Workshop: Acoustic Pickup & Magnetic Pickup Install

My customer Brandon purchased a recent Carson Robison-branded Kalamazoo KG-14 and had me fit an old DeArmond magnetic/soundhole pickup as well as a K&K acoustic pickup. The acoustic pickup should not have (and does not need) a ground wired to the strings but the DeArmond magnetic/electric-style pickup does benefit from being grounded to the strings to cut down on noise.

Because he has two pickups installed, the object is to cater to both while making it easy for him to plug/unplug live. He wanted the pickups away from the endblock and so they're located on the rather-more-fragile sidewall near the endpin.

To strengthen this I use a piece of plastic on either side of the wood to reinforce/strengthen the mount. This side has some cool thin tortoise celluloid and it's simple black plastic on the other side. The acoustic jack is nearer the endpin and has slightly more relief from the side of the guitar so it's easy to feel "which is which" without looking.

To add a ground to the bridge/strings, I soldered a ground wire to two pieces of copper foil shielding tape. One side of the tape is larger and is mounted/adhered to the bridge plate -- the pinholes go right through it and the string ball-ends make contact with the foil. The other end of the ground wire is on a small square of shielding tape/foil on the back of the inside jack-plate. The jack from the magnetic pickup is mounted here and thus closes the ground.