Fender Wide Range buckers

[Zhangliqun]

...like on the Tele Customs circa '72.

Anyone know the construction of these? I've heard they are pretty much just two humbucker bobbins, just that they put only 3 polepieces in each bobbin instead of 6. True?

[Satamax]

From the underneath there's 12 polepieces, and the slotheads are on the bottom. At least on the last ones i've seen.

[David Schwab]

Wikipedia has the following info:

The Wide Range pickup was conceived to be sonically closer to Fender's single coil pickups than Gibson humbuckers. This concept called for the use of CuNiFe (Copper/Nickel/Ferrite) rod magnets as pole pieces within the coil structures, more closely resembling a regular Strat pickup than a Gibson humbucker. The CuNiFe magnets were threaded and slotted to function and resemble the adjustable screw type poles of a Gibson humbucker. The pickup bobbins were wound with approximately 6800 turns of copper wire around the pole-pieces.

The 1998 re-issued pickup, despite an almost identical appearance, is constructed differently from the original 1970s unit. Like a Gibson humbucker it features a bar magnet underneath the bobbins that abut to 6 screw type pole-pieces in each coil; the 1998 Wide Range is in fact an ordinary humbucker placed in a larger casing, and the gap is filled with wax. This is one important reason the re-issue sounds very different from the original pickup. Another reason is the use of 250 K? volume pots, as the original used 1 M? pots. Using 250 K? pots on very high-output humbuckers produces a sound described as "dark" and "muddy".

[Satamax]

Hey David, thanks a lot, that's intresting info. Do you know anything about the red wire going from the buckers to the tone controls ??? That was real weird discovering thoses wires in the one i repaired last week. 3 bolt strat neck onto a three bolt ash body, huge pickguard, two vols and two tones. Real dark sounding guitar, thought i like the sounds. The bridge would need to be brighter, and the tone controls not so drastic!

Thanks a lot and best regards.

Max.

[David Schwab]

Is that the reissues? I have no idea what the wire is... maybe for coil tapping?

I've only seen the original pickups a few times, and that was years ago.

[Satamax]

Well, no on originals, teh guitar is 72/73 i'd think. And the wires come from the hole in the botom plate of the buckers, and go to the furthest clockwise lug looking at the back of the pot. I didn't have time to test.

Best regards.

Max.

[Spence]

Wikipedia has the following info:

The Wide Range pickup was conceived to be sonically closer to Fender's single coil pickups than Gibson humbuckers. This concept called for the use of CuNiFe (Copper/Nickel/Ferrite) rod magnets as pole pieces within the coil structures, more closely resembling a regular Strat pickup than a Gibson humbucker. The CuNiFe magnets were threaded and slotted to function and resemble the adjustable screw type poles of a Gibson humbucker. The pickup bobbins were wound with approximately 6800 turns of copper wire around the pole-pieces.

Actually, CuNiFe was used for one very specific reason. It's machineable unlike AlNiCo. So yes there are six pole magnets per bobbin just like a strat pickup would have. That's why the wide Range humbucker has a Fenderesque tone rather than a Gibson one.

[David Schwab]

The poles were a neat idea... if you want adjustable pole like that. It's a shame Fender hasn't even attempted to get the reissues right.

[Satamax]

avid, i just thought reading your coment that there could be another alternative, making a threaded baseplate with 1/4 set screws and sticking regular polepieces on top, acting on thoses from the bottom ok, but may be worth a try!

Bye.

Max.

[parentheticalfact]

I'll share some of my experiences with these pickups.
I was always interested in them, and decided to try to replicate them when I purchased a used 72 tele thinline MIM reissue.
I took the originals apart and they seem to be the identical coils that fender uses in most of their humbuckers. They're not any larger and it doesn't appear that they went to the effort of making new bobbins for their reissue.
I bought an original off of ebay and carefully took the thing apart to see what i could find out.
Here's some fairly non scientific stuff.

