Rewinding Leo's originals

[dzuric]

Has anybody rewound any original Leo Lender's pickups with heavy formvar after the pickup died or shorted?

I have had that done on several pickups and they seem to come back glassy, lacking bass and bigness that they have had originally. Now I am buying Baewire 42AWG formvar to start doing them myself as I have two more sets and afraid that they will short sooner or later.

Can anybody give me a good advice how to get that throaty big tone back rewinding the original magnets and bobbins from early 60'?

[Possum]

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Read all my emails, thats how :-)

[Possum]

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You can't recreate old wire as I told you before, and often as I told you before too there are shorts to the magnets that are faults that you get used to but define tone as well. Bottom line is you really can't duplicate an old coil perfectly, it just has to age for 50 years....

[Possum]

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What you're missing is that magnet wire, formvar, is a varnish formula, the old formula is probably not the same as what's used today, plus I strongly suspect the dielectric effects of aged varnish differ vastly from new wire, this effect just can't be duplicated with new wire much less quantified or measured in any way that makes sense. As proof of this point one of our members did a shoot out with some vintage strats, one of the entries was I think a '59 strat that had never been out of its case pretty much in all these years. Its magnets were still fully charged and the pickups never exposed to smoke or heat and air exposure during its life. The pickups in it were in mint condition and no one liked them, they were bright and brassy sounding just like new guitars. So that sure says something right there. Its very likely you would get closer by using a different kind of magnet wire and not heavy formvar, but that would take alot of experimentation and listening. If you've never wound before you really should wind a lot of pickups and not use the vintage ones to experiment with. Vintage pickups can fall apart from too much rewinding and fiddling with plus its alot less frustrating winding over a new clean bobbin than an old one that probably will snag the wire etc. plus you really have to clean them up before you wind them again. Learn to wind first would be good advice :-)

[dzuric]

Rewinding originals

Thanks Possum,

You have always been most helpful and the pickup you have done is the best I had so far. There is a couple of things happening that I would like to experiment against, especially because it is going to be very time consuming for professionals to restore my originals in my 62 once other pickups go, one by one. I live in Queensland and we have very humid weather pattern. I have had three pickups shorting in the last three years.

Whenever I play the original pickups they sound balanced just as if you were playing an acoustic as they have since the time they were made. I suppose if you achieve the same amount of bass from the rewound you would get the bottom strings to sound balanced against the G and B which seem to come louder in formvar re-wounds.. I am sure that what you say is true about the materials being different but the brand new pickups coming out of Fender these days do seem balanced (with too much attack though) so I am wondering why can we get the same balance of volume and bass on the rewound originals if the new ones can achieve that.

You see, I have no choice but keep on repairing the originals as I am not going to throw them away and I am simply hooked to that sound and feel.

i though if one has a lots of time and a broken pickup one can experiment and see what happens. I certainly will not make the coil too tight to damage the bobbin as I intend to guide by hand under a slow speed.

If I was to get new ones than it would be a different story. I would not bother with repairing anything that is not original as I can easily buy your pickups which sound great on sound clips. I am sure that it is much easier to make the new pickup work than the old ones but I have no choice with the old guitar but to try very slowly to make the old hand wound coil.

Cheers!

[Possum]

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Fender may not be using what you think they are, they are notorious for making "reissue" pickups that are historically wrong in every respect :-) They may be using single formvar for instance instead of heavy formvar, there is a huge difference there. they may be using 43 gauge heavy formvar as well, you just can't tell until you rip one apart and micrometer the the wire and examine what kind of winding pattern they used. When you take apart your old ones for rewind, unwind them slowly by hand and count how many turns were used per layer. Since they were hand wound its likely you'll find inconsistent numbers of winds that way but it will give you an idea of what to do. Mojo Musical supply have prebuilt fender bobbins that would be good for you to learn on, get some cheap wire and get your technique down before tackling your vintage bobbins. Its not as easy as you think and you will break alot of wire, the initial learning is a tough little learning curve. You also need to learn to strip the insulation on formvar wire, its not a solderable wire.

I still think the old formvar formula is different. I heard recently for instance that old plain enamel wire the insulation would MELT if run at too high a speed. Modern plain enamel doesn't have that problem, so that shows that formulas have changed. Dieletric effects are very important, for instance single formvar does not sound like single plain enamel, the dielectric effects are different is the reason. What you pot with makes a difference. Is the paraffin we use today the same as old? I think maybe not. that too has an effect. Some Fender stuff is so balanced that its really bland and sterile sounding to me, it could be the magnets they are using, Fralin pickups have that kind of ughhhhh.....tone. What you will also run into in hand winding is that you can wind 6 pickups with the same number of winds and they will all sound different :-)

[dzuric]

Thanks Possum,

I just played the pup you rewound after I left the big neodymium on the E6 & A5 poles for a while. I don't know if I am imagining but it seems to be getting more bass every time I play it.

I need to go out and play it live and see what happens. You are right, when the pickups are too balanced they sound boring.

I am taking all this advice on board. It is really a complete science. I am going to do at least one pickup to see what happens as i did one years ago in Taiwan by hand. it took me all day but the tone was nice. However I kept on breaking the wire as it was 44 awg poly or something. It was hard days work. in the end it sounded nice but not as loud as the others as t i could not fit any more onto the bobbin with a very loose coil.

[Sam Lee Guy]

Ah! Leo sometimes velly tricky fella! Not always use what everyone think. Heavy formvar velly good insulator and give bright sound. Sometimes old Fender pickup have polyester enamel and sound much more mellow, even with few winds because not such good insulator.

[Possum]

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Interesting. I've had David's bridge pickup here though and Chris Duarte's full guard. They were definitely heavy formvar but Duarte's bridge had alot of shorts to the poles, so it had a nice tame sound. David's sounds like HF but just a tad off the top. I learned a trick to boost the mids and trim the top a tiny bit that works real well since then that I now do on all my HF strat bridge pickups. I got a book on coil winding from 1959 and was surprised that poly nylon wire was used back then so you could be right plus that stuff definitely tames it down, maybe thats what they're using in the Fender "custom shop?"