Gretsch Super Axe Pickups

[fieldwrangler]

If it was truly impressive, you wouldn't have these questions.
This little application imperfectly estimates windings from resistance readings, bobbin (not coil) dimensions, and wire gauge.

If you only have the resistance and bobbin dimensions, you can usually get the wire size by trial-and-error comparisons of 42,43,and 44 AWG.

The Fill Factor tries to account for loose scatter winds vs. tight machine winds.

Max winds tells you how much wire you can put on the bobbin without winding past the edge of the bobbin flats.

It tries to put a number to how you can put more wire on a bobbin with a tight wind than a loose wind.

The Coil Estimator has limited usefulness since magnet wire dimensional specs are +/- 5%, maybe worse.

That range propagates to roughly +/-250 winds on a 5000 winding pickup which means that any plausible windings estimate puts you in the ballpark but won't get you on base.

Still one helluva great tool you've given us here!

Bob Palmieri

[David Schwab]

David -

You're the greatest; thanks for this ID! Incidentally, the previous day I hadta tear into one of those Epiphone specimens with the wax filling up the covers, and there were certain clues that either these things came from a related source or someone Once Upon a Time "learned" a construction technique or two from the Maxons.

Glad to help!

When you said "rectangular forms" and "picket fence slug poles", that made me think of the Maxon pickups. When you posted the photos than I knew for sure.

Yeah, the Epis are probably related, but the Maxons sound pretty good, while the Epis don't.

[fieldwrangler]

The Conclusion:

Used up my last roll of Electrasola 42ga single poly from the late 70's - early 80's on this thing. Looked & measured the same as what was on there. Put the usual 5K turns on there; bobbin looked the same as the other one. Measured the same DCR too (4.1K). Wrapped it up with the same lousy tape, crammed everything back into the cover and gave the guitar a quick listen. Had a bad moment when I noticed that having the toggle in the Up position sounded a LOT more trebly than in the Down; felt bad 'till I figured out I had the thing in upside down.

Didn't listen critically but I'd say it's really a pretty good sounding pickup. A bit muddy for my taste but respectable, and as David said, much, much better than those Epi's.

By the way, I did a dumb thing and sliced off all the wire before ascertaining the winding direction; had to re-open the other one to be sure of what was up (& down.)
Don't let this happen to you.

Bob Palmieri

[fieldwrangler]

Actually, one last question:

What d'we like to use for glue to simulate that brown goop they used to use on things like this?

[fieldwrangler]

Okay, one more:

Believe it or not, I stocked up on so much wire in the 80's that I haven't had to buy any for about the last 30 years. Something tells me it's gonna cost a lot more than it did then.

What are the preferred sources for small quantities of non-respooled wire here in 2012?

[David Schwab]

I don't know what that glue is.

I get my wire from BAE Wire on eBay:

baewire | eBay

A 1.66lb roll goes for $34. So far all the wire I have gotten from them is from Elektrasola.

AWG 42 Copper Magnet Wire SPN 155 Red | eBay

[Possum]

The best way to approach this is to rewind them, but to do it accurately you need to do some hard work. First measure the diameter of the wire, this is very important, not all 42 is the same size, there is a large tolerance, if you don't have a micrometer, time to get one. Then put each coil on a winder faceplate that has a counter and unwind it completely from beginning to end, noting direction of wind, which lead was used a hot or ground. Number of turns is the only accurate way to reproduce the coil. I have a dedicated winder/counter head I use for this alone. Count how many turns each layer has. Best way to do this is count how many turns are in say four passes across the coil, then divide the count by four to get TPL. Rewind it exactly as it was, same TPL, same diameter wire etc. etc. This is the only way you'll restore it to what it was.

[David Schwab]

Didn't listen critically but I'd say it's really a pretty good sounding pickup. A bit muddy for my taste but respectable, and as David said, much, much better than those Epi's.

