Electrifying Your Acoustic Guitar on the Cheap

After building my first lap steel guitar, I had one humbucker pickup left. I decided to use it on my acoustic guitar.

Please excuse any typo in this instructable, I 'm french and was taught english a long time ago ;)

Wood : I used some pieces of mahogany found in the scrap at my work (a local library)

Nuts and bolts (I choose brass since it is non-magnetic, thought it would be better)

Spring (also found in the scrap)

Humbucker Pickup (mine is an Epiphone. Many people change their guitar pickups and you can find a bunch of second hand mic on the internet)

Endpin jack

Soldering iron and solder

Depending on the sound hole size of the guitar and the size of your pickup, cut three pieces by your usual meanings :

• a top plate : must be larger than the sound hole to keep the pickup near the strings and not in the bottom of the body.
• two small bars to press the whole stuff from inside the body and maintaining things

Be careful when taking measurements,

Simple. the two small parts are fixed to the top plate with nuts and bolts. the trick is inserting springs under the small pieces to ensure the pressure on the table top from the inside of the body.

Mount your pickup as usual :)

Finally, mount your pickup in the sound hole just by using the pressure involved with the springs.

You're almost done. Connect the humbucker to the endpin jack by soldering and mount this one as said by the manufacturer.

Put your strings back and enjoy your new electro-acoustic guitar :)

Tip 1. the springs can make a strong pressure. I suggest to round out the corners of the small wood pieces, This really helps when positionning the pickup in the sound hole.

Tip 2. This approach of electrifying acoustic guitars works well at a reasonable volume. Passing a certain point, you may experiment some feedback issues. In this case, it is possible to put some foam blocks inside the body of the guitar.