Hi. Long time lurker, first time poster.
I've got a few winds under my belt (been practicing with old dead plastic bobbin strat-knock off pups and a stew mac humbucker kit.) and have tried my hands at making my own flatwork bobbins with some success.
I'm a hobbiest guitar builder (more a "guitarpenter" than a "luthier") and I'd like to make some from scratch pickups for the two builds I have going - a bass and a guitar. (Both instruments are routed for standard pickup sizes, so if something goes horribly wrong, I can still purchase and mount aftermarket p'ups.)
Anyway, my question - I've got a set of six A5 rods for a strat style p'up. I was thinking at perhaps trying to make a humbucker, but with magnets as pole pieces rather than slugs and screws connected to a bar magnet below. Almost like two single coils, I suppose. I remember having a pickup built like this once and really enjoying the sound of it.
However, I've only got 6 magnets. I do have some steel humbucker-style slugs, however. I'm wondering if I can't use these as the pole pieces in the second coil, and make a steel spacer of sorts to connect the magnetic field from the A5 rods to the slugs.
Am I totally off-base here?
Do I misunderstand the way the magnetic fields would work in this instance?
Would this just sound terrible?
How large a piece of steel do I need to use? Could I cut something from a medium gauge ferrous sheet metal, or should I really use rod stock?
Just to make this interesting, this is going to be sized to fit in a P-90 route. I have enough wire kicking around right now, that even if this works out to be total bunk, I'm okay just building or buying something normal and chalking this up to experience.
I'm not shooting for a particular sound right now, just "not awful". Although I'd like something with a little bit more chime than a standard 'bucker.
I tried searching through the boards here, which has answered most questions I've had in the past, as I'm sure this has probably been covered before; but this is one of those subjects where the search terms end up being vague enough I'm having a hard time finding an applicable thread. If someone can point me to where this has been covered before, I'd gladly appreciate it!
I've got a few winds under my belt (been practicing with old dead plastic bobbin strat-knock off pups and a stew mac humbucker kit.) and have tried my hands at making my own flatwork bobbins with some success.
I'm a hobbiest guitar builder (more a "guitarpenter" than a "luthier") and I'd like to make some from scratch pickups for the two builds I have going - a bass and a guitar. (Both instruments are routed for standard pickup sizes, so if something goes horribly wrong, I can still purchase and mount aftermarket p'ups.)
Anyway, my question - I've got a set of six A5 rods for a strat style p'up. I was thinking at perhaps trying to make a humbucker, but with magnets as pole pieces rather than slugs and screws connected to a bar magnet below. Almost like two single coils, I suppose. I remember having a pickup built like this once and really enjoying the sound of it.
However, I've only got 6 magnets. I do have some steel humbucker-style slugs, however. I'm wondering if I can't use these as the pole pieces in the second coil, and make a steel spacer of sorts to connect the magnetic field from the A5 rods to the slugs.
Am I totally off-base here?
Do I misunderstand the way the magnetic fields would work in this instance?
Would this just sound terrible?
How large a piece of steel do I need to use? Could I cut something from a medium gauge ferrous sheet metal, or should I really use rod stock?
Just to make this interesting, this is going to be sized to fit in a P-90 route. I have enough wire kicking around right now, that even if this works out to be total bunk, I'm okay just building or buying something normal and chalking this up to experience.
I'm not shooting for a particular sound right now, just "not awful". Although I'd like something with a little bit more chime than a standard 'bucker.
I tried searching through the boards here, which has answered most questions I've had in the past, as I'm sure this has probably been covered before; but this is one of those subjects where the search terms end up being vague enough I'm having a hard time finding an applicable thread. If someone can point me to where this has been covered before, I'd gladly appreciate it!
Comment