I'd try it again, but wind less wire on it this time.

[fieldwrangler]

The best way to approach this is to rewind them, but to do it accurately you need to do some hard work. First measure the diameter of the wire, this is very important, not all 42 is the same size, there is a large tolerance, if you don't have a micrometer, time to get one. Then put each coil on a winder faceplate that has a counter and unwind it completely from beginning to end, noting direction of wind, which lead was used a hot or ground. Number of turns is the only accurate way to reproduce the coil. I have a dedicated winder/counter head I use for this alone. Count how many turns each layer has. Best way to do this is count how many turns are in say four passes across the coil, then divide the count by four to get TPL. Rewind it exactly as it was, same TPL, same diameter wire etc. etc. This is the only way you'll restore it to what it was.

I really like tis idea of the "four passes across the coil."

I did a quick partial exploratory de-winding and measured the wire carefully with a mic.

By the time I was done I couldn't tell which coil I had rewound, so I called it a day.

Not as conscientious as what you've described here (and I'm sure actually put into practice in much of your own work) but good enough for this application, I say.

Frankly, I do really love a number of cheap pickups, but these aren't the absolute Best of Breed. And the idea of putting 4 hours or more of conscientious effort into pickups that were originally thrown together without a similar level of attention to detail is beyond my current level of spiritual advancement.

[fieldwrangler]

I'd try it again, but wind less wire on it this time.

It's done.

The coil matches its partner to a surprising degree in terms of DCR, ACR @ 120 & 1K and dimensions of the final pack.

The bridge pickup is also running around 8.2k DCR, so I guess that's the way these things are supposed to be.

[David Schwab]

The bridge pickup is also running around 8.2k DCR, so I guess that's the way these things are supposed to be.

Right, but "supposed to be" and the best voicing for that pickup are two different things. It's probably good for the bridge, but neck pickups can usually stand to be wound cleaner to get rid of the mud. Taking it down to about 7-7.5k would probably improve the tone of the neck pickup.

[fieldwrangler]

Right, but "supposed to be" and the best voicing for that pickup are two different things. It's probably good for the bridge, but neck pickups can usually stand to be wound cleaner to get rid of the mud. Taking it down to about 7-7.5k would probably improve the tone of the neck pickup.

Agree 100%.

My decisions were guided primarily by a goal to match the existing neck pickup coil.

Something tells me that Original Recipe may have not called for different #'s of winds on the two pickups. In fact, the coils forms have a long enough slot in the center to allow for considerable stretching of the E to E pole spacing and were basically Up to Capacity as far as wire was concerned; it wouldn't surprise me if this coil was used for a number of different applications.

[David Schwab]

Something tells me that Original Recipe may have not called for different #'s of winds on the two pickups.

Well that's a fairly new thing, since the introduction of things like the DiMarzio Super Distortion. Before that most guitars had one kind of pickup, the Telecaster notwithstanding.

[bill raymond]

You all may certainly be right about the maker of these pickups, but the information I've read from Gretsch sources have all attributed them to DiMarzio. Not to say that those sources are infallible, as misinformation, especially in this age of the internet, is spread widely and quickly and becomes "common knowledge".

BTW, the internal effects were designed for Chet by Ron Tipton, using RCA ICs. You can find an
article about them, including schematics, at Designing the Hot Strings Guitar for Chet Atkins .

[fieldwrangler]

You all may certainly be right about the maker of these pickups, but the information I've read from Gretsch sources have all attributed them to DiMarzio. Not to say that those sources are infallible, as misinformation, especially in this age of the internet, is spread widely and quickly and becomes "common knowledge".

And, since the ones I saw were most definitely not of DiMarzio origin, this is an interesting point.

BTW, the internal effects were designed for Chet by Ron Tipton, using RCA ICs. You can find an
article about them, including schematics, at Designing the Hot Strings Guitar for Chet Atkins .

Another Very Interesting point!!