. I hope it won't be too long before I can print another couple clips and GK shims.

I used a digital caliper, about $30 or 40 bucks, a scanner (the kind used for paper and photographs), and a camera. I also relied on PDF user manuals from Roland that showed mechanical drawings & measurements of the GK.

I modeled the objects in blender, which is free and really powerful, and you can get it on any computer, even if you use linux. No catch, no gotcha; it's free. Using just that, I can export a 3D printable file that my local makerspace can accept over the web. If I were sending it to a service, like Shapeways, I would upload the 3D printable file to their site instead. Pretty darn cool. I've used Shapeways now & then and I'm happy with 'em.

experimenthouse

It's the measurements that made me hope someone had already done all the leg work! I'd definitely be interested in how you'd do it.

I've had a few thoughts, but none of them seem particularly viable. I think part of the problem is that the exact mounting height will vary across guitars.

Thanks for the tips too — I used Blender years ago, and completely forgot about it.

gumbo

Just be aware that the area immediately above the pickup poles in the white moulded cover used on the Roland-Ready, GC-1, VG & G5 Stratocasters is MICRO THIN, and has a fine, almost woven layer inserted beneath the top surface to further protect the magnets.

In the case of this particular version, the flexboard that supports the individual pickups sits atop a profiled 'filler piece' that sets the unit at a pre-determined (9.5") radius to suit the factory-fitted necks on those guitars.

Under the filler is an aluminium (my spelling!) support that allows mounting below the pickguard and pickup height adjustment in the same way as 'normal' mag pickups...via two adjusting screws and short lengths of surgical rubber tube under compression.

Grooves are moulded in the inside of the longitudinal sides of the pickup cover, near the lower edge, to clip onto protruding 'tabs' on the sides of the aluminium support bracket....these hold the whole assembly together, and do so because there is slight 'give' in the moulded plastic cover, which is then slightly stretched over the aluminium bracket.

Yep, this model pickup does exactly the same job as any other Roland Hex pickup, but it's construction is totally unique...you may have a lot of difficulty exactly emulating its appearance if you are working with the standard GK3 pickup that is supplied with the Internal GK Kit...

...just saying... ;)

HTH

Cheers,
Peter
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whippinpost91850

Welcome to the family experiment house, from another Lefty
Other then the older Fender covers, I'm not sure there's anything readily available

experimenthouse

Thanks for the replies gumbo and whippinpost!

The anatomy of the Fender-Roland setup seems similar to how I imagined, but very complex. It seems like the most hassle-free options would be to either:

(a) swap a light pickguard, knobs, covers and switch cap for black parts; or
(b) stick the pickup in a piece of square tubing fractionally larger than the dimensions of the pickup.

I don't really want it to look exactly like the cover used on Strats; I just don't want it to be too obviously an addition. It still surprises me that there isn't a market for custom covers given how many of these pickups are floating around.

A cover for the external pickup would also be good — has anyone not had the black finish wear off their external GK-3?!

mooncaine

OK, so the first few steps I'd look at must take gumbo's information into account (cheers, Gum!).

Looks like the internal pickup is quite different to the external one. I'd search really hard for photos anyone might have taken of one disassembled. Obviously, search really hard to see if someone's done the measuring, too.

When measuring, you want to measure outside heights, widths, etc and draw a picture or two. Label them with your measurements. If it's possible, measure inside width & height, too. You want to be able to say, with confidence, how thick the plastic is here, or there, for example. My caliper has a depth measuring tool that's good for this; most should have that feature.

I use a digital caliper (I've used several; all about the same to me), I measure at least 3 times, and I take the battery out of the caliper when I'm done (turned out to be important for each digital caliper I tried).

Printing it with the 'fine, woven texture' gumbo mentioned shouldn't be a huge prob. The resulting part might be quite fragile, though.

BTW, I forgot to ask: have you considered painting the black pickup white? Some have done so. I think I've seen at least one project pictured on these forums showing a painted GK pickup.


mooncaine

If you decide to model your own in blender, I can help, but it seems far off-topic for this forum. You can PM me and we'll figure out how to collaborate. There's a few arcane setup clicks you have to make in blender preferences before you'll see its builtin 3D printing tools.

mooncaine

BTW, whenever someone talks about white GK pickups, or modding their GK guitar, I think of these beauties here:
http://www.hutchinsonguitars.com/product/cybertech/
http://www.hutchinsonguitars.com/product/cybertech-synth/

CodeSmart

Quote from: mooncaine on July 12, 2020, 09:40:20 AM

BTW, I forgot to ask: have you considered painting the black pickup white? Some have done so. I think I've seen at least one project pictured on these forums showing a painted GK pickup.

