Best Fender Factory-Made Stratocaster Pickups?

[David Schwab]

David the text you quoted he was talking about what they did at Fender with the rubber band thing, NOT at G&L. The book has an extensive section on their history at Fender, its not really a book only about G&L, thats why its such a valuable book and worth getting because he recounts his entire story from the beginning of his relationship with Leo from Fender until his death after retirement.

Nope. Not Fender, OR G&L. Dave, he says on page 52, right after talking about building the winder and the rubber bands (emphasis added):

Some people thought all we had to do was copy what we did before and start putting instruments together, but that was not how we wanted to operate our factory. We wanted to build something unique and produce a better product, and that takes a lot of time, effort, and money. This process separates the professionals from the amateurs. After years of designing many superb musical instruments, Leo and I agreed that we finally had the way to do it right.

After many months of working on prototype instruments and getting the factory prepared, we were ready. We kept another air compressor, strictly as a standby unit in case of failure in the other equipment. Again experience taught us to be prepared. And on Wednesday, June 23, 1976, we shipped our first instruments to MusicMan. They included seven Stingray I guitars, with serial numbers G001000 through G001006, and seven Stingray basses, with serial numbers...

Guitars from George & Leo: how Leo ... - Google Books

So what company were they building this winder for? Fender? Nope. It was MusicMan.

They talked about not doing it the way they did at Fender, and about how they had designed many instruments... at Fender.

If you remember, Leo was not allowed to compete with Fender yet. So he was only a consultant (CLF Research) to MusicMan. But him along with George Fullerton and Grover Jackson (with design help from Sterling Ball) built the instruments for MusicMan.

Also since they had discovered the rubber bands when making this winder for MusicMan, they obviously didn't use rubber bands at Fender. If they did, they would have already known what to do and how to build a winder, and they wound have just made a new one. But they didn't. They experimented with many winder designs before discovering the rubber bands. In 1975.

Designing and building a winding mechanism required much trail and error. We tried direct drive, belt drive, gear drive and several other ways, but none seemed to work right. These methods did not have the proper tensioning means of winding the coil. However we eventually came up with a rather ingenious device.

So they wouldn't have had to do all that R&D if they had done it already at Fender, right?

Seems like good evidence to me that they didn't build their own winders at Fender. Either that or they forgot how they did it.

[Bill M]

Dave, Thanks for sharing that picture. It looks like that machine does 8 at a time. Now here's a question, if fender kept that coweco from 1956, what happened to this winder. Why didn't they keep this one? It's clearly more efficient than the coweco and it has wound some great sounding mid/late 60's pickups. OR maybe they still have it and have Abby secretly winding solenoid coils for the space shuttle with it.

[Bill M]

I can give a pretty accurate tpl for that winder, BUT then I'd have to kill you.

[JGundry]

Jon, here's a crappy scan of that '66 winder, so now go find one :-)

Thanks Dave.

That is a Meteor ME-301 winder. It has a very unique drive and traverse mechanism that does not use cams or gears. These were made from the 50's to the 70's. The ME-301 is one of the machines Gibson used to wind PAF's. The wire guides on the Fender machine are also made by Meteor.

Why would Fender stop using this machine? There is a part on this machine called a friction disc needed to run the drive. This part wears out. Meteor stopped making parts for these machine some time in the 70's. When I talked to Tim Shaw he said that Gibson had several of these machines when he started at Gibson but some were out of service because they were be used as parts donors. Gibson still has these machines and has even bought used one within the last few years. For a time there was a guy in the USA rebuilding friction disks for this machine but he died a few years ago. Now the only place to get the part is a place in Poland. I ordered parts from the place in Poland but I had to find a person who knew Polish to make the initial contact.

IMO Fender probably dabbled with machine winding with the Coweco first. When they decided go full bore with machine winding they bought machines that could stack bobbins like the ME-301 and also Bachi winders.

Oh yeah I have a Meteor ME-301.

[Possum]

....

David I'll have to reread that part in the book, my understanding is that the rubber band drive was done at the very start at Fender not G&L. I think maybe you're getting this out of context.

Don't forget guys, when CBS came in they threw everything out and started over and alot of people probably got canned. Leo retired and wasn't there, George or Forrest left, or both left I don't remember. They would have sneered at that old Coweco as being a piece of junk that could only wind one pickup at a time. The CBS guys were interested in one thing, high production, high profitability, amps "improved" according to the new engineer guys that came in who thought Leo's old designs distorted too much, etc. etc. Its suspicious from that point of view why that winder would have survived the trash dump in '65. I have a '64 strat and can unwind it a bit if I wanted to know the TPL, but I don't wind 'em like that anyway.

[JGundry]

Coweco junk? Never! Seriously that Coweco was a current piece of expensive equipment when CBS bought Fender. The fact that it is still at Fender proves it was worth keeping.

[Bill M]

Dave S. Is your 64 pickup by any chance a black bottom with PE?

[David Schwab]

David I'll have to reread that part in the book, my understanding is that the rubber band drive was done at the very start at Fender not G&L. I think maybe you're getting this out of context.

