Pickup magnet size? Help please...

[Serratus]

Hi all,
I'm building a pair of 8 string pickups, and have bought all the supplies from Stewmac. But the magnets are only as wide as a six string (obviously), so my question is this: Does the magnet have to be wide enough to cover the bottom of all eight polepieces? Ie, if I use this magnet in the middle of the 8 string pickup, will the top and bottom strings be quiet, as they have no magnet immediately below them? I have 3 magnets so if that's the case then I'll cut the third magnet to make the others wider in order to cover all the 8 strings.
thanks in advance for any advice,
Rich

[Roadstar]

Originally Posted by Serratus

Hi all,
I'm building a pair of 8 string pickups, and have bought all the supplies from Stewmac. But the magnets are only as wide as a six string (obviously), so my question is this: Does the magnet have to be wide enough to cover the bottom of all eight polepieces? Ie, if I use this magnet in the middle of the 8 string pickup, will the top and bottom strings be quiet, as they have no magnet immediately below them? I have 3 magnets so if that's the case then I'll cut the third magnet to make the others wider in order to cover all the 8 strings.
thanks in advance for any advice,
Rich

the magnet does have to cover the poles
it has to be wide enough so each has magnetism
what you can do is use a metal retainer bar this will spread the magnetism
across the length

[Serratus]

Originally Posted by Roadstar

the magnet does have to cover the poles
it has to be wide enough so each has magnetism
what you can do is use a metal retainer bar this will spread the magnetism
across the length

Cool, that was one of the things I had in mind - to add a metal bar each side of the magnet wide enough to cover the width of the pickup.
Thanks again,
Rich