Wax potting again - should I be able to hear non magnetic vibrations after?

[Gabsonjackellis]

Hello everyone, thought i'd come out of lurking and make my first post. This looks like a great forum with some great people on here.

Recently started on wax potting my pickups heres what im doing:

Bought a small deep fat fryer
bought beeswax and paraffin from eBay
80:20 ratio of paraffin to beeswax
heat to 150 deg F (strictly)
dunked for 15 mins
wiped off excess from faces

I recorded the pickup in question first tapping them with a wooden block to hear the output thru my amp - not surprisingly a loud clonk comes though.

After potting it still does it.


My understanding of microphonic potting is it eliminates air pockets in coils thus leaving no where for microphonic resonances to manifest. great yeah it has done that perfectly but I thought it would also get rid of all non magnetic noises too? When i bosh a wooden block on hem it still come through. Does anyone have any input

It would be nice to completely eliminate guitar related clonking noises like when your strap moves around on your guitar or your trem arm moving around so the wooden block test is extreme!

I did it on 3 types of pickups

Strats
Humbuckers (with metal covers - i can understand why they may still ring after potting)

I guess the point of all that blurb in one sentence is:

Should wax potting stop all non magnetic vibrations from being picked up?

Cheers,
Jack!

[big_teee]

Hello everyone, thought i'd come out of lurking and make my first post. This looks like a great forum with some great people on here.

Recently started on wax potting my pickups heres what im doing:

Bought a small deep fat fryer
bought beeswax and paraffin from eBay
80:20 ratio of paraffin to beeswax
heat to 150 deg F (strictly)
dunked for 15 mins
wiped off excess from faces

I recorded the pickup in question first tapping them with a wooden block to hear the output thru my amp - not surprisingly a loud clonk comes though.

After potting it still does it.


My understanding of microphonic potting is it eliminates air pockets in coils thus leaving no where for microphonic resonances to manifest. great yeah it has done that perfectly but I thought it would also get rid of all non magnetic noises too? When i bosh a wooden block on hem it still come through. Does anyone have any input

It would be nice to completely eliminate guitar related clonking noises like when your strap moves around on your guitar or your trem arm moving around so the wooden block test is extreme!

I did it on 3 types of pickups

Strats
Humbuckers (with metal covers - i can understand why they may still ring after potting)

I guess the point of all that blurb in one sentence is:

Should wax potting stop all non magnetic vibrations from being picked up?

Cheers,
Jack!

I beat on my guitars, to see how much noise they make.
I have some humbuckers non potted, They make a metallic sound when I hit them with my pick.
The Potted ones make a light thud.
If you take a non potted guitar and get it close to the speaker of the amp your plugged into, you will get hum or microphonic squeal when you get close.
Some of my potted guitars I can get right up against the speaker, If I turn up the gain and volume I can finally get it to feed back.
I have a Seymour Humbucker that has been factory potted, and it acts similar to my own potted pickups.
On the Seymour I get the light thud you described.
Good Luck,
Terry

[Gabsonjackellis]

My standards must be too high!
im going to test some other pickups that come in from now on

thanks alot

jack

[Sportbernd]

Welcome Jack,
15 minutes isn´t enough time for potting some pickups. Maybe you should leave them longer in your fryer or try to ad vacuum.
Bernd

[David Schwab]

I pot each coil for 10 minutes. That's plenty long enough. The wax goes all the way to the core. I do find that I can rub my fingers on the plastic covers and hear some sound on non epoxy potted pickups I make. I can also tap on the bass' body and hear it. After I epoxy encapsulate them, that noise goes away.

If they are squealing, then the wax didn't do all the way in, but a little microphonics is normal, and some people think it adds to the tone.