K&K Pickup Installation on Gretsch G9130 New Yorker Supreme Mandolin

More fun with small instruments!

This is a Gretsch G9130 New Yorker Supreme mandolin. This one is a few years old, and from what I can tell by some research on the Interwebs, it's out of production.

What's crazy about it is that it was sold at a pretty low price point (I saw about $239US street), yet it has solid mahogany back and sides. How do they do it at that price?

It's pretty nice. Plays well, has nice bright tone and is super light. According to the description I read, it's a replica of the "wildly popular" 1950s model. I haven't seen a lot of 1950s Gretsch mandolins, so I'll take their word for it. And now I sort of want one.

My job is to install a K&K mandolin pickup on it, so the owner can get really loud with it. Oh yes.

One thing I noted is the pickguard has either been removed or has gone missing. Seems that's common on this model - have to ask about it.

Anyway, let's get chugging on this puppy, ja?

First order of business is to loosen the strings and remove the tailpiece. You can see I've already taken the original strap button off.

Note my super high tech string retainer device. It's bad news if those 8 little strings go ploinking off the tailpiece. I have a capo on the strings at about the 7th fret or so to keep them in some semblance of order and not become a tangled mess.

With the tailpiece off, I drill a 1/4 inch guide hole for the reamer.

Here's my fantastic end pin jack reamer tool from Stew-Mac. Much better in my view than a standard reamer - it's tapered and levels off to a 1/2 inch diameter flute. And it's super sharp.

If you do many of these installs, this is a must-have tool. Forget trying to use a standard drill bit - this is accurate and easy to use.

And, the best part might be that it would (will?) be a great tool for the zombie apocalypse. Just saying.

It's a good idea to use some kind of lubricant on the reamer, this is my trusty container of Pro-Cut. This stuff is gold. Well, actually, yellow.

And away we go.

This is something I wish I could do every day. The tool is so great and it's quite satisfying to get a perfect hole for the jack.

Like so.

You may notice the tailpiece was put on a bit off-center. It should have been exactly on the seam where the sides join. It's off by about an eighth of an inch. But I won't tell if you won't.

Probably a cost-cutting measure.

Also note the glue that ran out of the seam where the top and the sides join when it was assembled. I really didn't pay much attention to it until I was resizing the pictures. It's covered up mostly by the tailpiece, but, man, couldn't somebody have wiped off that squeeze-out?

The K&K instructions say to put a piece of double-sided tape on the pickup heads at this point, and trim them. So I did.

The K&Ks I've installed before use CA (super) glue...but not this one. Not sure why.

I'll show you how I gauge the thickness of the end block. In the instructions, they say "measure your end block," and you may be like..."uh...how do I do dat?" This is how, I learned this from Dan Erlewine!

Take a piece of reasonably stiff wire - I undid a paper clip - and make a 90 degree hook in one end.

Put the hook inside the newly created hole, pull it until it connects.

Then mark the wire where the end of the jack should/will be. You'll need to compensate for the tailpiece (if you have one; guitars and ukus may not...), and the fastening nut.

It's not super accurate, but will get you close.

Then use that mark (red on mine) and transfer the distance to the jack. The nut will sit up against the end block and the rest of the jack will fit through the hole the exact amount you need!

Or not. Be sure you hold the jack the right way around...I unknowingly misjudged and held mine backward! Not the end of the world, we just adjust it later.

Feed a wire (or string) though the end pin hole, out one of the f-holes, and tie it to the jack. Hopefully you can see the jack hanging near my trusty guitar vise.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love that thing?

Then pull the wire and the jack will come up through the body of the mandolin and plunk itself in the hole.

In this instance, the jack wouldn't come all the way through the hole. I discovered there is a top brace that runs parallel to the strings - it's rounded in shape.  It was hard to photograph, but you can sort of see it on the right - the arrow points to it.

I just needed to figure out how to shave a bit of material off the brace so the jack would come all the way up and sit level.

After pondering a while, I remembered I have some super sharp carbide grinder/cutter attachments for the Dremel.

Just the thing to remove a bit off the end of the brace.

This process took a little time - I took a bit off, tested the jack, took a bit more off, etc.  I was working blind, so I didn't want to hack randomly away inside the body.

I also reinstalled the tailpiece to help judge the placement of the inside nut. You can see here it all worked out.

On these types of jacks, there are two holes in the shaft, which make it easy to tie your puller "tool" onto the jack.  In a minute we'll see why their real purpose.

Now we do a test fit of the jack and the strap button that will cover the nut. I'm using my super handy TV Jones jack installation tool - a tapered dowel.

I mentioned my mis-adjusted nut. This is the nut on the jack that goes inside the instrument. You can see from the red mark on the threads how much I was off. Again, not a big thing and easily fixed, but it took some trial and error to get it perfect.

The worst part of this was the stupid wire dropping repeatedly inside the body!

The worst part is over. For some reason, installing the jack took a lot longer than my last install, but it's ready to go now.

Thread the two pickup transducer heads up through the f-holes...you can see them here. I taped them so they didn't fall back down.

The other tape marks are where the bridge was located. It's just held on with string tension and of couse with no tension, it falls off. So we mark it as a guide to relocating it later.

A second piece of double-sided tape goes on the pickup and is trimmed. (K&K says this is to reduce mechanical noise when amplified).

The K&K folks give you a neat installation tool - a nail bent into a "J" shape. You put some of their putty on the back of the pickup, sit it on the too, and then guide the pickup inside the f-hole - near the widest point.

Press upward on the tool to seat the tape.

Poof. Fifteen seconds. Repeat for the other side.

With the transducers installed, we just use a small screwdriver through the jack holes to keep the jack in place, and tighten the end nut.

Then screw the strap button on, and we're done.

The mandolin sounds good amplified. I used my souped-up Champ to test it. Not the best amp for an acoustic instrument, but if it sounds good there, it will sound great through a proper acoustic amp.