Lipstick Pickups

[GlennW]

Here's something, you have to scroll down a bit to get to the pickup info.
http://www.danguitars.com/TheHistory...#Lipstick%20PU

[gregyancey]

I was just fixing up my 90's Danelectro Baritone guitar and noticed the magnet/coil for the neck pickup is oriented horizontally inside the lipstick tube while the bridge pickup is vertical (standard). Is this normal for lipstick pickups or a factory mistake?

[soundmasterg]

I think the norm is probably vertical, but they wound these around the magnet and stuffed the whole assembly into the tube, so I would guess they probably made some of the old ones with a horizontal magnet too somewhere along the way. If it works and sounds good, then it doesn't matter right?

Greg

[Jim Shine]

15-20 years ago I was the go to guy in my area to fix these.

The black tape as I remember it degraded into a black mess. Very similar to the black gunk the Fender rubber pickup shims would leak out.

I seem to recall being told many years ago the lipstick casing was the outer parts of an actual lipstick casing. There was a huge surplus available of these tubes available for next to nothing, so a pickup was designed around the surplus casing.

[Joe Gwinn]

I seem to recall being told many years ago the lipstick casing was the outer parts of an actual lipstick casing. There was a huge surplus available of these tubes available for next to nothing, so a pickup was designed around the surplus casing.

In those days, this means that the tube was probably made of deep-drawn brass.

[gregyancey]

If it works and sounds good, then it doesn't matter right?

True - it does sound great. The neck pickup is quite a bit mellower than the bridge since it's horizontal, so when combined most of the neck's contribution just fills out the sound while the bridge keeps it aggressive sounding, plus they're wired in series. Still though if anyone else has a 90's Danelectro reissue around and a magnet polarity tester I'd be curious if your's also has the neck pickup coil mounted internally horizontal. Although it's probably not RWRP anyway having the pickups sensing orthogonal fields makes humcancelling impossible...

[David Schwab]

The pickup was probably placed in the tube the wrong way, or it's moved over time.

[Mike Sulzer]

The pickup was probably placed in the tube the wrong way, or it's moved over time.

That is what I was thinking, too. But rotating the coil would be an interesting intentional way to adjust the relative volume between two pickups, compensating, for example, for a too loud neck pickup.

[rjb]

Have any single coils or HBs been similarly designed that are wound directly onto a bar magnet?

Electromuse "Eye-Beam" pickups for lap steel used wire wound directly onto an I-beam shaped magnet.
Does that count?

-rb

[soundmasterg]

My Danelectro is a 90's reissue but I have some Duncan Custom Shop Lipsticks in it, so not sure if any measurements of those will help you, but I can check the polarity orientation if you want?

Greg

[David Schwab]

Have any single coils or HBs been similarly designed that are wound directly onto a bar magnet?

Lots of them, but usually there are sort of bobbin flanged on the top and bottom, like with the old DeArmond pickups.

Alembic pickups are also wound right on the magnet, but there is flatwork on it.

[David Schwab]

Have any single coils or HBs been similarly designed that are wound directly onto a bar magnet?

Lots of them, but usually there are sort of bobbin flanged on the top and bottom, like with the old DeArmond pickups.

Alembic pickups are also wound right on the magnet, but there is flatwork on it.

[Jim Shine]

I just dissected an old dead "Dirty Works" pickup and they had coils wound on the magnets as well. They put masking tape around the magnets first ofcourse.

[Possum]

Pretty sure Duncan and all the modern ones aren't wound on the magnets, someone sent me a modern lipstick and it has a plastic bobbin with magnet inserted, alot easier to wind but would put distance between the coil and magnet so they wouldn't sound like the real ones. I bet the Dano pots were probably low values, 25-50K range to compensate for the extreme brightness, wonder what tone cap they used also....

http://www.guitarpartsusa.com/item--...p-Kit--PROD549

[David Schwab]

Pretty sure Duncan and all the modern ones aren't wound on the magnets, someone sent me a modern lipstick and it has a plastic bobbin with magnet inserted, alot easier to wind but would put distance between the coil and magnet so they wouldn't sound like the real ones.

That makes no difference. Try it and see. Besides the bobbins walls are very thin.

I bet the Dano pots were probably low values, 25-50K range to compensate for the extreme brightness, wonder what tone cap they used also....

Guitar Lipstick Tube Pickup Kit

The stacked pots are 1meg/100k. The 1M section was the tone. Some of the other guitars used 25-50k pots.