'71 T-Top mangled, modded, possible damage at the border...

[ForcedFire]

Hey guys, I just got a T-Top in the mail. It came out of a '71 LP Custom, supposedly the neck position. It looks like someone did an amateurish attempt at a phase reversal mod between the coil wires and the cable.

The coils look perfect and the tape looks old but I'm no expert. The T's are facing each other though so who knows... The DC reading at room temp (didn't measure temp) is 7.94kohm. It is summer so maybe that explains it being a little high. I'm of the opinion that if it was rewound, it was not done by the modder. So if it was only modded by the modder, I would assume he did not rewind...

Anyways, for some reason the customs form was not attached so it was opened at the Canadian border (I'm in Canada). One of the polepiece screws is busted and it's all taped up with tape saying it was opened by the Canadian Border. I'm assuming they didn't know what it was, started monkeying with it, broke it, put it back in the box and sent it on to me.

Sooooo, I'm wondering if someone has a suitable polepiece in their parts stash that I could buy to replace this one. I don't know if the modder got solder on the bottom of the polepiece. I'll have to clean it up and try to get what's left of the screw out of there before I replace the cable.

Here are some shots. I'll take more around the coil area for you later (I'm not too concerned about this, I can just replace the cable).

[ForcedFire]

Here are the photos I was sent before the pickup was shipped.

[copperheadroads]

Boy!!!.............thats in rough shape ..................Where in Canuck country are you ?

[ForcedFire]

Boy!!!.............thats in rough shape ..................Where in Canuck country are you ?

I'm in London Ontario. It's not really that bad, just some clown messed up the cable.

[David Schwab]

I think the before and after shots look the same. Those two poles are sticking way out, and the one has solder on it from that wire on the bottom. I bet the pole was busted when he sent it to you.

You can age a new screw to make it look old. I had to do this with a Tim Shaw humbucker when I misplaced one of the pole screws. I also chewed it up a little with a screw driver and it looked as old as the rest.

[ForcedFire]

Well it's hard to say, I mean it could have been backed out, then soldered and left that way forever then busted at the border.

The guy I got it from is a really nice guy. I don't think there was any intention to deceive me. I didn't even pay for this pickup, he just sent it to me to see if I could fix it.

[ForcedFire]

Weird, now that I look at it (see image above of the pickup bottom) the screws are gold plated (LP Custom) but one is nickel plated. This is one weird pickup!!

Copperhead has offered to age some new scews for me, I think this is the way to go. Thanks for the suggestions guys.

[ForcedFire]

Wow, this T-Top is one tough bastard

Whoever modded it removed the cable from the inside, there's the solder blob from the factory left there. Then another new solder blob on the inside with the start coil and a new wire that folded around the back and was soldered there too??? I don't know man. The magnet is flipped as well and there are metal filings everywhere.

The broken pole screw is so corroded it's totally fused to the keeper bar. The solder on the back of the broken screw came off with just a little pressure on the wire it was holding down? Like he held down the wire insulation with solder??? OK.

I had to remove everything then carefully spin the polepiece bobbin off the screw.

Now I have to get the keeper bar out. I have some deox-it here. Is that my best bet?



Here's the magnet:



Oh well, it's all good, the coils are in good shape. You can see the corrosion on the polepiece bobbin, it reads 4k:



The slug reads 3.97k:

[ForcedFire]

OK, the deox-it worked fine. I still had to use visegrips to get the end of the busted screw out of the keeper. I can turn a new screw into it now. I think it might fuse again in the future but maybe the deox-it will help it from getting worse.

[ForcedFire]

I'm pretty sure the magnet is not a T-Top magnet. It's around 1/8" thick and around 2 3/8" long. Has 3 sharpie lines on the north side. I had to add a little maple veneer under the maple spacer to get the slug coil to sit nicely on the bigger magnet (apparently T-Tops have thinner magnets).

Other than that, all done. Reads about 8k room temp. Maybe it's a rewind, who knows.

[MrCandy]

Maybe it's a rewind, who knows.

The best way to know if it is rewind or not is to measure AFC of pickup you have and compare it with AFC of original pickup(+- 200Hz).
Rewinders often use only ohmmeter, they dont really try to make AFC the same at most of the cases.
The same goes for pickup clone making. Besides appearance and material correspondence AFC must be the same as in original, then we can call it clone.
In my opinion AFC is the keystone in pickup making anyway.

[ForcedFire]

Right because characteristics of the coil would change with different tension and winding pattern. I don't know if the data exists for the original pickup, seems like there was a lot of variation in old pickups as well. Also this pickup has definitely been messed with, the magnet is different, etc...

The coils do not look like they were rewound but I don't really care, I just did this to help a friend out. He still has the '71 custom so I'm going to send it back to him.