Yeah, why not just buy a white spray can and paint the pickup (masking the poles)? Anything else feels like overkill.
But I got more gear than I need...and I like it!

billbax

#10
QuoteYeah, why not just buy a white spray can and paint the pickup (masking the poles)? Anything else feels like overkill.

Agree. You could also disassemble the pickup housing and just spray paint the GK3 shell. Having said that, you only get one or two attempts with removing the housing, before the thin aluminium securing legs break off. All is not lost, as three thin strips of tape carefully wrapped around will just about do.

While you're at it, add another wire to the black ground conductor and secure it to the shell. This mod will reduce the noise-floor by a couple of dBs. Tried it and it works.

Design fault there by Roland, not grounding the shell :'(

experimenthouse

Thanks again for the replies everyone!

@mooncaine specifically — digital callipers would seem to be the way to go. I've done a few 2D drawings of the pickup as part of the current install I'm doing, but they've just used the dimensions in the manual and I haven't accounted for the curve and flat area that says 'Roland'. I've only got analogue callipers at the moment, so the cost is already starting to mount (though, of course, the digital callipers would be handy for other things anyway).

It looks like a lot of time, effort and money to make a cover. That's not necessarily something I'm against, but I'm wondering whether it would be worth the investment.

As regards comments about painting, I did consider it! Based on the fragility of the housing clips, I think I'd try it without disassembly. My only hesitation is doing any permanent or semi-permanent modifications for my first install. I simply don't have the level of experience with handling, installing or modifying these pickups to be confident. I had to have my arm twisted by whippinpost to consider gumbo's alternative 13-pin socket!

I'll think about it some more, but paint could be the way to go. How difficult would it be to remove the paint if I changed my mind?

gumbo

Of course, if you START with a pickup out of a Roland-Ready Strat, things are a bit easier...

Here's one I prepared earlier.. ;)

Dismantled the pickup, cleaned, (very lightly!) sanded & etched the cover, (aerosol) painted with Tamiya black model paint...
.....pierced out the required pickup hole with a jewellery (my spelling!) saw, drilled all the extra holes that I needed in a 'standard' Strat after-market pickguard, including replacing the S1 & S2 buttons with a three-way momentary toggle switch, and .......Tah Dah !

Went well with a black-bodied R-R Strat.....   ;D.    ...a bit of a cheat, but hey....





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experimenthouse

#13
That looks great, but it's definitely cheating!  ;D

The colour is something that is cosmetic, but all I want is to avoid the 'listening with their eyes' problem. The black pickup sticks out on a light pickguard, no matter how neatly it's mounted. Kind of frustrating that there's no easy solution.

I too have replaced the buttons with a three-way momentary toggle switch. The install is coming together nicely (pickup, controls and preamp board all in place and waiting for wiring), but I'm still amazed at some of the design 'flaws' in the kit. The quality is perfectly acceptable, but, in addition to my gripe about the colour:

- why are the buttons are so big and cumbersome?
- why isn't a momentary switch included (I sourced one from the same manufacturer as the mix switch for $2!)?
- why isn't a switch cap included (again, these can be sourced for less than $2!)?
- why didn't they go with a round output assembly like gumbo's (they can't be saving that much money)?

I know it's getting a bit off-topic, but some of the design choices Roland made don't seem to reflect reality.

gumbo

...switch choices, yes...got to agree with you there....and if you saw what they did to achieve the two (always WHITE!) S1  &. S2 buttons on a R-R / GC-1 Strat, you'd go away shaking your head....I know I certainly did !

Also....on my two examples, it was interesting to note that a great deal of the connecting 'wiring' (that word used for explanation only) between the original switchgear looked as though they had stripped the conductors out of a bit of 13-core cable !! 
The wiring was of such small diameter that the soldering  (again, word used for descriptive purposes only) had wicked up the conductors WAY inside the insulation, and in three cases had led to premature breakage of the wires where they emerged from the blob of solder attached to the respective switches...in fact the whole thing looked like it had been put together by an 8-year-old..   Scary stuff for a guitar that carried so much of their (and Fender's!) 'flagship' advertising of the time...  not as if it was particularly cheap at the time, either.

The Roland jack....yeah, enough said about that...
...its ancestry is simply that at the time it would appear that no-one made a 13-pin plastic-jack-with-ears that WASN'T designed to be mounted on a PCB...   ...probably still the case, actually ....  ;D
......the rest of the story is history.

I'm glad we had this little chat....hopefully we all feel better now !    ::) ::) ;)

Stay SAFE Everyone....we're all still in the middle of this cr@p for a while yet..

Cheers,
Peter
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whippinpost91850

Doesn't seem like guitar players were involved in design at all  ???

whippinpost91850

WAY TO GO , PETER  ;D