Pick-up pole pieces

[Krank]

I have read somewhere to cut the excess off of the pick-up pole pieces after adjusting them. Has anyone here heard of doing that? I installed some SD on my McCarty and was wondering what effect cutting the pole pieces would have. Any thoughts are welcome, even if it's just to tell me that I'm smoking crack.

[Jim Collins]

There is no reason to do this. The pole pieces are not magnets. In a typical humbucker, the magnet is a bar magnet that sits underneath the coils, between the two rows of pole pieces, actually coming in contact with the pole pieces. The north side of the magnet runs along one row of pole pieces, and the south side of the magnet runs along the other side. The pole pieces serve to extend the magnetic field.