Horseshoes... bent or straight?

johnashfield · Post by **johnashfield** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 10:24 am

I recently got a c64s and it's an early one so the horseshoes are flat. I remember reading a post about how the newer ones are bent, like the 60's one used to be.

Does this change the sound? Would I be able to bend mine? Or trade them in for bent ones? should I bother?

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 10:44 am

John, congrats on fulfilling that dream!!!!

The shoe part of the horseshoes are bendable. Use your hands and go carefully. Leave 'em on the bass, and leave the bass in its case. That'll give you all the leverage you need. You need to get the ears up about 1/8" from flat.

johnashfield · Post by **johnashfield** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 2:07 pm

Yikes! I'd be afraid of breaking something! I did need to ask you a more techie question though....

jps · Post by **jps** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 4:39 pm

From my experience with bending two sets of shoes on V63 horseshoe pickups, they are definitely NOT hand bendable unless you are either Superman or Ken S.! Perhaps the shoes on the C series are more malleable, I don't know though. I would not do it on the bass as you will most likely break the plastic mounting plate the whole assembly is mounted to.

The first set I used a couple of pliers to bend the tangs; it was extremely difficult that way. A better way that I used on the second set was to take a 1/2" threaded stud with two nuts on it that was just short enough to fit within the tangs. Put a small piece of sheet metal between the nuts and the inside surfaces of the tangs to protect the finish and then with two crescent or open end wrenches, slowly turn the nuts in opposite directions to force the tangs to spread out. You want to spread them a bit wider than you finally want them to be as they will close up a bit when you release the pressure on them from the nuts. I made mine to match the angle of step of the magnets on the pickup.

jps · Post by **jps** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 4:46 pm

I had talked with John Hall about this and he did tell me that new drawings were made up to produce the shoes like this, but perhaps with the BO situation nothing came of it. Besides the superior aesthetics of this look, there is a functional need for the shoes to be angled up as this allows a greater range of pickup height adjustment before the strings, in particular, the A and D strings, hit the underside of the shoes. When the shoes were parallel, I could not get the pickup low enough to balance with the toaster to my liking.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 6:04 pm

Jeff, you're right, of course. The one I bent was a Lollar, now that you've jogged my memory and I went out and had a lookandsee...

jps · Post by **jps** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 7:12 pm

I was surprised the first time I saw a Lollar horseshoe pickup, just how flimsy the shoes were. Interesting construction, too.

johnashfield · Post by **johnashfield** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 9:41 pm

I pulled on the shoes a bit but there was no way they were moving!

Paul, is this something I could ask you to do for me? I also wanted to ask you about the nut. I love the Thomastik Infeld strings but they are a bit loose in the nut, can you fix that? Or do I need a new nut?

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:50 am

John, I can help you with both. A new nut must be cut from a blank, as a precut RIC nut will also be too loose. Not a big deal.

Contact me offlist & we'll arrange for a time to bring it in.

johnashfield · Post by **johnashfield** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 5:48 am

Great! Thank you!

rickfan63 · Post by **rickfan63** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 8:10 am

My C64 is new and the horseshoe is flat. Not a real big deal to me though. It works fine.