Best Fender Factory-Made Stratocaster Pickups?

[Possum]

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The bottom line is someone show us a machine wound pickup from '56. Well you won't find one, period. Here is the quote I was looking for "No machine can wind a better sounding or tighter wind than a well trained person," -Leo Fender

Doesn't exactly sound like a guy who would buy an auto winder. Even if there is a sales slip from '56 it doesnt prove it was used for pickup winding. Maybe they wound chokes on it. Maybe he got a good deal for real cheap and it was used for hand guided winding. Maybe he tried it once and thought it sucked.

Don't any of you have Fender reference books? I don't recall which one but there is a famous photo of a bobby sox gal winding pickups by hand at Fender. I have most of the Fender history/reference books but not that one. I'm pretty sure it has a date for the photo...David?

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

overdrive, I think this thread has been officially hijacked... lots of fun, though.

[JGundry]

What else would a Fender use a fine winder auto coil winder for in 56' if they did not use it for pickups?

Dave there are a ton of unprovable blanket statements in your post. Also a photo of a girl hand winding pickups does not a no machine wound Fender make. Leo quote "No machine can wind a better sounding or tighter wind than a well trained person," Leo never said you could not produce a machine wound pickup that was the equal of a hand wound pickup.

Dave you yourself said that Fender started machine winding in 60' when Leo owned the company. How does that square with the Leo quote? Obviously he was okay with machine wound pickups in 1960. Maybe he started giving machine wound pickups a try in 56' when he bought this machine and progressively realized they sounded great when compared to hand wound. Makes sense to me.

[Possum]

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If that photo is dated before '60 it proves they weren't machine winding, because the photo was taken of a line of tables with girls hand winding. I've unwound a fair number of vintage Fender strat pickups and never found a machine wound one in the era you claim it was used, neither has Bill who has seen alot more of them than I have. The 1960 date is from A. R. Duchossoir's strat book, the info he got from Fender. Is that date correct? I don't know. Leo would have had to change his tune as his product output grew, hand winders can't keep up with huge output of product, so its possible they machine wound by '60. You're taking the word of a random visitor to a Fender tour who doesn't work there? You got Seymour's phone number why don't you ask him, I'm sure he knows the Fender guys from back then. If no actual examples exist, the winder wasn't used. The only photo I have of a Fender winder is from 1966 and its a way more sophisticated machine than the Coweco and is shown with about 12 bobbins all stack up in winding position. I think its important to get this right, there is too much misinformation about pickups on the web and I'd hate to have this thread close giving the idea that Leo was machine winding pickups real early when there are no actual machine wound pickups that early. Maybe its the one they used in '60 if it was even there at all. I don't see any hard proof here except whats been written by researchers and those of us who have worked on these pickups and those don't support what you're thinking.

[JGundry]

Can you post the photo of the 1966 winders?

Essentially you are saying that because you have not unwound a machine wound Fender pickup from 1956-1960 that they do not exist. Lets expand that to include Bill also. Before I go with this proof I think we should put into perspective the number of Fender pickups made between 1956 and 1960 and then calculate what percentage of those you two have unwound with an eye on whether they were machine wound or hand wound. Lets also factor in how many pickups you two have wound with a Coweco.

Also unless the guy doing the video is retarded I think we can assume he could remember the date of 1956 long enough to narrate the video he probably shot 30 seconds after he was told the date.

Nothing you have said so far contradicts that this could be a 56' winder used by Fender in 1956 to wind pickups. This is not real complicated. Fender clearly machine wound before the CBS sale. Fender owns this Coweco and claims they had it since 1956. So does this machine mark the start of Fenders machine winding venture? The answer seems to be yes and that it all began in 1956.

I think this is the photo you are thinking of. Just one woman in it. This is from Don Mare's site. I have one of Don's Tele pickups and love it. I think hand wound Fender style pickup repros can sound great. But I can confirm without a doubt that Coweco wound Fender pickups sound great also. If "Josie" was one of the greats then Coweco was one of the others IMO. I think it is about time Coweco gets her due repect.

[achase4u]

Interesting about the magnets. Ive tried Arnold and Permanent Mag, and Sens mag, magnetic hold, AZ industries, One Mag, Stew Mac(whatever they are) etc etc.

Havent heard anything in the American mags that isnt in the others. They all just sound different, not really better/worse.

I bet Leo would have bought cheap imported alnico if he could have :-) Alas it was the golden era, booming industry in the USA...

[Possum]

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The Arnold is just too tame for me, real vintage strat pickups don't sound like their stuff, though they claim theirs are vintage mix...

[Possum]

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OH MY GOD!!! IT JUST HIT ME! THAT COWECO IS THE FABLED "ROSIE WRAP" MACHINE!!! ROSIE IS A MACHINE!!! Don Mare, calling Don Mare.......

[achase4u]

Hard to say these days. The permanent mag co stuff sounded pretty good...

