First time installing pickups

Flink_Poyd

I bagged myself some pickups from the classifieds to put in my Squier standard Telecaster this week. First time I've had a go at it so obviously a bit apprehensive even though it seems relatively straight. With the. wealth of knowledge here I'm posting any and all dumb questions that pop into my head.
First the pickups





The neck is a Fralin Blues special, even though it has no markings I'm taking the sellers word for it. The bridge is a Bareknuckle Flat 50. 1st thing I've noticed is the Fralin doesn't have a baseplate and the Bareknuckle does and assuming if neck needs a baseplate it can be swapped from the old pickup. Right or wrong?

Flink_Poyd

This is turning out to be fun, had to take the neck off to remove the pick guard. Looks a bit more of a job than expected.

Chalky

I wouldn't worry about the baseplate - put the pickups in and see how they sound. Squier pots might not give you the full bareknuckle/fralin experience. An easy test is to wire the bridge directly to the output, so the pots don't actually interrupt the signal, eg connect the pickup wires to where the output jack wires connect to the pots. This will give you the straight through sound, so play with it set like that for a while (volume knob won't work of course). Then change the wiring to normal so the signal is passing through the volume pot and hear the difference. If its ok, the pots are good enough - if its too dull then you might think of changing the pots for better ones.

Megii

To the best of my knowledge, tele neck pickups don't normally have a metal base plate - so not surprising there isn't one for the Fralin. And I'm sure it doesn't need one, unless you want to modify the tone, so nothing to worry about there.

Flink_Poyd

I was half intending on this being a bit of a step by step but I forgot as I was concentrating on what I was doing.

Well they're in, new string on and I've got sound which is a bonus. My soldering needs a bit of practice but everything seems to have held OK. I think I'll change the pots anyway, ones a bit scratchy and I think they're 500k. The Bareknuckle info says use 350k so what would anyone suggest? Brand etc

Chalky

Alpha 250k are ok and cheapish.