Dave, it wasn't Fender or G&L, it was CLF Research/Music Man.

I posted a screen shot of the page, so you can see it's not out of context. Fullerton was discussing when they started making instruments for Music Man. They had no machines so they had to buy or build them, including a winder. If they had used that winder with Fender they would't have had to try so many things to get one working.

He goes on to talk about how that relationship soured, and then they closed down CLF Research and started G&L.

But the rubber band winder was made in 1975.

Here's the page again, so you can see the context for yourself.

[Possum]

...

I seem to recall the Fender winder girls' machines had rubber bands on them, wish I could remember what book those pix were in....

[mkat]

The winder business discussed above is very funny, more about marketing than fact at this stage. No facts about pickup winding at Fender (pre CBS), CLF or G & L other than the actual pics and discussions in the books, which clearly show hand guided winding with the sewing machine motor winders - that's it and nothing more. More about speculation passed on as fact rather than actual fact it seems.

The Forrest White book, as do the others discussed above, mention sewing machine motor winders at Fender and CLF, with both companies using rubber bands and the reasons why they used them as stated by Forrest and George F. They don't mention automated machine winders for production pickups or even winding that way pre CBS at Fender and at CLF. Don't remember what was mentioned regarding G & L though.

[Possum]

...

David the entire book is not posted online, the subject is discussed in more than one section, I don't have time to dig through it again right now, high res photos of those girls would say alot, it was some Fender history book and had 2 or more photos, large of the girl winders. Yeah the Coweco to the CBS guys probably was a piece of junk, it could only wind one pickup at a time so what good is it, you have to read how those guys thought, typical corporate stuffed shirts who ignored more of what Leo had built up in that company and screwed just about eveything up. Seth Lover left when they came out with their infamous transistor amps which had a reputation for dying on the showroom floor. If you've ever been involved in a large corporation buying up a small company, the first thing they do is fire everyone who knows what they're doing, then try to reinvent the wheel and never achieve what had been before. Alot of companies die that way, its a wonder Fender survived, they almost didn't. Why would they want a winder that wouldn't produce like the '66 machine did. It was probably bought in the 90's as prop. We'll see what the sales receipt says, bet they'll never find that either...if they do and it says Fender on it, I'll a candy bar in your honor

[JGundry]

I just want to make sure I have this all down in one easy to read paragraph. According to you Dave. The Coweco was a prop bought in the 90's. Could not have been used by Fender because it does not have a rubber band on it. Was junk to CBS and would have been thrown away. I'm glad to know you are all about facts.

Fender would have kept the Coweco. In factories stuff like that ends up in a corner and is dusted off when production needs to increase or when a machine goes down. It may have ended up in the custom shop for rewinds etc.. Maybe that is why it is still in the custom shop.

[Bill M]

Ok, Fact is CBS completed the purchace of Fender in January 1965. This buy out took place during the whole duration of 1964. It would make sense that efficient production would be a requirement from a corp. such as CBS. With that said, I have seen a late 63 machine wound pickup, but have seen more 1964's that were machine wound. I believe IMHO that leo started dabbling with machine winding out of necessity for this purchase by CBS. If he was using a coweco in 1964 he must of had at least a few of them because it is only a single pickup unit that is not much faster to wind with than a hand guided machine. Also, I can almost guarantee that the 1966 winder was not the only one CBS had. Most probably they had at least another one, if not even a different make muti pickup winder. This really becomes more evident in the late 60's with the ink stamped bottoms which indicates the winder number.
So, If Leo liked this coweco so much, and auto winders in general, then why go through all the trouble to design new winders for music man and G&L, why not just buy another auto winder and be done with it. I have to stick with possum on this whole issue. Until solid evidence comes up showing machine wound coils in the late 50's, I will stick with my own facts.
On another note, any old fender rewind I do, I do not just cut the wire off, I unwind them. Yes I know its time consuming, but thats how I analyze the old wind patterns. From now on, any rewind that I do of a pre 1964 pickup, the unwind will be video taped and documented. So, if a machine wind exists from the late 50's, and it comes through my hands I will solid proof of evidence.

[David Schwab]

The winder business discussed above is very funny, more about marketing than fact at this stage.

They also altered some of the details about why Music Man stopped placing orders with them. There was some kind of quality control issue going on that made them reject some instruments.

[David Schwab]

David the entire book is not posted online, the subject is discussed in more than one section, I don't have time to dig through it again right now, high res photos of those girls would say alot, it was some Fender history book and had 2 or more photos, large of the girl winders.

I don't doubt what you say, but from the few pages preceding and after the one I posted, Fullerton is clearly stating that they came up with the idea for that winder when starting up the CLF factory, and it culminated with the first Music Man instruments. Now if he meant they tried all those things out at Fender, he didn't say so, and that would be out of the context of them starting up CLF, which is what that section of the book is about. G&L was a spin off of CLF after they stopped working with Music Man.

So that book doesn't prove they did, or didn't use rubber bands or hand wound at Fender.

Also while the Cowco only wound one pickup at a time, so did the rubber band sewing machine winder.. so what good was that? To do more then one coil at a time they had to machine wind.