Rickenbacker Toaster Specs?

[Electricdaveyboy]

Hello Members!
I have a customer( Beatles Fan) who wants me to wind a 60ties Toaster pickup set for his guitar but I am not shure about the specs.
I got the following info: 6 Alnico V rods dia 0.25 Inch. but no lenght ( ?) somewehre I read Alnico 2. was used.
Wire should be AWG 44 but ohmreadings/ turns seem to differ a lot.
Furthermore I would like to know the winding direction and magnet polarity.Are they the same in both pickups ?
Hope you guys can help me. TX!

[Electricdaveyboy]

Ey Terry! Thanks for the link. What I see is a list of Gretsch Specs.Good stuff.
But still looking for RICKENBACKER Toaster ;-)

[big_teee]

Sorry, I was thinking GH Gretch.
I hadn't been up long. lol
Don't know nuthin on Rickenbacker.
No Rics in my area.
T

[kayakerca]

Ey Terry! Thanks for the link. What I see is a list of Gretsch Specs.Good stuff.
But still looking for RICKENBACKER Toaster ;-)

I ran into the site below when I was looking for some spec's on a Rickenbacker 4003 bass neck repair I was doing.

Rickenbacker Toaster Pickups

[salvarsan]

I had a Toaster back in the 00's that got measured Magnets were Alnico 2, 1/4" dia. and protruded well below the bottom, maybe 3/4" length.
Bobbin core (aka winding area) was 2.165" wide, 0.26" thick, 0.185" high; metric = 55 mm, 6.6 mm, 4.7 mm

If John Hall is credible, it was wound with #44 wire.

It was an underwound coil that measured ~6.060 kohms, needed about 5000 winds #44.
By the Coil Estimator app, the current vintage guitar toaster has 7.400 k coils needing ~6000 winds #44.

[mr fab]

this is something I cut and pasted a while back from the web somewhere... cant verify its correctness

Rickenbacker Toaster: (and others) in '50's heavier gauged wire to about 4-5k, then 60's to about 7k w/ 42, then later 8k and above.. (I've been "told" it's only ever been wound w/ 43awg..)

[Electricdaveyboy]

Thanks Salvarsan!
Magnet lenght makes sense wehn comared to the Toaster dimention you can find online.
I read somewehre that the two pickups are out of phase wired.. I listend to some YouTube Clips but can not tell ???

[Electricdaveyboy]

Yes.Saw it .That info comes from the SK site. On the Richenbacker site it says they only purchased 44 AWG back in time..

[soundmasterg]

According to John Hall, the owner of Rickenbacker, since he has been involved (mid 60's) they have only used 44 gauge wire. The toasters from then until now range from 6k to 12k, with the hotter ones being 90's ones. Vintage spec will be about what their current pickups are...about 7.5k. If the guitar uses 21 frets and the neck pickup is mounted close to the end of the neck, a pickup closer to 6k-6.5k will be less boomy on the bass. Hotter in the bridge is a good idea, and maybe some magnet other than alnico 5 to tame the brightness as they can be as bright or brighter than a Tele in that position. Some of the 60's neck pickups had shorter magnets, but this will result in a weaker pickup so keep that in mind. 50's toasters are likely thicker wire like 42 or 43 gauge around 4k-5k. To my ears those ones sound better, but I have never seen one in person so I can't confirm the wire size or DC resistance. I have a few of the modern ones, and have some custom ones I have experimented with. One with 44 gauge PE wound to 11.5k....another with 43 gauge (i forget which wire type right now) wound as hot as you can get on the bobbin which is about 9.5k. Haven't tried that one yet. Another thing to keep in mind is the modern toasters use a molded bobbin with a stainless steel piece to solder the beginning of the coil to....obviously it doesn't solder well. They used to use copper for a long time for that purpose and it works better.

Greg

P.S. I'll add that on the Rick Resource Forum there is a thread from a couple years ago in the bass section that delved into the pickups in good detail, but these were bass specific rather than guitar. With the toaster pickup that doesn't matter because it was always the same and used on both instrument types.