Building strat pickup questions

[claptonfreak]

I'm building a classic 50's style Stratocaster and I am considering winding my own pickups but I have a few questions.

First, assuming that I use vintage spec parts like formvar wire, sand cast magnets, ect. and wind the pickups by hand, and wind them to the proper vintage specs, will they sound as good or better than ones I can buy such as fender 54 Custom Shop's.

And second, what is the best place to get formvar wire, and not 5 lbs of it from Mojotone, I just need enough to do a few pickups for now.

any help or advice is appreciated.

[J S Moore]

More than likely they will sound better. A good place to get wire is BAE Wire on E-bay. Small qantities at a not bad price.

BAE Wire

[achase4u]

BAE has small spools of formvar. I got 1.5 lbs from them.... about 50 bucks.

[greenfingers]

I'm guessing by your screen name and i may be wrong but are you wanting to build a 50's fender like Clapton's black strat? If you are you may want to wind the pickups with plain enamel to be more authentic to his pickups in that guitar.

[claptonfreak]

I'm guessing by your screen name and i may be wrong but are you wanting to build a 50's fender like Clapton's black strat? If you are you may want to wind the pickups with plain enamel to be more authentic to his pickups in that guitar.

I was actually just going for a regular 50's stratocaster, with a clapton V neck. I wasn't aware that Blackie had plain enamel pickups. I thought all fender pickups made in the 1950's and early 60's were formvar wire.

[greenfingers]

Your right, but apparently his ain't got the original pickups in. Blackie is a bit of a frankenstrat, It's made from the best bits of other strats.

[Spence]

This is a repro set I made from Clapton's Blackie.

[claptonfreak]

This is a repro set I made from Clapton's Blackie.

[ATTACH]4281[/ATTACH]

Neat, can you send me the specs, ect. that you used to make the guitar?

[David Schwab]

I was actually just going for a regular 50's stratocaster, with a clapton V neck.

V necks are really bad for proper hand position. Those are remnants from old parlor guitars where people would wrap their thumb over the fingerboard because the guitar was laying on an odd angle on their lap.

[claptonfreak]

V necks are really bad for proper hand position. Those are remnants from old parlor guitars where people would wrap their thumb over the fingerboard because the guitar was laying on an odd angle on their lap.

Actually I find that the right type of V makes it much easier for me to form barre chords, but I do have quite large hands.