The Steel Guitar Forum

I just replaced the super sustain II pickup in my MSA vintage XL due to it being microphonic. The tabs that secure the pickup are all broken. Currently I have the pickup attached via 3m style tape but I assume that won’t last too long. What is the best option to use to secure the pickup semi permanently? I want to be able to remove it in the future if need be without damaging any parts of the guitar.

I've used velcro strips and it held great.

I bought a Barcus Berry pickup for a mandolin many years ago , probably 25+, and it came with a putty like material that you put between the pickup and the body of the instrument. It worked really well. Held it secure and if I needed to remove it I just add applied a small amount of WD40 on a cloth to clean the very small amount of excess off. I have no idea where you’d find it but someone else here might know.

Ditto on Ronald’s idea. Djangobooks.com caters to gypsy jazz guitarists and sells Schertler brand putty that is intended for attaching piezo pickups and magnetic pick ups to guitar tops- similar to the Barcus Berry putty Ronald had used. Joe at Archtop.com recommends it for attaching pickups to arch top jazz guitars when drilling for screw mounting isn’t desirable - like when adding a pick up to a vintage rig. Seems like a good option.

a few dabs of silicone is fine.. It will hold forever, and is easy to remove. Velcro is also a very good idea.. Barcus berry Pickup putty is fine as well, but silicone is something that most of us have on hand and would work as well or better in my opinion.. Once that pickup is set in place, as long as the distance to the strings is correct, it just needs to be kept from moving around.. Tape is as good as anything else, but might look ugly.,, a dot of silicone under each corner is invisible, will hold just fine, and is easy to remove if needed.. Guys tend to overthink these sorts of things.. Sometimes the simplest answer is the best answer... bob

Awesome! Thank guys

Another possible option is to replace the pickup with one that you can properly install. If that's not possible, there have been some good suggestions posted.

I've used Goop (silicone) to mount my pickups on the MSA aluminum pickup mounting plate. Also, those aluminum mounting plates are fairly simple to make if you want to remove the pickup and keep it intact on the original plate. I've made a couple of them over the years.