How may winding for a P 90

[John Fisher]

Greetings! You have all helped me quite a bit with my P 90 build questions. I am just about to finished my project.
I have a question. I know that the amount of turns can be a matter of preference but what are your favorite amount of turns for a P 90 and what was the original Gibson standard? I have read a couple of examples of it being anywhere from 9 to 11 thousand turns. What is your favorite for those who have built a lot of these things. I was planning on using a 10 percent difference from the bridge to the neck.
Thanks for your input.

[Jim Darr]

Start with 10,000 turns 42 gauge...then go up and down noting the differences in the results. Experiment until you get the sound you want. Also, magnet type and strength play a big role as does TPL.

[John_H]

Be careful with your tension. If you're too tight, plastic will flare, and built bobbins will come apart on the winder. 10% is a bunch. You can always start with excess wire, and peel back wraps 'til you get what you're after.

[Jim Darr]

Be careful with your tension. If you're too tight, plastic will flare, and built bobbins will come apart on the winder. 10% is a bunch. You can always start with excess wire, and peel back wraps 'til you get what you're after.

+1 ---- Excellent points!!!

[ken]

At 10000 turns, a 10% difference in turn count is too much. You may be happier with 5% instead.

ken

[Beef Coon]

I typically like the neck about 10% under when bridge PU => 10,000 turns - sometimes even more if the bridge PU >10,500.

But 5% is a great place to start. If you don't like it you can always take a bunch of turns off to get to 10% or whatever.

[big_teee]

I think it depends a lot with neck pickup rout placement.
I detest muddy neck pickups, and if it's mounted all the way forward against a 21, or 22 fret neck?
Then IMO the 10% reduction of a 10k turns pickup is a good place to start.
I matched one with a tele bridge SC pickup, In a Alder Tele 25-1/2" scale jammed against the neck.
To get them to match up and sound good together, I overwound the bridge SC, and I ended up reducing the neck P-90 around 15% .
But, that was for a specific guitar, and YMMV!
T

[David Schwab]

P-90s changed a lot over the years; I had a mid 60s ES-330TD with the chrome dogear pickups. They were about 8k, and had a beautiful tone. The neck pickup got that Strat like tone, but fatter. Then I had a set of P-90s from a 70s SG, and they were wound much hotter, and had that barky midrange people associate with P-90s.

A combination of the two would work nicely on a guitar.

[jack briggs]

I wind a pair with the neck @ 7800T and bridge at 10,000. The neck is full with a little extra clarity and the bridge snarls. Balance between the 2 is great and the middle pos is beautiful.

cheers,

[David Schwab]

I wind a pair with the neck @ 7800T and bridge at 10,000.

I took the 70's SG set and unwound the neck pickup to about that, and yes, it sounded very nice.

[John Fisher]

I took the 70's SG set and unwound the neck pickup to about that, and yes, it sounded very nice.

Well I wound one pickup at 10000 turns. The problem is that I wanted to avoid the whole potting issue so I potted it with varnish while it was being wound. My bad! So my next one will have to somehow be tailored to the first one. My guess would be to use the first one on the bridge and wind the neck one to about 9000 turns. I am using Alnico #5 magnets. Considering that the first pickup of 10000 turns is "etched in stone", (no pun intended) I will need to work around that. I am not interested in an overly fat tone but something just a little fatter then a strat pickup. Considering that the older ones are a a little thinner sounding then the newer ones I would opt for the more "vintage" sound. Thanks for everyone's comments. They are very informative and I love them!

[copperheadroads]

How do you compare a p-90 to a strat ,they only have 2 things in common = single coil & Usually use 42 gauge wire .

Potted in Varnish while being wound !!! sounds messy
P-90's were never potted till probably the 70's or 80's so why would you ?
I think the newer p-90's modern (even though hotter ) sound thinner than late 50's p-90's cause of the wind

[Jim Darr]

Potted in Varnish while being wound !!! sounds messy
P-90's were never potted till probably the 70's or 80's so why would you ?

Agree, potting this way sounds very messy and probably slows the winding time down considerably.

Vintage P90s, like Copper says, were not potted just like HBs of the same time period, mainly because they were all machine wound. You would have to pot if it was hand wound/hand scatter, just like Leo had to, because winding by hand generally produces a very microphonic pickup even at relatively low volumes. Potting corrects this issue.

Personally I don't like to pot machine wound P90s or HBs as I believe it tends to dampen the sound a little...to me unpotted HBs and P90s sound a little more "lively".