Telecaster Baseplate, Soldering Copper to Brass

[Angry Possum]

I need to solder a lipstick pickup that has a brass mount to a copper Tele baseplate. Is this doable with just a soldering iron. The lipstick base plate is not magnetic, so I'm assuming it's brass

 

[Angry Possum]

Bump

 

[dbrian66]

That’s beyond my knowledge. I would say try and see what happens.

 

[AcrylicSuperman]

I'm not sure it can be done with a soldering iron, but I know the two metals are compatible. Give it a shot. I know you need more heat when it comes to pipes but since this is such a small area, I'd think that a soldering iron could potentially get the job done. Wont know until you try.

 

[Angry Possum]

Gonna try it after the NY Bills Game. Thanks, go Bills.

 

[porkpie]

You may be able to do it but not without flux and a hot iron to get the parts hot enough. Flux is important here.

 

[yegbert]

Instead of unnecessarily exposing the pickup to a lot of heat, I recommend drilling holes in the baseplate and attaching the pickup with screws, which would not require any heat at all.

 

[Angry Possum]

Instead of unnecessarily exposing the pickup to a lot of heat, I recommend drilling holes in the baseplate and attaching the pickup with screws, which would not require any heat at all.

The baseplate of the lipstick pickup is too long to mount to the Tele baseplate. It has to be soldered to the plate. I thought of that already. Thanks.

 

[Benlostforyears]

Im curious, will the copper baseplate even have any effect if you are soldering it to a non-conductive metal?

 

[Angry Possum]

Im curious, will the copper baseplate even have any effect if you are soldering it to a non-conductive metal?

I'm doing this so I can mount the lipstick to the Tele baseplate, so I can use a regular Tele Bridge. I'm Not doing this for an effect. Just mounting.

 

[Beagle]

Pre heat the baseplate.

 

[longtortoise]

What about JB-weld, or another adhesive? I don't know that a soldering iron will be able to put enough heat into the base plate to melt solder. You could pre-heat the baseplate in an oven.

 

[BeepBoop]

Can the lipstick basplate be removed, i.e. 3 holes drilled in tele baseplate, 1 for wire, 2 holes for the 2 studs/ground? I dont know how lipsticks are constructed, so if not a viable idea, my bad.

 

[Hal Nico]

The baseplate of the lipstick pickup is too long to mount to the Tele baseplate. It has to be soldered to the plate. I thought of that already. Thanks.

If your Soldering iron is around 60w or above then make sure you deoxidize the area with a bit of grit paper just before soldering and pre-heat the area with a Hairdryer. The less work the Iron has to do to warm up the metal the easier it will be

 

[Angry Possum]

Can the lipstick basplate be removed, i.e. 3 holes drilled in tele baseplate, 1 for wire, 2 holes for the 2 studs/ground? I dont know how lipsticks are constructed, so if not a viable idea, my bad.

No it cannot. The pickup wires are soldered to the plate.

 

[Angry Possum]

What about JB-weld, or another adhesive? I don't know that a soldering iron will be able to put enough heat into the base plate to melt solder. You could pre-heat the baseplate in an oven.

I like this idea. However I think I'm going to try and make a thick plastic Tele style baseplate and then attach the lipstick pickup to it, ill see if it works with respect to grounding issues. It should because the lipstick pickup has a baseplate connected to it anyways and it's grounded so I can run the ground from the lipstick baseplate to another ground in the cavity, it's worth a try. Or I can try the JB Weld etc or Flux, if all else fails.

 

[BeepBoop]

No it cannot. The pickup wires are soldered to the plate.

I see. I thought it was just the eyelets.

 

[longtortoise]

Neat project, by the way! Keep us updated.

 

[yegbert]

The baseplate of the lipstick pickup is too long to mount to the Tele baseplate. It has to be soldered to the plate. I thought of that already. Thanks.

So the pickups’ feet stick out too far, right? Sounds like whatever you do, you need to cut off the feet. You can do that carefully (leaving a straight edge in the legs) with a dremel like tool and a few thin cutting wheels. Then I would use some epoxy like JB Weld to either reaffix the feet underneath and then screw mount them to a baseplate, or even just epoxy the pickup legs (sans feet) straight to the baseplate. You don’t need heat of soldering, just epoxy.

 

[Angry Possum]

So the pickups’ feet stick out too far, right? Sounds like whatever you do, you need to cut off the feet. You can do that carefully (leaving a straight edge in the legs) with a dremel like tool and a few thin cutting wheels. Then I would use some epoxy like JB Weld to either reaffix the feet underneath and then screw mount them to a baseplate, or even just epoxy the pickup legs (sans feet) straight to the baseplate. You don’t need heat of soldering, just epoxy.

Yes correct, the feet go past the Tele baseplate. But that's not the real issue. The issue is if I had a plate that was slightly longer, I can then screw the ears into the original Tele baseplate.

So the last thing I've done was made a plastic template from the original Tele baseplate dimensions and made it a little longer. I glued and doubled it up for a little extra thickness. I think it will work now, it's pretty thick and should be secure enough. I'm sure I'll be able to screw the lipstick baseplate with the pickup into the new plastic Tele baseplate. I'm just waiting for the glue to dry. Once it's dried thoroughly I'll attempt to screw the lipstick pickup with it's original base into the plastic Tele baseplate.

**I had to Dremel inside the Tele Pickup Cavity, to get the bridge to line up properly with the body.