Gibson BR-6 Pickup specs

[ab763]

I have a 52- 54 Gibson BR-6 pickup to rewind. Does any one have specs on this? Wire gauge, number of wraps, avg resistance. I would greatly appreciate any information. This thing is built like a P90 and is potted. Need to get as close to original as possible.

Thank you,
ab763

[Possum]

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Do you have any photos of it? When all else fails, mic the wire, find some wire as close as possible to that diameter, its going to be plain enamel wire. Use calipers and measure the diameter of the coil. Then wind to fill the same diameter of coil. If its lacquer potted, then brush on lacquer. P13's were lacquer potted but those were earlier, never seen a BR-6 pickup in person, would love to see some pix...

[ab763]

Gibson BR-6 pickup

Left it in the shop. I will photo and mic the wire tomorrow, and post. This is the main axe for an older pro musician here in Austin and I need to restore it as well as can be done. It is wax potted.
Thanks

[Electricdaveyboy]

Like This?
It is wound with pe

[Possum]

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I don't think Gibson ever wax potted any of their pickups until the 80s so someone else did it. Thats one beautiful pickup. I would be real careful about potting it, those old plastics often melt at real low temperatures. Mic the wire, but I think 10,000 winds was pretty standard for alot of those pre-P90 pickups too, if yours is like the photo its not really a P90 design, those are alnico rods, P90's have two bar magnets and pole screws. I would like to know if the wire is wound around the rods or if there is a core that the rods are sunk into, and would like to know if the baseplate is steel or zinc plated brass, if yours is different than the one in the photo. Also what diameter the poles are and how tall they are bottom to top?
If the wire is wrapped around the magnets it might be a good idea to wrap cellophane type tape around the magnets, as the coil could be dead because of rusting magnets, it would be hard to clean them if they're stuck in the flatwork.

[the great waldo]

I´d be carefull with laquer potting the formwork looks like it´s made of celluliod!

Cheers

Andrew

Do you have any photos of it? When all else fails, mic the wire, find some wire as close as possible to that diameter, its going to be plain enamel wire. Use calipers and measure the diameter of the coil. Then wind to fill the same diameter of coil. If its lacquer potted, then brush on lacquer. P13's were lacquer potted but those were earlier, never seen a BR-6 pickup in person, would love to see some pix...

[Possum]

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He should only lacquer pot if it originally was done that way. P13's were lacquer potted but the lacquer was brushed on, you see no lacquer anywhere but on the coil itself. So yeah you don't want to dunk that stuff into lacquer, and most likely it wasn't potted at all. P13 coils are not tape wrapped, if that pickup has tape on it, probably not potted. P13's are the only Gibson pickups I've ever seen that were potted.

[JGundry]

Like This?
It is wound with pe

I rewound one of these that was dead. It is basically P-90 with slugs. The baseplate looked nickel silver to me. The pole slugs protruded about .125" on either end of the bobbin. The center coil former is plastic with holes for the slugs and the top and bottom flanges are glued to the center coil former. It was wound with 42awg PE.

[Possum]

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One in the photo looks more than 1/8"
What diameter were the alnico rods? Any spacers on the bottom between the baseplate and bottom of the flatwork?

[ab763]

BR-6 Pickup

The pickup looks like the one in Electricdaveyboy,s photos excepted it is black. The bobbin has slugs extending either side as JGundry described with a base plate, 2 cast magnets, both have north facing the slugs and each with a thin wood spacer underneath.

After removing the black paper tape the wax only appears to be brushed on the surface and not soaked in to the coil. There are black and white leads, the white is the inside or start and is inserted through a hole drilled in bottom of the bobbin and must have been connected before the bobbin was wound.

The wire on the bobbin is measuring .0041 and I have checked this with my stock of 42pe which measures.0028 on the same L.S Starret mic. The wire is the came color as my usual 42pe from Wire Netics Co. which they call solderon red.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks AB763

[Possum]

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So those are actual steel slugs and not alnico rods? What diameter are the rods, 3/16? .0041" ??? Thats probably 38 gauge. Is the wire a sort of golden color?
Can you measure the length of the rods for me? If the wire is a golden color its heavy formvar. You can't use your PE to authentically rewind it if its 38 gauge wire. Total different tone will result. The bar magnets are typical humbucker size? 2.5" long x .50" wide x .133"
Usually there's 38 guage formvar on Ebay in small spools but don't see any there now unfortunately. Still would like to see photos of yours and the specs I mentioned above.

[Possum]

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I see now in the photos Davey posted they are steel slugs, you can see the lathe cutting cut off marks on the ends. Interesting...

[David King]

If it's really 38AWG spn on there wouldn't that indicate it was a rewind done by someone with only 38 on hand. I wonder what it sounds like wound like that?

[Possum]

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It could also be a type of enamel wire, some of the old stuff is very reddish. Don't forget that poly wire existed in the 50's too, though I think that pickup is probably from the 40's. Photos of the coil itself would help.

Jon what kind of wire was on the one you rewound?

Some of those old pickups weren't always one thing or the other, Charlie Christian pickups for instance were wound with 38 formvar but they were also wound with 42 PE in the later period they were made.

[Electricdaveyboy]

Yes,
mine is made like a p90 but has wider spacing.
The steelrods are 5 mm diameter not 4,7 mm.
No wax or laquer potting.