OneDamNote Yes, knowing just how LONG it can take to run down a pickup issue would help customers see why a "simple repair" could cost as much as buying a new pickup. Those with vintage guitars & pickups generally understand the time/cost issue and are willing to pay. Those with recent OEM pickups need to be educated about the true cost of handwork (custom winding, rebuilds, etc.) so they stop trying to haggle over the cost/value of my time. You are correct--I need to make my own video about the steps it takes to 1) track down a pickup problem, 2) building a custom pickup from scratch.
+Kirk Janowiak If you want to know what to charge, first figure out what your hourly overhead runs. It isn't worth the same amount everywhere you go even if the quality is the same. In my shop I have little overhead because it's a paid for old downtown building and I live upstairs and am semi-retired. Weigh that with the amount of demand that I have. In my area there is little demand for a job as this compared to the every day stuff I take in. Also I stay as busy as I like but here, it's not repairs all day every day. If you have a shop where you're full 24/7 then you have to decide what you have time for and you'd be foolish to charge less per hour than the volume you already have. If you get too busy, then you gotta raise prices to thin out the work load a little bit or raise prices to hire some help. Being too busy is as bad as not having enough work. Anytime a job takes time away from another project that you could be making more money on, you have to raise the price or it isn't worth doing. If you aren't set up with the equipment and you seldom have a call for this, then the price has to go up to cover your investment. If it's unreasonable though, then you'll never get a rewind job because it's cheaper to find a 1966 pickup and replace it with original. You can't charge the entire investment to your first customer to get your investment back. Figure out your overhead per hour and adjust for your time and expertise and material markup. In this case, the winding wire. If you never get a call for this kind of repair but want to carry the equipment, then advertise for the service. You'd be surprised how many people want a custom wound pickup in addition to pickup repairs as well as how far away they'll drive or mail to get good service. So how much is it? I don't know, too many variables and I only know my own LOL!
This video is more about diagnosing and reconstruction of a pickup. No need for a sound sample, im sure everyone watching this knows what a old-school fender single coil sounds like
Was it just me or was that nerve wracking. I know shit about pick ups but when he started to cut all that original wire away with that craft knife I broke into a cold sweat. Nice job in the end. I'd love to learn all this chap knows and be doing this for a living. Love watching the Stew Mac videos. Very meditative.
I was always told that the cursory lacquer dip was to prevent corrosion between the magnet poles and the coil - so if that low E pole had rusted all the way down the lacquer helped to seal the parts. Interesting and obviously very time consuming work, thanks for letting us see you dissect an older pickup! Interesting that it was NOT wax potted, probably pretty live and microphonic?
I would like to see the wire ends joined at the solder points. also, a view of the meter would have been nice. also a count of the wind would have been informative.
There's an average number of turns Fender used to do for each guitar model; people have documented this kind of stuff. 1966 Tele bridge pu's had about 7600-7800 turns of wire around the coil.
+David Olenick right! If I had to live on what most people want to pay for fixing their gear, I would be eating weeds and drinking rain water. There is little respect for electronic repair and the knowledge, skills and equipment needed to do a proper job, that is why there are so few repair techs around anymore, just no money in it...
+David Olenick if it were only that easy! Most people don't want to pay virtually anything to get their gear fixed, the basic view is that repair techs just aren't worth much more than minimum wage, you can earn more as a luthier than as an e-tech. It's like "I don't see it how can it be much money for that little part" whereas for a luthier its "I see the difference so I understand the cost". I really appreciate these Stew-Mac articles, Dan is just so talented and a fountain of knowledge and is worth whatever he charges, amp techs OTOH just don't get that level of respect in my experience.
I notice you did not scrape off the rusted pole. Any reason for leaving it rusted? just got a 1965 Hagstrom 1, and was rubbing the rust off the pole pieces pressing hard (heavily rusted), I discovered the poles are not one solid piece, as a small metal cap on two poles broke loose. The top part is actually a little steel cap that is glued onto the pole underneath. Apparently the rubbing alcohol I used to free the rust dissolved the glue. This happened on only these two two pole pieces (the 3rd and 4th). I cleaned the old glue off, and put a tiny pinch of super glue (with pressure overnight) to secure the two caps. (I assume all the poles have caps, but did not want to disturb the rest). Have you ever seen pickups made this way, with metal caps fixed on top of each pole? They were magnetized. If you put them upside down, they would repulse, but the correct way, and it they fit right back in place. They work fine, but I'm curious nevertheless if this strange construction is unique to Hagstrom, or are other pickups made like this...
A really interesting video, for all of us who not only love our guitars, but also like to know about the workings and the guts of the beasties. Thank you!