*The bobbins looked quite a bit larger at a glance, but upon measuring they were barely bigger than standard gibson style humbucker bobbins. This seemed to make it possible to get such a high resistance rating with fender spacing and the large holes for the polepieces.
*There are 12 magnets in this pickups construction. I don't know if my example was cunife, or cunico but they were machined magnets with threads and a slot for screwdriver adjustment.
*The bobbins was an off white, semi see through material. I could not see much more than the silhouette of the coil through it, but it was definately different looking than the plastic gibson uses.
*There was a rectangle piece of material under the coils that, if I remember correctly (i will consult my notes), was ferrous. Just a flat, thin piece of material. I can only guess this was to alter the magnetic field, as I could not see much other purpose for it.
*Upon measurement, I discovered that the bobbins were very similar in dimension to gibson humbucking pickup bobbins as far as their height. What I mean by this is that the coil formation cannot really be any taller this these bobbins than in a gibson pickup. So, they are not like grestch or fender single coils with tall coils.

I did not want to alter the pickup at the time as I didn't have as much confidence as I do now to unwind the pickup and look at info such as wire size, turns per layer and so on but the pickup still resides in my guitar and it would be possible to learn this.
My interest in recreating these pickups has dropped off a little as I've discovered the difficulty in having to fabricate almost every single part for these pickups. Particularly, the cunife or cunico magnets. Some day though.
I tried to find some photographs I took of the insides of my pickup, but I think through several computer crashes and hardrive swaps they've been deleted. I'll keep looking and post them, if any one wants to see them. I may just take the pickup apart again to take better pictures and properly archive them.

[Satamax]

Do you remember any red wire going out of the pickup?

[parentheticalfact]

No, it only had braided single conductor wire coming out of a single hole in the baseplate.
The original baseplates have 13 holes in them. 12 for the screws to pass through and one for the shielded wire. I've seen pictures of these with the extra wire but I don't know what it's for. As mentioned before, coil split? It would be an incredibly easy mod for one of these pickups as the wire coming from the coils is not taped off. It's soldered to metal tabs that are molded into the bobbins.
You could solder a wire to the buss wire that jumps the two coils together and have it stick out as a coil split wire.
Anyway, that's just a theory. I guess some of these have it and some don't. There's not much else it could do that I think fender would have done.

[Zhangliqun]

FWIW, just did a rewind on one of the reissues, which was definitely not the original Cunife version. Some of you are familiar with the reissue's construction so read no further. For those who are not:

The two bobbins together are about 1/4" wider than a standard humbucker, too wide to fit through a standard bucker pu ring. Like the old school Cunife it has 12 polepieces. The poles are not magnets as it uses your standard humbucker bar magnet. They have this whitish blue look, almost like aluminum and feel very light for their size, but they are definitely magnetic like steel. I have no idea what they're made of.

The customer was complaining how muddy it was so I measured it and it was about 12k with 43 wire. That translates to roughly 9 to 9.5k with 42 wire, so no wonder. Plus the cover is a real tone-killer. I advised the customer to use it without the cover.

[parentheticalfact]

The two bobbins together are about 1/4" wider than a standard humbucker, too wide to fit through a standard bucker pu ring.

I failed to mention that the originals for my guitar are made in mexico. These are a little different than the made in japan pickups, as I have aquired what I believe to be one of these as well.
I've attached some photos of the made in Mexico bobbins. These are different than the other mystery pickup (i believe it to be a MIJ reissue) bobbins.
The gross looking stuff is felt soaked in the wax they pot the pickups with. This seems to take up most of the extra space inside and greatly reduces microphonics. It's also ugly and not part of the original design.

[David Schwab]

The customer was complaining how muddy it was so I measured it and it was about 12k with 43 wire. That translates to roughly 9 to 9.5k with 42 wire, so no wonder. Plus the cover is a real tone-killer. I advised the customer to use it without the cover.

What type of magnet does it use? If it's an alnico, a ceramic might work better, since the original was made to have magnet poles. You could also try and replace the screw poles with alnico rod magnets.

This is really a bastardized version of the original!