Removing an epoxied pu cover

[Gerry Garavaglia]

 I have to remove a pu cover on a ibanez super 80 humbucker that is epoxied. I need to save the pu not the cover. My first attempt will be to heat it with a heat gun. any ideas?

Thanks Gerry

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

You must be willing to destroy the pick-up if you attempt to remove the cover. It was not meant to be disassembled (and it knows it).

 

What's wrong with the cover?

 

Joshua

[Paul Verticchio]

Hello Gerry.

I have considerable experience with those pups. Like Josh said, it's impossible to remove the pickup from the cover without destroying the pup. Scores have tried and all have failed.

Just out of curiosity, why all the trouble for such a common & non-collectible pup?

Best of luck.

[Gerry Garavaglia]

Well I was able to remove the cover by heating with a heat gun and cutting just through the cover with a fret saw. Now I am not completely out of the woods. Before I cut the cover I tried to push off the cover after heating while holding the pu bracket in the vise. The only problem was as I pushed  on the cover it actually seperated from the bracket and the wires are soldered to the underside of the bracket. I lost signal on one of the wires. It is a 3 wire pu and I get about 4 ohms form testing 2 wires the other wire is dead when i try to push the bracket back in place (grounding out) I get signal from the dead wire when the bracket is pulled away from the pu. Gonna sleep on it and try to figure it out tomorrow. the cover was oxidized and I removed a cover from another ibanez pu (that is dead) that was wax potted (much easier)

Thanks