Great video! Only addition I would have done was write the date that you rewound the pickup on the OG tape. In another 50 years, that would have been valuable info! Also, instead of dipping the pickup in lacquer prior to winding, could you do it with wax?
The primary function of the lacquer in that case is to create an isolating layer in the pole pieces, preventing it to create a short in the wire. Wax wouldn't work as well, it's just too soft.
I know it would have been satisfying after watching it go through all that but he only got sent the pick up. He would need a whole guitar to do a sound test. He may not own a Tele.
Pickup would very probably pass the sound test on guitar. Even dead pups can play, but sound weak and thin, with tone control they lose the power very quickly. Have the same experience with single pups on vintage Mustang. They worked but were very weak. What makes me wonder is why he didn't unwinded whole pickup by hand? Great opportunity to learn something about pickup winding technique from 66 Telly ;-)
+Mo jek if you want to learn something *good & useful* about pickup winding technique study the Dimarzio x2n , G&L Z-coil pickup and try to combine this designs .
Hello Erick, I am Paul HendriX from Pauls Pickup Place, www.Hendrixpickups.nl in the Netherlands, please excuse my bad grammar. Thank you for sharing this video it is nice to see the same movements that I perform when repairing pickups. I respect to see you first heat up the solder joints and unwind the coil, to see if the pickup can be rescued. My question to you is: PE wire is beautiful, speaking of vintage materials, but it often causes a mall coil, I noticed in my shop. Scraping off insulation, to be able to solder, already damages the wire. This of course is well known to you. But do you happen to know of a way to reduce this damage in the first place. I already use solder which has copper in it, it repairs the the wire a little. Thanks for your time, kind regards Paul.
Nice video, but definitely under wound for most 1966 Tele bridge pickups. Most were in the upper 6s for that year. Before doing all this, did you check to see if the pole pieces simply needed to be re-magnetized?
No need to destroy an original 1966 pickup...99.99% of that wire is perfectly fine....... Next time apply some heat from a heat gun, once the coil is hot use your coil winder to UNWIND the existing wire onto a blank spool until you get down to the break... Repair the break and varnish the repair..then re-wind the original wire back with the proper tension... Measure the before and after winding capacitance to make sure you match it to keep it sounding the same...The capacitance is integral for the Q and resonant frequency...
It will vary a bit from one pickup to the next, but most Telecaster pickups will have somewhere between 4000-5000 feet of wire wrapped around the bobbin.
11 лет назад
Isn't it kind of necessary to count the wraps in order to replicate the original or is there a regular turn number to be applied depending on the year of production and model?
Sorry, I meant '65 onwards were machine wound. I have '65 Strat set in here 2 years ago that had both CBS and pre-CBS pickups, a transitional set. The CBS grey bottoms were all machine wound and the formvar Leo era was hand wound....
Is there a way to measure the DC resistance as you wind? So you know when you've reached your target? Is it safe to scrape off a little insulation of the wire periodically, to use as a test point? (I'd think it should be, as long as you put enough layers between test points so there's no chance they could contact each other.) Or do you just know roughly how many winds you need to achieve a certain resistance? I suppose another way would be to intentionally over-wind, then remove winds and keep testing periodically until you hit your desired resistance. A waste of wire though.
the people asking for a sound test are getting on my nerves. there are many, MANY videos that you can go and listen to a 60s fender single coil, which BTW, I'm sure almost everyone here knows what a fender single coil sounds like. go type that into the search and be quiet. This video was clearly about deconstructing and rewinding a pickup, theres plenty other videos/records you can hear the sound of a single coil
1966 - 2013 ..47 yrs old.. I'm 47 now and feel nearly dead '' smoke to much"..making a little bit of sound but not much ..dm depressed now :(... glad u didn't wax it...it makes pickups sound null
after viewing a few others on this subject, the finish end was soldered to the black, ground, lead wire. Don't understand the difference, while on this one the finish is soldered to the white lead wire, regards,
So, if you reflowed the pickup wires a little longer and added more solder your problem would have been solved without having to unwind the pickup, which gave it it's classic sound in the first place... ?
There could have been issues with the magnets. and reguarless of age. one wrap of pickup coil tape around the magnets will protect the wire even better from rustor ? but overall a great vid. thanks
how many rounds and what gauge of the wire was? this is like show how to get 4th street and direction is like go there about and you guess the town and country???
What is the point in doing that? If you can't save original pickup just tell the customer to buy a new one. Cutting original bobin is death to that originality.
