Magnatone lap steel

[tubeglow]

Hello all,

I'm just getting involved with pickup winding, primarily to save a early Magnatone steel/amp that I want to get going. My first question is: Does anybody have any experience or pickup specs for this. I have built a bobbin and wound 7500 turns approx. 7K dc res. 43ga/stewmac. To me, it sounds as I see discribed in treads here, to be brittle, unpleasent when gain on the amp is up etc. I think 7500 turns is to much. Any thoughts, comments, suggestions?

[Sweetfinger]

Lap steels are different beasties...

Many lap steels sound very harsh with the tone and volume controls all the way up. One of the keys to getting a really good steel tone is rolling off the tone and volume quite a bit

[tubeglow]

Magnatone pickup

Thanks for your input. I think that my problem is related to how I wound the pickup though. The original was wax potted and under the MOTS covering and the coil was open. The original had a coil wound *without* a bobbin. It was just taped around the circumfernce and positioned in a cavity, the magnet, a half circle, sat in another cavity centered within the coil but not in contact with the magnet. I built top and bottom pieces and attached them to the magnet and wound the coil between them. I think that this change in proximity with the magnet may be the cause for the increased brittle tone.