ask Chank

[dubkitty]

i wasn't suggesting you sell them. i have pickups sitting around waiting for homes that could be here till i die...Hofner staples, Musima single-coils, even a pair of Epiphone soap-bar P-90s which i have no idea how i acquired. i particularly wouldn't sell vintage Dynas unless my cat needed a liver transplant.

[Dandolin]

thx - yeah, i feel a need to use them now - funny, they didn't really cost me more than some other, less historically significant, or musically interesting pickups, but their status has contributed to my paralysis in getting them into a guitar....

[dubkitty]

put them in a thinline Tele and Bob'a your uncle.

[dubkitty]

"eat flaming death, Cabronita!!!"

[Dandolin]

put them in a thinline Tele and Bob'a your uncle.

Definitely considered that - might be a depth issue, tho....

[dubkitty]

yeah, that's the big drawback to Dynas, the mounting depth. the good thing about thinline bodies is that the top and back are fairly thin so in theory there should be more room for those great honkin' huge magnetized polepieces. unfortunately, i don't have a thinline body to measure. icm pretty sure i couldn't put Dynas in the Special Jet without them sticking out the back. happily, the stock pickups are about 87% as good as Dynas, and i'm totally happy with them.

[dubkitty]

i'll ask the Gretsch Pages people...a lot of those guys are also Tele nerds, and probably know more tricks with Dynas than anybody. are they the same as Gretcsh Dynas as far as dimensions and mounting depth are concerned? if unsure, perhaps you could measure them?

[Dandolin]

Yeah, I'll try and measure them - but they should be pretty much the same dimensions.... thx

edit - google search show guys on TDPRI with dynas in their teles...hope springs

[dubkitty]

it was, as my dear departed mother would say, the absolute dickens to find the dimensions of non-standard Telecasters, but i did manage to find a '69-style thinline Telecaster routing template. the body is 2.25" in total depth with a 0.25" front and rear cap; an alternative might be the Tele model routed for WRHBs, which obviously require larger/deeper, rectangular routs. mounting depth for WRHBs is 0.63" at the neck and 0.83 at the bridge, so there would still be whittling involved but quite a bit less of it. the WRHB Tele bodies are also slightly larger that a standard Tele. you'd probably be able to get away with mounting the pickups to an unrouted pickguard, which in the case of a multilayer guard could gain you maybe 1/8"-3/16". so there you go...measure the Dynas and we'll see what you've got.

[dubkitty]

Research Is Fun!

[Chankgeez]

[Dandolin]

Nice - Dub - thank you!

[dubkitty]

seriously, one of my favorite things about dicking around with guitar projects is the creative problem-solving aspect. i'll look at a guitar sitting on the sofa thinking "what's wrong with this instrument, and how can i improve it?" and it's incredibly satisfying when after a couple or a huge number of hours you finish, sit back, and you've got a result as the Brits would say. back in the early 10s when my world was falling apart, i used to call it "my recreational therapy."

[dubkitty]

i have the Dynas out of my Pro Jet to ground the pickup covers, which Gretsch inexplicably does not do on the stock Tokiwa-made Dynas, and thus was able to measure the mounting depth for the bridge pickup, which is approximately 1 inch. the neck PU will require additional depth equal to the difference in height between the pickup covers, but that shouldn't require more than 1/3 to 1/4" of additional depth. so the thinline Tele looks like a "go" for launch. the 1969 style would look really nice with the Jetsons covers, especially if you drew up an altered MOTS pickguard based on the original profile which would offer a mounting surface in places the original Telecaster pickup routs--the bridge in particular--might overlap outside the Dyna footprint. if you decide to do this, i know someone on the Gretsch Pages who does really good custom work, and i'd be more than happy to hook you up. obviously some routing of the guard would be required for the previously mentioned great honkin' huge polepieces, but he can do anything within reason if you give him the measurements.

[dubkitty]

addendum: oddly enough, the mounting depth of the neck pickup from the bottom edge of the pickup cover to the end of the long retaining rods is also 1 inch, maybe 1-1/16th if you want to be fussy about it. it seemed so counter-intuitive that i measured 3 times to be sure. also, ShoeGoo(TM) works nicely for gluing Dynas back into their shells. it's like Bavarian rubber cement.