Kent Armstron lipstick rewind?

[parentheticalfact]

Hey there!
This is my first post here, and I'm glad to have found such a cool forum for like minded experimenters and veterans.
I have a kent armstrong lipstick pickup that has had the leads pulled out of it and I cannot figure out how to get it apart! It seems it should be simple, but I suspect it might be glued inside. Does anyone have any experience getting the two halves of the tube apart to get to the coil for rewinding?
Thanks all.

[NightWinder]

Ahh, that was my headache with them too. I'll search for some old notes. This is a great topic by the way, Enjoy the forum......Welcome.

[parentheticalfact]

Well thank you for the welcome! The originals have always been one of my favorite pickups (so primative, but so interesting sounding), and if I recall the last kent armstrong I listened to in a guitar seemed lifeless comparitively to a wonderful 59 that my father did some wiring repair on some years back. It would be nice to dig in and try to "improve" these things. Maybe they're not wound sloppily enough!

[soundmasterg]

They probably epoxied them together. The way those are made you almost have to pot them a lot or they are microphonic, and nowadays people just use epoxy to pot those. I think if you heat them up then you can pull them apart, but I have no idea on temps to use or anything like that.

[NightWinder]

HE may have swapped pot values or caps? This can drastically improve things to one's likeing. Just a thought....
I can't remember....Its been a long time since i worked on these. I think these have coils very similar in size to a tele neck. Damn. You may be able to apply heat to it, but you will have to watch it closely. Better wait to hear from someone that knows for sure....

[David Schwab]

If they are epoxy potted, you might get the cover apart with heat, but you won't be able to rewind the pickup. It will be a solid lump!

As NightWinder said, try changing the volume and tone pot values. Do you want more twang? Use a larger value like 500K.

The other thing is Kent makes regular and hot lipstick tubes, so if it's the hot wound model it won't sound like the originals.

[parentheticalfact]

Well, I'm definately not opposed to the idea of changing cap values, but I'm fairly interested in the idea of improving the pickup itself. I'm not sure what values of pots were in the danelectro. It had those dual concentric pots, so I doubt if he would have wanted to replace them unless they were completely useless.
Anyhow, it seems like it might be glued. If anyone knows for sure, please let me know but in the mean time I'll see about using different levels of heat and
maybe I can salvage the magnet and cover.

[David King]

Most potting epoxies will turn to a stiff jelly at fairly low temps. between 150 and 200º F. Just boil them in water for a few minutes until they are heated through and try giving them a good sharp twist. You might only have one shot at this as once it cools the epoxy will be harder than ever..

[soundmasterg]

I think that the old Danos with the concentric pots were using a 100k and 1M pot from what I've been able to find out. I have no idea which is the volume and which is the tone however. I've got a '99 Dano DC3 (made in Korea) and I replaced the stock pickups with some custom shop Duncan Alnico 6 lipstick pickups. Alnico 6 magnets are what the originals used. These Duncans sound WAY better, but with the stock pots in the guitar, they can still stand some improvement. I'm still doing research about what to change the pots to. The original pickups are definitly epoxy potted, and I might still try to take them apart to see what they look like, or I might sell them on ebay too.