Grateful Dead Music Forum

I was installing my pickups in my pickup ring and found that the Super 2s fit in nicely, but I had to do some grinding to get the SDS-1 in? Comparing the pole spacing the SDS is wider than the Super2. So I'm guessing the SDS is an "F" spaced pickup and the Super 2s are the Gibson style?

Super II pickups can be either F spaced or Gibson (standard) spaced. Note that F spacing only applies to the spacing of the pole pieces -- the physical size of the bobbins is the same for both F spaced and standard spaced Dimarzio humbuckers. The SDS is longer overall and is only available in F spacing.

PDFs that show the dimensions of all three styles of pickups can be found here:

Dimarzio humbucker dimensions

Dimarzio strat pickup dimensions

On my guitar, mounting the SDS parallel to the humbuckers made it stick out too far on either side of my E strings, so angled it forward 19 degrees:



However, most folks don't do that, and Garcia didn't do that on his guitars, so I guess you have to decide for yourself how you want to handle it.

And if you look at the Herb Greene photos of Tiger, the only pickup that is dead-nuts on in pole piece/string alignment is the good old middle one.

Coincidence? I think not.....

kind of off the topic but, the guitar looks great.

This is a little off topic, also. Sorry! I am curious as to why you guys are using an SDS and not something like the Fender custom shop 69?

garcia used the sds-1 in later years. but I bet the custom shop 69 would be better for the 73-75 wolf\alligator sound.the lat wolf i built had the custom shops installed.