Interesting RE-vamp idea of Fender MIM pickups

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

I have to agree with Big Teee... if you're going to replace the magnets AND windings then you can just start from scratch much more easily. It is like replacing the neck and the body on your strat. Just get a new guitar! Mojo makes it crazy easy by selling their "kits" with the magnets preloaded into the flatwork and just $13. Sell the original mexican pickups intact on ebay and make a profit from the deal! Of course if you DON'T wind pickups that is another matter.

I'm going to say something that I know will get me flamed here. MIM pickups aren't that bad. If you consider the price point of the instrument that they are loaded into, (or at least the price point the last time I looked - they have gone up since then) they aren't horrible. They won't impress anyone on this site because we're all dorks who listen way too closely to everything, but a player who isn't overly conscious of his tone could put many hours on them without any real complaints. Fender managed to make something cheap that wasn't flashy or dramatically impressive, but completely useable. There, I said it. Flame away.

Of course, I'm talking about the strat pickups. The tele pickups and the humbuckers are atrocious.

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

Most of the plastic bobbin strat pickups that i measured the height between the flanges ,Are quite a bit shorter than the average fiber bobbin pickup

That would explain quite a bit, actually. Do you remember what the winding space was on those?

[copperheadroads]

That would explain quite a bit, actually. Do you remember what the winding space was on those?

I never measured , but the overall height of plastic bobbin was close to the distance between the flanges of a standard height .436" or something close

[David Schwab]

I never measured , but the overall height of plastic bobbin was close to the distance between the flanges of a standard height .436" or something close

I have a few here, both with steel poles and alnico rods, and they are the same as a standard Strat pickup.

[big_teee]

I have a brand new unwound plastic bobbin I bought some time ago from guitar parts USA.
Don't know if this the one that fender uses or not. Here's the dimensions of the one I have.
Total Height is .575", 14.65mm. Winding height is .412, or 10.47mm.
holes for magnets are, .192", 4.88mm.
Bobbin diameter inside bobbin is .275", 7.1mm.
Diameter of top of Bobbin is .585", 15mm.
You can readily see not much winding room compared to rod flatwork.
Wind height on rod magnet flatwork, fender specs, is .433", 11mm.
Bobbin diameter inside bobbin is .187,4.73mm or .195", 4.95mm.
Diameter of top of flatwork bobbin is .614" 15.62mm.
Anyway that's the measurements I have.
Rock on,
Terry

[copperheadroads]

Actually the MIM bobbins i had, I never measured. them so they might be taller
the plastic bobbins i was referring to was a gfs set & some other Korean pickups i used to make steel pole strat pickups
which were a little short

[Sweetfinger]

The MIM pup I just pulled out of the box o' stuff had a wind height of 10.8 mm. The plastic bobbin is the same one that Fender uses on the American Standard Strat pickup but you can't see the molded part number on the Mex pups because the ceramic magnet is covering it. It IS a Fender specific part and I've never seen those bobbins on anything but American and Mexican Fenders. Fender DID use some cheaper pickups on the Mexican "Squier series". That whole pickguard/harness/pickup assembly was imported from Korea or maybe China. Easy to spot because they don't have CTS pots like the MIM Std.