None of it seems to push anything over the edge into that world of vintageyness though. Guess its up to finding mags that suit your taste and are consistent...

[Sweetfinger]

I can say with certainty that we will NEVER know for sure because the people who were there and in a position to know are old, dead, or both. Not reliable IME. I've worked in production situations and own a guitar shop. Just because I buy the "latest thing" doesn't mean it gets used. I have a drill press and hand drills. We use both and there are plenty of jobs where I use the hand drill out of convenience but a different worker or shop would use the press(and assume I did as well).
Just because Leo is on record as preferring hand wound coils doesn't mean that Fender as a company (with Forrest White actually taking care of factory operations), didn't start using a machine out of necessity.
The most likely scenario is that Fender bought the Coweco because they needed to beef up and automate production but continued to hand wind as well. It is possible that Rosie was a robot!

....and to opine on the original topic....
The Fender Texas Specials seem to satisfy most people, and I did, on one occasion, at the customer's request, pull the original mid 60's pickups from a vintage player grade Strat, and stuffed a set of TS's in. They sounded the same. I've said it before, but bears repeating, The original Texas Specials seem to have been wound hotter and were darker. Even though the specs on the package stayed the same, IME the ones from recent years are not quite as hot, more like 'real' pickups.
The "grey bottom" reissues have sounded pretty good, as long as control and cap values are period correct. -they're brighter.
If you can find a set of TS's used/cheep, go for it, but if you're looking new, why not throw down the extra $40 or so and get a hand wound boutique set?

[JGundry]

OH MY GOD!!! IT JUST HIT ME! THAT COWECO IS THE FABLED "ROSIE WRAP" MACHINE!!! ROSIE IS A MACHINE!!! Don Mare, calling Don Mare.......

See I knew you would figure it out.

Of the three vintage formula USA A5 rod magnets I tried the Permanent Magnet samples were the weakest toned of the bunch. Arnold was the strongest on the high end. The Arnold stuff came from Oglalla. If you got your magnets from Arnold direct I wnder if they are a different mix than what Oglalla is selling as USA made A5 rods? I'm sure Arnold has sub mixes of A5. So even though what you got was USA made A5 it may not be the same mix that Oglalla is selling.

[Possum]

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You guys really should read the books written by George Fullerton and Forrest White and Bill Carson. Anyone serous about making Fender stuff should know the story from the people who made that history in person and there are pickup making details in them as well. The Tele Blackguard book is also another in-depth Fender resource book any serious pickup maker should own, its not going to be reprinted, once they're gone they're gone. There is a special section where Forrest elaborates on Leo's rubber band discovery and how important it was to coil winding. A complex problem solved by a penny rubber band. I don't see a rubber band on that Coweco, yet you see it on Leo's personal winder at G&L. Belt driven winders were a big problem for pickup winding at Fender, so again that goes against what is known why its doubtful that Coweco ever wound anything. How can you even be sure its an auto winder, I don't really see any traverse or gears. The logic supporting machine wound early in '56 is real flimsy, by the same logic you could say all PAF's were hand wound because a few exist. I'm not buying this machine wound deal until someone shows me an actual machine wound pickup from '56-'59. where's Frank Falbo when you need him, he could ask Seymour what he knows. That Josie photo is in a book I didn't buy because alot of repetition of the other books but I'm sure there is a date for it and there is another photo showing a line of girls hand winding. Sorry, I'm not taking the word off some cheesy video with a couple 20 something guys who know zip about the history. If they had used machine winding in the early days it would have been written about in the history books, Fullerton makes no mention of it and does talk about hand winding. The Fender Stratocaster book says machine winders came in with the CBS personnel in '65 page 96 I think it is. I plain don't believe this one, if you want me to believe it prove it or its just another out there theory...

[JGundry]

Your kidding right Dave? The Coweco never wound anything because it is not driven by a rubber band?! Please.

Dave if you owned a Coweco you would know that this Fender owned Coweco is clearly an automated traverse machine. The sloped cam is clearly visible on the front of the the machine. The gears are on the back out of view. The wire guide for the auto traverse is still on it even when Abigail is winding with it!

Again Leo was machine winding when he owned the company. Without rubber bands. We already know that. The question is when exactly it started and what machine was used? This likely 56' Coweco Fender owns is the best evidence so far that answers both of those questions. Fender still owns a lot of the original machinery Leo bought and this Coweco is likely one of those pieces of machinery. Not complicated.

[ShannonH]

I'm no fender expert

Personally I think the likely scenario is this machine was purchased new by Fender in 1956. And that Fender machine wound and hand wound for the period 1956-60. And when CBS took over everything became machine wound.

But I think that this could also explain why some pickups sounded good and others not so much.

[EtLa]

But I think that this could also explain why some pickups sounded good and others not so much.

I wonder if it's really the pickups the culprit? I know from experience that no pickups will transform a poor lutherie into a good sounding instrument.