Overwinding Gibson Blues-90 pickups

[Robert M. Martinelli]

Hi all,
Just got myself another toy

Luckily my wife didn't change our home's lock when I told her I was going to buy another guitar, so I still have a roof above me and a place to keep my guitars and amps .

Anyway....

The baby's a 1998 Gibson Blueshawk, she's a nice guitar, she's light, and I like very much the way she sounds.

But.....( don't know why there's always a "but" )...

A friend of mine owns a '65 Epiphone Casino, with "dogear" P90s, which I like very much, so ( I know, I know, don't tell me, I'm incorrigible ) I started thinking about modding my Blueshawk to get ( also ) a more "P-90ish" sound out of her.

Though the Blues-90 is built differently ( for starters it has six AlNiCo rods instead of a magnet bar ) I thought I could get closer to a P-90 by over-winding the pickups, keeping the current "end" as a "tap" to be switched by means of a supplementary Push-Pull ( volume ) pot ( the Push-Pull on the tone pot switches the Vari-tone on and off ) to go back to "stock" conditions when needed.

AFAIK Blues-90s are wound using PE AWG 42, and I have calculated I need to add some 3000-3200 windings to get closer to the electrical constants of a P90, anyway, I look forward to hearing your ( Possum, David, Mike, Spence and all of our other most knowledgeable fellows ) opinions on the matter.

TIA to all who will spend some of their precious time to comment on this.

Best regards

Bob

[Spence]

I'd be astonished if they are wound with Plain Enamel coated wire for starters.
They'll never sound like a P90 because of those slugs, probably more like Jazzmasters. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[Possum]

....

Don't those have a dummy coil in the wiring harness for hum cancelling? Traditional winds for vintage P90s was 10,000 winds, this gives you about 8k. MOst vintage P90's were all wound the same 10,000 winds. They have slugs? You might think about just making regular P90s bobbins and just completely replacing the pickups and see what happens. I like my bridge pickups alot hotter and neck a couple hundred winds under vintage stock.....

[belwar]

I did a fair number of tests when winding P90's.. The higher DCR I wound to, the farther away from a p-90 sound it got.

There is alot of metal in a P-90 jacking up its inductance, and possum is right.. without all that metal and pole screws, its just not going to sound the same. You might be surprised how P-90's in the mid 7 kohms sound.

EDIT: Oops Sorry - It was spence.

[Possum]

...

Historically though there WAS a round pole piece P90, though the pole pieces were magnets not steel rods...

[David Schwab]

I did a fair number of tests when winding P90's.. The higher DCR I wound to, the farther away from a p-90 sound it got.

I agree. I used to have an old Gibson ES-330TD with chrome dog ears. That was a wonderful sounding guitar. I really loved the neck pickup. It was alike a big fat Strat neck tone... nice and hollow. In the mid 70's someone gave me a set of P-90s from an SG. He had me install humbuckers.

So I put one of those P-90's in my LP copy at the neck, and it sounded like poop. The pickups in the SG were around 9K and the ones in the 330 were 8K, so I unwound some wire to get it down to 8K, and it sounded great, just like the 330's pickups.

Incidentally, the 330's pickups didn't have the regular P-90 baseplates. They just sat under the covers with some foam rubber under them. I don't recall them having baseplates at all. I've never looked at any other dog ears up close, but that seemed odd. It was probably because the 330 was hollow, and didn't have the center block like the 335. So the pickup sat right on the guitar's top, and weren't in a rout.

[Robert M. Martinelli]

Thanks for your comments!

I thought about switching to "real" P90s, but that way I'd be losing the guitar's original "voice", and this was the reason why I was intentioned to make the winding taps switchable...not to mention that installing new pickups is not as funny as modding the thing myself .

Don't worry Belwar, I don't want to go very far with the additional windings....as Possum and David said, I'd like the pickups to be in the 8KOhm range ( they now are both 5,5KOhm ). BTW, Possum is right, there indeed is a dummy coil for hum canceling reasons, but I want to cut it out when in "P90 mode"....just to add some "vintage" hum .

As Spence Said, nothing ventured, nothing gained.....As soon as I'll be able to spare some time for myself, I' ll try and see what happens...I'll measure the electric constants before and after the cure, and post the results for all to see ( and, maybe, some sound samples showcasing my crappy playing style ).

Cheers

Bob

[David Schwab]

I'd leave the original pickup stock, and make a new one.

[Robert M. Martinelli]

I'd leave the original pickup stock, and make a new one.

Hmmmmm........

David, you're tempting me.....and I MEAN IT!

Well....I guess it all depends on how much time I manage to spare for myself.....I'll let you all know....

Cheers

Bob