Univox Pickup?

[ken]

Hello,

I have a Univox semihollow here from the 1960's or early '70s.

The pickup is DOA.

Has anyone repaired these before?

Thank you,
Ken

[Sweetfinger]

Which pickup? Those things had several different styles over the years- A couple different single coil designs and a small Hofner-ish mini-humbucker, as well as a full size humbucker with characteristically flat-topped adjustable poles.
They'll all disassemble easily and the vintage police aren't going to come after you if you rewind with a different guage wire. You might want to wax dip, as one of the hallmarks of all those pickups is a nasty microphonic squeal even at low volumes!

[ken]

These look like full size humbuckers in nice chromed covers, and have adjustable poles, but where the slugs in the slug pole bobbin would normally be are six large rectangular poles that stick up through the cover. So, you have a row of six round adjustable screw poles and a row under that of six square solid poles.

I am going to take it apart later today.

Ken

[RedHouse]

These look like full size humbuckers in nice chromed covers, and have adjustable poles, but where the slugs in the slug pole bobbin would normally be are six large rectangular poles that stick up through the cover. So, you have a row of six round adjustable screw poles and a row under that of six square solid poles.

I am going to take it apart later today.

Ken

Sounds like Teisco style pickups.

[David Schwab]

Like these pickups?



They look like Maxon pickups. I had a Sekovia with the same pickups, but with solid covers. The studs are actually two steel plates with notches cut into them.

Some people pay a lot of money for the Maxon pickups in the Greco guitars.

[Peter Naglitsch]

Some people pay a lot of money for the Maxon pickups in the Greco guitars.

They do? If so I'll put up a buch of them on E-bay I've ripped a lot them Maxon pickups out of decent playing but terrible sounding guitars.

[ken]

David, if you put chrome covers on the pickups in your photo you would have the ones on this Univox.

What exactly do these pickups consist of? Are they 'real' buckers or those fake singlecoils in big covers?

Ken

[David Schwab]

That's not my guitar... it was on a Univox site.

I had a Sekovia LP Custom copy with similar pickups. They are humbuckers. Mine had transparent nylon bobbins. They had gold covers originally. Both bobbins had a rectangular opening. The "studs" were two sheets of steel together, and cut into a comb type pattern, with the "teeth" of the comb as the studs. The screw side had a steel keeper that the screws threaded into, and there was a bar magnet between the "studs" and the screw keeper.

I took the covers off and had to use some electrical tape to stop the bobbins from falling out. Everything was held together with this brown rubbery glue.

Some of the later Univoxes had the same pickups, with clear fronts on the covers. I have a High Flyer Mosrite copy like that.

[Sweetfinger]

Those are the ones I referred to as "Hofner" style.

here's a picture of the sorta translucent covered full-size humbuckers that heads this VG article on Univox:
Vintage Guitar® magazine : Features :

And here is one of the finest things ever done with a Univox:
YouTube - Magic Sam All Your Love and Sam's Boogie
If you're familiar with how these guitars and pickups sound, you can recognize that quality in this clip. I used to think those pickups were crappy, but in my later years I've realized that they have their own cool thing going on, and when stuffed into one of those early LP copies with the floating top, its a sound you can't quite get from anything else.
...Yes, that's Buddy Miles on drums.

[RedHouse]

Those are the ones I referred to as "Hofner" style.

here's a picture of the sorta translucent covered full-size humbuckers that heads this VG article on Univox:
Vintage Guitar® magazine : Features :

And here is one of the finest things ever done with a Univox:
YouTube - Magic Sam All Your Love and Sam's Boogie
If you're familiar with how these guitars and pickups sound, you can recognize that quality in this clip. I used to think those pickups were crappy, but in my later years I've realized that they have their own cool thing going on, and when stuffed into one of those early LP copies with the floating top, its a sound you can't quite get from anything else.
...Yes, that's Buddy Miles on drums.

Nice clip, I just love that first number. The second tune although a boogie was weirdly reminiscent (to me) of the kind of vibe Mark Knoffler was getting on Money For Nothing.

The pickups look different though, at about 4:00 into the clip there are some close ups of the neck pickup which doesn't look like the pickups with the square steel poles stiking up through the cover.

...if you put chrome covers on the pickups in your photo you would have the ones on this Univox....

Sorry, I thought you said the steel poles stick up through the covers.

[David Schwab]

The pickups look different though, at about 4:00 into the clip there are some close ups of the neck pickup which doesn't look like the pickups with the square steel poles stiking up through the cover.

The ones I had didn't stick through the cover either, but were clearly the same design. It only had the round screw poles sticking through the cover.

I guess they had different variations.

[RedHouse]

The ones I had didn't stick through the cover either, but were clearly the same design. It only had the round screw poles sticking through the cover.

I guess they had different variations.

I can't find my pic's of the old Teisco that had those same pickups, I may have lost them in the great HD crash of 2000. The ones you linked to are exactly like the ones I remember (mine had no covers either)