Mini Humbucker Parts

[zparts]

Hello All,

I am working on getting mini humbucker parts right now and I am missing one important ingredient. Does any one have a picture of the metal bars inside the bobbin? I know those are in one side of the pickup but I can't find any pictures. Also I can't seem to find any info about using keeper bars in those? I assume they didn't. Its been years since I looked inside of one. I wish I had recorded everything. Any help is greatly appreciated. Before long I will be stocking all of the parts including nickel silver baseplates. It has been a year long challenge and now I am seeing the light! Still no lipstick parts though. Thanks....

David Shepherd
Mojo Musical Supply

[Possum]

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David, check with Jason lollar or Curtis Novak, Curtis usually has alot of photos of different pickups he's repaired on his website, Lollar probably has a mini around he could photo for you....

[belwar]

Hello All,

I am working on getting mini humbucker parts right now and I am missing one important ingredient. Does any one have a picture of the metal bars inside the bobbin? I know those are in one side of the pickup but I can't find any pictures. Also I can't seem to find any info about using keeper bars in those? I assume they didn't. Its been years since I looked inside of one. I wish I had recorded everything. Any help is greatly appreciated. Before long I will be stocking all of the parts including nickel silver baseplates. It has been a year long challenge and now I am seeing the light! Still no lipstick parts though. Thanks....

David Shepherd
Mojo Musical Supply

I have a 60's mini bucker somewhere in a drawer. e-mail me tommorow belwar@nicholles.com and i'll send you a picture. All it is is a steel rectangular block. Allparts sells them off the sheet, and I believe they come from Hosco/ Keiyo.. but really you could have a machine shop make you a ton for pennies. I haven't had it anylsed, but knowing gibson, its gonna be basic 1018 steel.

The hard part to get right is the screw. No one currently gets close. You'd have to have a batch made to spec.

[Possum]

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Guitar Jones shows pole screws for minis on his site, are they wrong?

[David Schwab]

I found these pictures someone posted here once.

[Peter Naglitsch]

Have a look at this thread:
http://music-electronics-forum.com/t9875/#post77917
Lots av pic here. Including some De luxe style minis I made from Allparts parts. So yeah, no keeper bar, screws threaded into the base plate:

the baseplate, screw and bar assembly:

and just before the cover goes on:

I you look closely on the bar inside the bobbin you see that it is a tiny bit too short. That IMO look and feel less than ok, but in the end the sound is great so I'm not the one to say that it is whrong, it just looks that way...

Anyway the measurements for the Allstars bar is 51.65x8.60x3.25mm or 2.0335x0.3386x0.1280". To fit those Asian bobbins I sent you a link to a while ago they can be as long as 53.55mm or 2.1083" and as wide as 9.60mm or 0.3780"

Do you need any more measurement? If so I can provide them.

BTW, Those minis David showed are Firebird minis. They use two bar magnets magnetically coupeld with a ferrous shim beneth the bobbins, meaning they are a completely different beast than the deluxe version. But can anyone tell me what that small piece of sheet metal is doing on top of the coils. I would have thought that a piece of metal (if ferous) in that place would "short circuit" the magnetic field

Anyway, first time I seen seem really good shots from inside Firebird minis. Thanks a lot David.

[Joe Gwinn]

If you look closely at the bar inside the bobbin you see that it is a tiny bit too short. That IMO looks and feels less than ok, but in the end the sound is great so I'm not the one to say that it is wrong, it just looks that way...

One thing strikes me. Although the big gap was probably just an accident of production, it's best to have a long heavy steel blade be just a little loose in the bobbin along the long direction, because of the mismatch of temperature coefficients of steel and plastic, and perhaps copper. (Humidity variation may also matter.) A little softness or give goes a long way in keeping things from tearing themselves apart from temperature and humidity cycling.

[zparts]

Thanks all! I really appreciate the input. Hopefully I can get the ball rolling soon. Like I said its been a year long challenge and it seems to be finally happening. Feel free to contact me david@mojotone.com for any questions.

Regards,

David Shepherd

[Possum]

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I recently saw someone carrying the P90 covers that hold the mini-buckers, does anyone know who that is by chance? It'd be great to have the mini parts availalbe, they're not my favorite but some like them. The first Les Paul I ever had was the Deluxe back in '72, never did like that guitar, so I removed the pickups, hacked out a bigger rout with a chisel and bought some Gibson replacement buckers, man those things were awful, really dull sounding, got rid of that guitar.....probably worth a fortune now...

[Peter Naglitsch]

Would have been with the minis still there...

[David Schwab]

I recently saw someone carrying the P90 covers that hold the mini-buckers, does anyone know who that is by chance?

You know I was just thinking about something like that. I'm going to build myself a Paul, and was thinking about the pickups. I want humbuckers, but was thinking those P-90 size humbuckers would be cool, like the ones DiMarzio makes. And no mounting rings. I hate wobbly pickups. So I thought about getting some P-90 covers with no holes and making a humbucker to fit in them.

It'd be great to have the mini parts availalbe, they're not my favorite but some like them. The first Les Paul I ever had was the Deluxe back in '72, never did like that guitar, so I removed the pickups, hacked out a bigger rout with a chisel and bought some Gibson replacement buckers, man those things were awful, really dull sounding, got rid of that guitar.....probably worth a fortune now...

Yeah, I know other people who did that too. My friend tells me that he heard that Gibson used the mini buckers in the Pauls because they had ordered too many parts and had to use them up.

GuitarJones has them, but we don't know what's going on with GJ, do we? Anybody talk to them lately?

Here's one of the Pauls (with the top carve roughed out) we are making at the shop. This is my friend's, mine is next.

[belwar]

I've got secveral of mini mounting rings from korea david s, pm me your address and ill send you a set. They are black. Pretty nice looking

[David King]

I recently saw someone carrying the P90 covers that hold the mini-buckers, does anyone know who that is by chance?

Not sure about that but I've seen P90 covers that have a hole in them to fit a firebird pickup. That was Jason Lollar who made them or had them made. I've been making a wooden version of the same for Jim Soloway guitars.

[Possum]

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OK, it was AllParts who has the mini pickup mounts in creme. Cool, hope David can pull this together, it'd be nice to have something new/vintage to make, and do them better than the old ones....

[Zhangliqun]

What I'd like to know is where to get some mount screws that work with the GJ mini baseplates.