Workshop: Repro Zenon Pickup, Fiddle Funnies

Above is a custom Telecaster (butternut body) that a customer brought in for pickup swapping. Mr. Mason Stoops sent him this reproduction Zenon pickup to fit and I put it in while he waited -- it was a fun job. But, really, where does one find these things? It's such an obscure unit to copy. In this case, the repro is about a million times better than the original, too, because the polepieces actually do their job and the housing is not falling apart. I love it.

You know that Flaming Lips tune, "Thank you, Jack White, for that fiber-optic Jesus that you gave me...?"

I was humming in my brain, "...thank you, Mister Stoops, for that reproduction Zenon that you gave him..."

Just for giggles, here's a fiddle my friend said, "just needed a setup."

9 out of 10 times that also means the four corners have seam separations and the soundpost needs to be refit as well... as in the case here.