I'm a bit baffled because I could swear Erick says as he peals the base plate off "I can see the tape holding the pole pieces in". As far as I know the magnet poles are held in place by their interference fit with the holes in the flatware, having been forced in under pressure. I'm guessing the purpose of the piece of tape can only be to insulate the poles from the grounded baseplate. I suspect that if the poles are grounded it increases the pickups self capacitance, moving the self resonance down in frequency, so the pickup looses some sparkle.
haii thanks for video, may i know how can i get data the number of windings high output pickup like bill lawrence L500xL or another that have output resistance 17k
very nice and informative! a bit surprised your using an old pump solder sucker instead of a Hakko 808 or Aoyue desoldering iron, required in the shop.
Jak widzę te dzisiejsze lutownice ze spiczastym,stalowym grotem oraz lutowie bez kalafonii to od razu nerwicy dostaję. Porządne lutownice jakie bywały dawniej posiadały grot z miedzi zaś lutowie (stop cyny i ołowiu) posiadało w środku kalafonię i wtedy takim sprzętem można było komfortowo pracować. Dzisiaj taką lutownicą można jedynie smarkać, a nie lutować zaś jednocześnie nerwy stracić. Natomiast przetworniki do gitar elektr. nawijałem na zwykłym gramofonie 50 lat temu ... Wtedy to były czasy .
+Wutipong Wongsakuldej he said it was erratic but no mention of inductance and resistance values as opposed to the other pickups values .this may give insight where the problem is
I don’t think it matters how many winds. It’s more like that it should be within a certain measurement readings on the multi meter. He said around mid 5 k range. It’s probably not going to sound exactly like the original but same flavor.
people who know pickups know better than I do so take this with a grain of salt but as I understand it the amount of winds around the coil correlates to the resistance of the pickup so someone might simply eyeball it and then test the resistance of the pickup afterwards or buy a fancy pickup winder that counts the amount of winds you've done. Theres more too it than that but thats round about the basics as I understand them
I wanted to hear it as well, but he must ship the pickup back to it's owner ... he doesn't have the guitar. I had a 65' once upon a time ... sure wish I had it back.
I recently tried to resolder lead wires to my ‘90’s Strat pickup but one side of the coil wire broke. Took one wind off the coil to reconnect but of course forgot to remove insulation so didn’t work. How do you remove insulation from such a fine wire without breaking?
I guarantee you he checked the Gauss of the magnets before rewinding. They don't always show every single thing they try in the videos, and even then the only way the pickup wouldn't make sound at all is if *several* of the poles became demagnetized, which is incredibly unlikely. If just one or two became demagnetized there would still be a weak sound coming out of the pickup rather than no sound at all.
Oooohh. Every time you touched the point of your X-acto to the coil wire, I felt an actual jolt up and through my spine. (I've never been afraid to do things to any of my guitars that others called insane, but it's been years since I actually jabbed, sliced, or drilled into anything that could be called 'vintage'. So now that I'm headed into my own 'Vintage' years, maybe it's just that I've become 'tele'-pathic with the axe's silent screams out into the ether... OUCH! Or maybe it's just me!
+Obsoe Hollerith - vintage and broken is still broken... I mean, if your leg was broke, you'd fix it wouldn't you, no matter how old and vintage you were...?
I was expecting a diagnosis first, lacking that, I was horrified as he was touching the coil with the knife... but, it seems, he was determined to rewind it anyway
No. Since it wasn't potted before, he didn't pot the rebuild. He mentioned that some Fender pickups of this era "snuck out of the factory unpotted". He just maintained the authenticity of the rebuild by not doing so.
Were it wax you can warm it with a good hot lamp and uncoil the string easily. Were it lacquer, you're pretty much SOL. You mmiiighhtt be able to use a little lacquer thinner brushed on, but it'll most likely wreck a bit of your outer windings.
Mostly through documents noting the number or winds when the pickup was created, and from people who have taken the time to meticulously unwrap the entire length of wire from pickups. You can also measure the resistance of a given length of pickup coil wire and the overall resistance of the pickup and extrapolate the approximate number of winds from that information. Here's a link to a document listing the typical number of winds for a few common picks at the bottom of the page. www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/i-2105/i-2105.pdf
Your pickup is microphonic. which is why you're hearing the sound of you touching it with your pick. The most likely culprit is a loose spot in the coil. This isn't always a bad thing, some player prefer it. You can always have a repair shop re-pot the pickup or try it yourself. www.stewmac.com/video-and-ideas/online-resources/learn-about-guitar-pickups-and-electronics-and-wiring/none-of-your-beeswax-potting-pickups-with-paraffin-.html
It's not glued on; it simply falls away. With potted pickups, the varnish or wax does 'glue' it to the bottom flatwork, but it's easily popped off without damage by slipping a knife blade in.
To start winding, you run the copper wire through an eyelet in the pickup's fiber base. Turn by hand for 6-10 wraps to ensure that the wire won't be pulled off the bobbin when you start the motor. Tele pickups are usually wound counterclockwise.