B/H Round Table & Misc

[Jason Rodgers]

Only been a couple of pickup jobs this first week and a bit into the new year, so I started getting a little more serious about my CAD skills as it relates to pickup flatwork. Just getting ready for the arrival of the laser cutter/engraver mid year (hopefully). This CAD stuff (Fusion 360 in my case) is very cool for doing the design layout for pickup bobbins ready for either CNC router (which is WAY to slow to do more than one offs) or laser. Very very cool.

So far my list of drawings consists:
- Strat single coils
- Tele bridge bobbins
- Tele neck bobbins
- P90 bobbins
- P-Bass bobbins (both 4 string and 6 string)
- J-Bass bobbins (both 4 string and 6 string)

I definitely have a few more to go.

Cool part is that you can change any of the parameters and the model dynamically resizes. So as an example you wanted to do a Tele bridge with body mount holes, you put that diameter in and away you go. To make it for pickguard mount, change that one variable to the new diameeter and WHAM! Change magnet size, magnet hole spacing, mount hole size or spacing, width, height, thickness, you name it and it changes and resizes. I especially like that you can set up variables for any of the parameters.

There is a Tele neck bobbin base as an example:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]37240[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]37241[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]37242[/ATTACH]

Trickiest one was a Tele bridge bobbin bottom.

Seems there is always something new to learn that is cool to boot. Man I love retirement!

Very nice! What CAD package are you using? A friend just turned me on to Autodesk's Fusion 360. He has a K2 hobby-size CNC in his garage, and he's helping me sketch up some custom bridge plates for my multi-scale guitars. It's very friendly, and I jumped in quickly and had some basic models ready for him to check and CAM up.

[kayakerca]

Very nice! What CAD package are you using? A friend just turned me on to Autodesk's Fusion 360. He has a K2 hobby-size CNC in his garage, and he's helping me sketch up some custom bridge plates for my multi-scale guitars. It's very friendly, and I jumped in quickly and had some basic models ready for him to check and CAM up.

I'm using Fusion 360. Nice piece of CAD software and pretty easy to get a handle on for stuff like this for a guy like me that lacks the skills.

[big_teee]

Ethan, my grandson is supposed to be on A.I. for sure tonight.
Little Rock Try-outs got split into two nights.
No one has seen the filming, including Ethan and his parents.
So we don't know what to expect?
Keep your fingers crossed!
Sharon & I are heading to another TV watch party tonight.
Everyone in the area has been invited, so it should be interesting.
He was just a 15yo kid when he did the audition.
I hope the world doesn't expect too much!
T

[big_teee]

We went to the TV watch party, The whole community showed up, & Ethan did great.
He made the cut, and will next be on a hollywood show.
There may be a Youtube link up soon, to his audition he had tonight.
I will post it when the link appears.
Thanks for your support!
T

[The Dude]

That's awesome! Kudos to you all!

[Stratz]

We went to the TV watch party, The whole community showed up, & Ethan did great.
He made the cut, and will next be on a hollywood show.
There may be a Youtube link up soon, to his audition he had tonight.
I will post it when the link appears.
Thanks for your support!
T

What, no electric guitar loaded with Big t pickups?
Heres a clip

[kayakerca]

We went to the TV watch party, The whole community showed up, & Ethan did great.
He made the cut, and will next be on a hollywood show.
There may be a Youtube link up soon, to his audition he had tonight.
I will post it when the link appears.
Thanks for your support!
T

Your grandson Ethan was great Terry! Like Stratz though, I was expecting to see a Big T sound hole pickup in that Alvarez. :-). Be proud.

[big_teee]

Thanks!
At A.I. They do everything un-amplified.
He has a shiny new Taylor Acoustic Elec. he got for his 16yo birthday, he plays now.
In the blues band he plays a Strat.
T

[big_teee]

Here's Ethans full video, with bio, and shows Ethan with his hound dogs.
American Idol 2016 Audition - Ethan Kuntz VIDEO
T

[mr fab]

you must be so proud terry

no matter how far he goes in idol; these are memories to cherish

[mr fab]

getting back to pickups and daily work, I recently pickd up a superb Japanese Bacchus jazz bass cheap which had been butchered by the previous owner.

it had been badly routed for a couple of mm pups and had a poorly made control plate under which more routing had been done to install a 9v battery for a preamp.

anyay, I did away with the pickguards, and installed a std control plate with 2 vol and master tone., I also got some alnico MM pups which are splittable ( I will get to making some eventually)

and decided to cover the hole made for the battery with a Jag 3 switch plate. so now I have the ability to go series or parallel on each pickup, and also split the both for a quasi jazz bass sound.

I tried it tonight with a band I fill in from time to time..... (I am a guitarist who sometimes plays bass)... and it rocks big time.... very nice pallet of tones.

its strange that you don't see many basses equipped with many switches like this....

[big_teee]

Nice looking bass.
I like the MM size pickups, and I make and use that pickup rout, but I make mine Multi-coil.
I agree that I'm surprised that more basses don't use switches.
Most use some form of a blend pot.
I install LP 3 ways on all my basses.
It's a guitar thing, and starting on guitar switches make more sense IMO that nothing but Pots.
T
** And, yes I am proud of him!

[mr fab]

yep a proud grandad...

I know what you mean about switches.... I keep getting pissed off when I want to use neck or bridge pickup only and have to turn one volume control down and the other up....and then vice versa.

a simple tele 3 way or LP switch would make it much easier

[big_teee]

I stuck a few more of the frequently used threads to the top of the page.
If they get in the way too badly let me know and I can unstick them.
T

[big_teee]

Does anyone make a set of pickups like this?
I've been asked if I could make them.
**Edit
Does anyone got any ideas, how to go about building these?