Cost to install under saddle pickup

eclipsme

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What is a reasonable charge to install a saddle pickup and endpoint jack?
Thanks.
 
In an instrument that will readily take one (i.e. no weird saddle or bridge designs or issues, there's an actual end block to take the endpin jack and it's not so thin it splits if you look at it wrong, etc) I would charge half an hour of labor, plus a setup fee. Probably $50 - $100 in total depending on where you are and who you bring it to. More if there's an active preamp or controls involved, depending on what those parts entail (i.e. mounting a battery, etc).
 
With just a modicum of skill a person can install an undersaddle pick-up themselves and the labor cost would be zero (0).

Hint: Getting the endpin jack installed is a bit of a parlor trick but simple. What you do is take a bare male jack from an electric guitar cable, remove the plastic or metal shielding bits so the bare jack is exposed, pass it through the hole you drilled into the instrument, pull the cable out the sound hole, remove the locking nut from the pick-up jack, plug the cable into the jack and pull the cable out seating the jack in the hole, holding firmly to the threads, remove the electric guitar cable jack and thread the locking nut on. Viola! You now have and electric jack installed.
 
With just a modicum of skill a person can install an undersaddle pick-up themselves and the labor cost would be zero (0).

Hint: Getting the endpin jack installed is a bit of a parlor trick but simple. What you do is take a bare male jack from an electric guitar cable, remove the plastic or metal shielding bits so the bare jack is exposed, pass it through the hole you drilled into the instrument, pull the cable out the sound hole, remove the locking nut from the pick-up jack, plug the cable into the jack and pull the cable out seating the jack in the hole, holding firmly to the threads, remove the electric guitar cable jack and thread the locking nut on. Viola! You now have and electric jack installed.

You can just use the eraser end of a pencil, too.
 
With just a modicum of skill a person can install an undersaddle pick-up themselves and the labor cost would be zero (0)

They need a drill, 1/4" dowel, and two drill bits (1/8" and 1/2"), plus a way to tighten the nut.
 
Thank you all for the replies. My question, though, was not how to do this but rather what would be a reasonable charge for doing it. Sounds like $50 would be a good deal for somebody, right?

I am not a professional, but at this point have put in a number of pickups, and would feel comfortable doing so for a friend. On the other hand, I want to provide the service at good value.

Again, thanks for the comments.
 
I don't think it is possible to answer your question. You can't base what you charge on what others charge. It depends on how experienced you are and how confident you are of your abilities.Based on those qualities you take an educated guess at what you need to charge. Pickups are a crap shoot. I have installed a few hundred pickups and even an experienced installer can sometimes take 2-3 -or more hours doing the work. The saddle material may not be good and need to be replaced, the saddle may not be flat, the saddle slot may need to be routed in length or in depth to flatten it, you may have to string and restring the instrument many many times to adjust the underside of the saddle to get string balance, often you will end up doing action work that you had not anticipated,you may have to replace strings that break. a single strand of loose wire can cause major issues, cold soldered joints can be difficult to detect at times, and on and on. If you are really unlucky you may run into a defective tuning machine that is now your responsibility to fix. You can accidentally ding or scratch the finish. A myriad of other unspoken demons may raise their head and you end up doing minor repairs so that the owner does not think you screwed up their instrument. Every one of these things have happened to me. Or, the installation may be a walk in the park! Good luck!-Bob
 
I don't think it is possible to answer your question. You can't base what you charge on what others charge. It depends on how experienced you are and how confident you are of your abilities.Based on those qualities you take an educated guess at what you need to charge. Pickups are a crap shoot. I have installed a few hundred pickups and even an experienced installer can sometimes take 2-3 -or more hours doing the work. The saddle material may not be good and need to be replaced, the saddle may not be flat, the saddle slot may need to be routed in length or in depth to flatten it, you may have to string and restring the instrument many many times to adjust the underside of the saddle to get string balance, often you will end up doing action work that you had not anticipated,you may have to replace strings that break. a single strand of loose wire can cause major issues, cold soldered joints can be difficult to detect at times, and on and on. If you are really unlucky you may run into a defective tuning machine that is now your responsibility to fix. You can accidentally ding or scratch the finish. A myriad of other unspoken demons may raise their head and you end up doing minor repairs so that the owner does not think you screwed up their instrument. Every one of these things have happened to me. Or, the installation may be a walk in the park! Good luck!-Bob

Thanks, Bob. All good points!
 
This has been my exact experience as well.

When a MISi or Baggs sounds just right they can't be beat but so often one of the strings will be weak and can take a lot of messing with. If you get it first time every time or even 75% of the time I bow down to you.



I don't think it is possible to answer your question. You can't base what you charge on what others charge. It depends on how experienced you are and how confident you are of your abilities.Based on those qualities you take an educated guess at what you need to charge. Pickups are a crap shoot. I have installed a few hundred pickups and even an experienced installer can sometimes take 2-3 -or more hours doing the work. The saddle material may not be good and need to be replaced, the saddle may not be flat, the saddle slot may need to be routed in length or in depth to flatten it, you may have to string and restring the instrument many many times to adjust the underside of the saddle to get string balance, often you will end up doing action work that you had not anticipated,you may have to replace strings that break. a single strand of loose wire can cause major issues, cold soldered joints can be difficult to detect at times, and on and on. If you are really unlucky you may run into a defective tuning machine that is now your responsibility to fix. You can accidentally ding or scratch the finish. A myriad of other unspoken demons may raise their head and you end up doing minor repairs so that the owner does not think you screwed up their instrument. Every one of these things have happened to me. Or, the installation may be a walk in the park! Good luck!-Bob
 
This has been my exact experience as well.

When a MISi or Baggs sounds just right they can't be beat but so often one of the strings will be weak and can take a lot of messing with. If you get it first time every time or even 75% of the time I bow down to you.

Michael> Just looked at your website. Impressive and lovely! Nice inlays. Any plans available for the 'Poor Man's CNC? or at least more pictures??? Thanks!
 
There are a few more pictures in the archives of this forum. Search" Poormans cnc" I did draw up a simple plan for someone at one point. If I can find it I will send it to you. You also need a scroll saw with variable speed to make patterns. and a dedicated Dremel. I use a foot petal as well but you could always just use a power strip with a switch or turn the Dremel off and on by hand.

Michael> Just looked at your website. Impressive and lovely! Nice inlays. Any plans available for the 'Poor Man's CNC? or at least more pictures??? Thanks!
 
There are a few more pictures in the archives of this forum. Search" Poormans cnc" I did draw up a simple plan for someone at one point. If I can find it I will send it to you. You also need a scroll saw with variable speed to make patterns. and a dedicated Dremel. I use a foot petal as well but you could always just use a power strip with a switch or turn the Dremel off and on by hand.

Well, moving away from initial topic, but yes, I would love to look at those plans if you happen upon them. I see the posts are fairly old. Are you still using the pantograph? I have the foot pedel from my wife's Foredom as well as the Dremel. The scroll saw I sold when I thought I would be traveling more, but could always get another. This could be fun to play with. Thanks!
 
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