software

I stripped out one of the screws on my pickup. When this happened I got metal shavings all over the pole pieces. Although, I think I got the shavings all off with tape, I think some may have got into the small crevice around the pole pieces. These are bass pickups, 1 humbucker and a 1 single coil.
If some metal is in there, will this effect the sound or performance of the pickup? Or, potentially damage the pickup in the future?
thanks for your help

SOme maniacs might warn about eddy currents, but I would not fret about this. Any damage would have to be from someone rubbing the shavings against the coils or insulation, not a likely case.

Only other thing I would worry about would be microphonics but even then, I doubt a tiny shaving has a resonant frequency.But, hey now you have an excuse to build a FREAKING POWERFUL ELECTRO-MAGNET and see if you can pull those shavings out of there. Wind 1000 windings of 600V 24-ga wire around some rebar amp; run it to the DC output of a Twin Reverb's rectifier tube (not really that would probably kill you if you screwed up and fry the tranny)

Safer route: If you are in CA go to the San Jose children's museum, they have a monster magnet from a radar set that could pull the eyelets outta your sneakers.

OK an exaggeration but you can drop a steel washer several inches away amp; watch it fly sideways into this thing...