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Thread: the first pup i've made.

  1. #1
    Forum Member chuckocaster's Avatar
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    the first pup i've made.

    well, rebuilt really. i took a peavey sc i had laying around from a trade and stripped the wire off of it. after some inspection it looked good to me. i've known and hung out with several pickup makers, so from what i have gleaned i deemed the pup as a worthy rebuild candidate. my buddy jim helped me out and also let me use his shop, too cool on his part. after 15 minutes on "slow" i got 'er done. loose on the windings, yeah, but i was able to get the pup to 7k. slapped her in the new MIM and played some. decent sound, not killer; but not bad for a first attempt. by the way, jim wound the last 2 minutes on the coil to fix some "boo boos" i had...

    here she is though. don't know how exciting it is, but it was a challenge and quite a bit of fun.

    "don't worry, i'm a professional!"

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    Forum Member Cygnus X1's Avatar
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    Re: the first pup i've made.

    GoJo will fix those hands....the chicks hate dirty fingernails...

    So, details...I have some pups to play with, along with some old VCR analog counters. And some copper wire. Should I just unwind some junk pups, and rewind them? How many turns should I shoot for...at what gauge...for a hot pup to start with?
    Or for a Danelectro jangly pup?

  3. #3
    Forum Member chuckocaster's Avatar
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    Re: the first pup i've made.

    my hands had already been gojo'd twice, "i guess there's somethings, that water just can't clean." (one of my songs)

    we used 42 gauge wire, and jim has a lathe converted to a pickup winder. the speed control was set to "3", don't know how fast that actually is, but he usually winds on 5 or 6.

    the funny thing is, as fast as 3 seemed to me, it was dreadfully slow for jim. from what i've learned, your first winds are going to be loose, and aren't going to sound so good. i'm personally not too interested in winding pickups, it's fun to talk with the guys who do, but i'd rather stick with what i do.

    as for those old pickups, rewind them. there are a lot of variables that come into play: tightness of the wind, gauge of wire, magnet composition, height of coil, width of coil, wire composition.

    usually, people start winding on a converted sewing machine cause it already has a speed control built in. i felt weird while winding the coil because I had to control the tension of the wire. which meant how hard i held it while also controlling the downward pressure on it.

    i'm sure you can rig up something with those VCR parts to make a counter. that would be much more accurate than a stopwatch.
    "don't worry, i'm a professional!"

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    Forum Member music-n-motorcycle's Avatar
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    Re: the first pup i've made.

    Very cool stuff here. I thought about doing some winding, then I thought naaaaahhhh.
    4:20, my favorite time of day.

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    Forum Member Gris's Avatar
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    Re: the first pup i've made.

    I'm an old hand - have unwound many PUs. But all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put those PUs back together again!

    Definitely something I'd like to learn just so I could make weird PUs to try in my Tele - something like the things that live in my lap steels...

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    Forum Member yankeerob's Avatar
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    Re: the first pup i've made.

    I used to routinely take a 1000 windings off the middle pup on the old 70's grey fibre bobbin strats to get an even thinner sound on the in between positions - particularly when used with hot bridge pups like the old SDS-1 - found it was useful on it's own when I wanted a jangly rhythm sound too - full marks for having a go!
    If I could find a road to get away it wouldn't be too soon....... Shipwreck Moon.......

  7. #7
    Forum Member chuckocaster's Avatar
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    Re: the first pup i've made.

    thanks guys.

    funny yankeerob, my favorite strat middle pup was one that i pulled out of my 78 musicmaster bass, i think it read 5.8k or so. i had that in my 50's ri MIM strat. it really did sound great, i always called it my "james brown" pup.
    "don't worry, i'm a professional!"

  8. #8
    Forum Member Gris's Avatar
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    Re: the first pup i've made.

    How did that work? Were there only four pole pieces?

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    Forum Member chuckocaster's Avatar
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    Re: the first pup i've made.

    no, what fender did was use the musicmaster/duosonic pup from the time, which is in essence a flat pole strat pup. they aren't wound hot, mine read 5.8k or so. what fender did was use a guitar pickup in a bass, and to hide the fact they put that cover with no holes on it. a lot like early ric basses, those toaster top neck pups are the same as what they used on the guitars. very strange and not "correct", but they sound good in their respective purposes. the fender pup sounds great in guitars, and the ricky on bass sounds amazing. my 73 ric has the deepest neck pup sound i've ever heard on a bass, and that's with owning an sg bass.

    those fender flat pole pups are pretty great. search them out, they should still be a good deal, even on the bay.
    "don't worry, i'm a professional!"

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    Forum Member yankeerob's Avatar
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    Re: the first pup i've made.

    Funny - I had a guy give me an old fibre bobbin Tele neck pup - I'm pretty sure it wasn't a Fender but it'd already had the cover removed - he knew I was into faffing about with pups and had it lying around gathering dust so he just tossed it at me one day and said 'see what you make of this'... well it was amazing - not hot or anything just great tone... and I know precisely what you mean by 'James Brown pup' - I used that pup on virtually every rhythm track I recorded for about - geez - 7 or 8 yrs? - I used it in about 3 or 4 different Strats during that time - always in the neck and I always took it back out and put the original back in when I sold them on... unfortunately it bit the dust after one too many transplants - but it proves the point - no brand - great tone...
    If I could find a road to get away it wouldn't be too soon....... Shipwreck Moon.......

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