a charlie christian replica: believing my ears or theory?

[frenchy]

Sorry FunkyKikuchiyo (by the way, reference to Kurosawa Kikuchiyo?), please do not take candor and naivety of beginner for pretention :-)

So, i am afraid not having the skills to use neodyme whitout messing somewhere...(And here comes the freshness of young ones): I just have a multimeters to works on my pickups.
From here, I assume that the lower risk taking would be to use a standard alnico bar (single one?). It is just a guess. For the blade, if anyone has a suggestio - other than mild steel?) I'll take it :-)

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

Sorry if I came off abrasive! Just thought I'd share my experience since I went through the same thing.

Yeah, the "Kikuchiyo" thing harkens back to my film school days. They were short lived.

Neos are as easy to work with as any other magnet. If you get the basics of pickups (magnets, core, windings) then you can use them. The beauty is that they're so small, you can adapt them for all sorts of arrangements.

[Possum]

Well, basically what this boils down to is how do you make a blade pickup. A CC pickup is a blade pickup but its not like anything very common in modern materials, so just try to make a blade pickup that sounds good. Thats what I did with 2 that I sell. I just used common steel you can buy at any hardware store and what worked for me was ceramic magnets and keeping the number of winds down low. The two I make are very small and fit in a humbucker or a Tele neck. Its too easy to put too much wire on a blade pickup then the bass gets real boomy and unpleasant, so I kept the coil small as possible which is what worked for me. You can also do laminated blades which is what I also did to keep the audio less boomy but they are not fun to make and each blade has to be totally electrically insulated from the other blade. It does make a very unique sounding pickup. I really do want to nail a real CC tone in a work-alike pickup though, and getting that isn't as easy as I thought it was and have already made 3 that sucked ;-) For a hobbyist you can buy small ceramic magnets in packages and glue a bunch of them all together on the bottom of the blade to get enough gauss to power the coil. Ceramic don't load the coil/blade with eddy currents. The 1937 CC pickup measured about 350 gauss in the center of the blade (AlphaLab DC magnetomer).

[David Schwab]

composition of wire (i thought it was just plain enameled 38awg)

There's no reason to use plain enamel.

38 gauge wire is pretty easy to find.

[rjb]

Easier said than done. I've never been able to find anything except 42 and 43 in plain enamel.

I just picked up some 38 PE on eBay. 1300 ft on a spool, but that's all I needed. The same seller has multiple spools of different lengths for sale. Search 38 awg; seller is TechFixx (Tech Fixx?).

-rb

[frenchy]

Good morning everybody and thanks for all those ideas that you share generously .
It's Ok, now, I have got a pretty good idea of what the "single coil-38 wired-whith blade-magnetized by Alnico2/OR/Neos" will look like.
As soon as my lathe-winder is ok, I put pics and comments on this thread (no that much) and A LOT of samples....
Thanks to everyone, professionals pickup builders and other musicians, hobbyists, and specialists.

Julien

[rocket]

What are the dimensions of the blade and bobbin / winding of the original pu?

[frenchy]

Hi rocket,
interesting question. I do not have those informations. I will follow advices and build a pickup that fits in a P90 cavity. I hope It will do it.

[rocket]

hi
I'm not quite sure if P90 dimensions are suitable.
All the pics I'f seen show a rather tall and slim coil, taller than a strat pu.

a flatter coil will change inductance and capacity.

[David Schwab]

The overall P-90 dimension should be OK, but you need to make it a lot taller to fit that heavy wire on it.

[frenchy]

I found low carbon metal for the blade. David, what dimensions would you use if you had to chose a blade for the CC that fits in a P90 cavity?
The steel I use is a 1018 Mild plate. 6mm thk (1/4")
Possum, I heard you have done some researches, any suggestions?

[David Schwab]

I found low carbon metal for the blade. David, what dimensions would you use if you had to chose a blade for the CC that fits in a P90 cavity?
The steel I use is a 1018 Mild plate. 6mm thk (1/4")
Possum, I heard you have done some researches, any suggestions?

Well I would think the blade would be the length of the regular pole spread, and as deep as the P-90 cover. You should be able to get enough wire on that without the shallow P-90 bobbin.

Most of the blades I use are .75" tall.

[frenchy]

Sorry, double post

[frenchy]

I have follow the advice of David: blade + brace as deep as a P90 cover. Once glued, the different pieces of the brace were sanded. It is amazing how glue plus standard pup flatwork can "melt" (once sanded) and give a very smooth result.
Anyway, here is some pics:





So, I am here with a question that will probably makes you laughing out loud: I have two different types of wires, one is 38 awg enamelled (found at wires.co.uk), the other is a 37 awg PE (found at Ebay). I now that 37 was used on some generations of the CC. Still searching for a good tone, close to the CC, you guys advise me to use the 37 or 38?
By the way, David, since you have the expertise of blade pickup, the thickness of my blade is acceptable or will she make the sound too boomy?
Regarding that point I have two question:
Using magnetic paint?
I was also thinking about different posts I read here on this forum. The one about the use of magnetic paint - fully discussed by some of you guys (David, Dave,...). I remember Possum saying that in first version of the CC, iron dust can be found in the winding. A thing that could be try?
Using baseplate? (as for telepickup)
I heard that It could "focus" magnetic field toward the string, allowing a gain in outpout and a warmer tone. Stupid enough to give me a "bonet d'âne" or something to try?

Aesthetic concerns:
Second post was about insulation of magnet...q-dope (homemade one - mix of acetone and polystyrene) . For the protection of the coil and for the glossy look it could give to the flatework, since i cant use cover it appears to me as an idea (I hope not bad)

Greetings
Julien

[David Schwab]

Nice work!

One thing I would do is have the blade extend out the bottom the full height of the magnet. That will maximize the contact area with the magnet. So either rake the bobbin shallower or the blade taller.

Wider blades give a smoother tone.I was using them for a while and then went back to 1/8 and 1/16" thick blades for most of my pickups.

But this is probably closer to the original. If you don't nail the tone, you should still have something that sounds good.

You will fit more wire with the 38 gauge. The tone will be slightly different too, so that's up to you to decide if you want to try both. I've always heard it was 38, but I'm not an expert on this pickup by any means. Just a pickup geek.