Am I doing something wrong?

[Useless amateur]

Trying to dry fit a few bits together and can’t get pick up covers to fit through scratch plate, I have tried 3 scratch plates and no way will they fit. It’s just standard precision stuff. 
 

Jon

[Steve Browning]

Trying to remember if I had to fettle anything although my basses all received new scratchplates from a chap here who isn't around any more. A bit of filing might be necessary (easily done).

[Useless amateur]

Ok thanks. I just didn’t want to start adjusting stuff if I didn’t have to. Thanks again Steve

 

Jon

[Paul S]

Also, for some reason not all P bass split coil pickup covers are exactly the same size.  It might be that some will fit the holes AND the pickup, not necessarily the ones that came with it.

[Steve Browning]

No probs Jon.

One other thing possibly worthy of note. You will see the pole pieces sit proud of the cover. For me (as someone who hooks their thumb onto the cover when they play) that meant there was less purchase for my thumb. I got round this by putting some cut up beer mat either side of the magnets so the cover was flush. That gives you more room for your thumb. The sound etc is completely unaffected.

[Jo.gwillim]

It's a pain isn't it? My only suggestion is fit the scratch plate with the pickups wired up but loose. Then you can align them before screwing them in. It's probably what you tried anyway! 

[Roger2611]

I have had to open the holes up on a couple of scratchplates in the past, as @Paul S said not all pickups / pickup covers are the same size, I had to junk a set of cheap pickups that actually sounded quite good where the covers were glued on to the pickup as they were too big to fit any scratchplate I had!

One word of advice, don't drill any holes until you have test fitted everything (including the neck) together, I brought a really nice nitro finished body a few months ago where the builder had already fitted the scratchplate, by the time I had got the pots to fit in the cavity space and the neck sitting in the pocket correctly I had to re-drill all of the scratchplate holes!