potting without pro setup?

[Chuck H]

Sweet. Why get complicated, right? It's just melted wax after all. I think the tea candles are just paraffin with a little extra paraffin oil. Which is pretty much what everyone here suggested. I used block parafin, which is harder. Probably too brittle actually. So I added a couple of dollops of Vaseline!!! Vaseline is a combo of paraffin, mineral oil and some sort of long chain crystalline wax. The melting point is lower than paraffin, but higher than any oils (which are viscous at room temperature). So I figured it would be a perfectly suitable softener for the pure paraffin blocks.

One thing you might do next time is add a dish rag between the glass and the pot. This will ensure that no part of the pickup is in contact with stove top temps. It's a trick I use when working big pans as double boilers for sensitive recipies that temper egg yolks and such Also a good trick for water bath custards so they don't brown too much at the bottom... Is anyone else getting hungry?

Loved your 'gettin' it done' winder in the link.

[bea]

One thing you might do next time is add a dish rag between the glass and the pot. This will ensure that no part of the pickup is in contact with stove top temps.

I actually did by putting the glass onto some nuts (M10). Important because the glass is not heat resistant; it should not be in contact with he bottom of the stove. That could cause it to break.

Loved your 'gettin' it done' winder in the link.

And actually gives more control over the process than with an electrical drilling engine (which i could have used even more easily).

[kayakerca]

Here's an Old Vid I had bookmarked in the Resources Thread.
It show's Making a Single coil Pickup from start to finish.
He Pots a Pickup in an interesting way at the end.
Kind of Double boiler, with a Vacuum on a fruit Jar.
I always take something away when I watch this Video.
The only thing I see, that I don't agree with is, He turns the eyelets up, instead of down.
Leaving something for the wire to snag on while winding.
T

When I first was this video, I thought, WOW, that's a lot of bubbles coming out. But after putting together my mini crock pot with a single stage vacuum pump potting rig, I realize that the rig in the video isn't pulling much a vacuum at all otherwise the bubbling would look more like a frantic boil and, that think tin lid on the mason jar would be sucked in and crushed under a substantial vacuum. Not that anyone needs to "vacuum" pot, but the potting intensity in the video is closer to a non vacuum potting process (IMO).

Great short video outlining the entire process, front to back.

[David Schwab]

Thanks. I could have looked it up easy enough but I knew it would be high enough not to matter for this experiment. So...

It also shows that the melting point of paraffin and beeswax is so close, that there's no point in mixing the two. It's only a few degrees difference.

[Chuck H]

Well, in fairness, some guys obsess about the temperature in a hot car, or whatever. A couple of degrees can make a difference in that case since common temperatures and unbearable temperatures are only ten degrees apart!!! Of course, if a guitar is sitting in a hot car at 140° unchecked I don't suppose that individual is too concearned about the pickups unpotting themselves!?! The melting point for straight paraffin is 125° to 165° (according to Wiki). The stuff I used is very hard. You almost can't bust a 3/4" thick block of it over your knee! I had to soften it somehow for peace of mind. But I was never concearned about the melting point being too low.

[RedHouse]

...if a guitar is sitting in a hot car at 140* unchecked I don't suppose ....

Yep, it sure does leak out, here is an old Squire strat (Japan) I sold my uncle in '89. He lives in Hawaii and apparently left the guitar in the car at some point, as we noticed the wax came out of the Duncan's which I potted myself (back in the day) here it is after "picking" most of it out of the bridge pickup cavity, it even leaked through the wire channels/holes and got into the ctrl cavity.

[Chuck H]

That's great info. But I'll stand by the idea that leaving a guitar in an environment that would melt paraffin is as likely to damage a guitar structurally as it is to damage the potting wax. So, in fairness, that guitar was mistreated. Perhaps the wood is fine. I can't know. But the general rule is: Don't keep a guitar anyplace that YOU would be uncomfortable. If that ideology had been followed, that wax wouldn't have melted.

[RedHouse]

..the general rule is: Don't keep a guitar anyplace that YOU would be uncomfortable. If that ideology had been followed, that wax wouldn't have melted.

Yeah, I'm of the same opinion, was totally stunned when I saw this. I immediately knew the guitar had to be exposed to extreme heat.
(having melted wax before in my potting rig)

The back-story is that he had fallen into hard times and was sleeping in his pickup truck (camper) on the beach for a short spell and must have left the guitar locked inside while he was out looking for work. On the up-side, the heat didn't hurt the guitar, neck is still straight, and it plays well and sounds good.

[Chuck H]

A similar thing happened to me. I was driving a long distance for meager work because I needed to make something happen. I left an acoustic locked in my car overnight and temperatures moved from about 75F during the day down to -3F that night. The neck took a warp that returned soon after attempts to straighten it It was a great guitar but not an expensive one. Lesson learned.

[RedHouse]

An unrelated but equally bummerload story is back in 1978 when I was traveling in Idaho through some mountains at night when the '65 Mustang I was driving skidded off the road (I was going a little too fast on dirt roads), well we rolled her right down about 100' and landed (on it's side) in a river, precariously perched atop on some boulders (river was about 10' deep at that point), I swam out through the drivers window only to realize my SG was still in the back seat, had to go back and get it. It survived the ordeal dried out fine and I contiunued to gig with that guitar untill about '86. But it needed a paint job, the purple felt in the case did something to the paint and made it stain and be rough on the back. I initially just tripped it to mahogany (natural) finish, then later re-painted it Chevy "Marina Blue".

Besides being coverd in dark-blue bruises all over my bod (from the seatbelt-less roll) to add insult to injury the county sheriff call me up the next day and tells me I need to get my car out of his river. I had to hire a vehicle recovery crew to winch the damn thing up the 100' bank and tow it 20 miles into the nearest town. That was one expensive day.
(I always wear my seatbelty now, live-n-learn)

In this picture which was in the accessory compartment of the case you can see see water damage to the photograph.

[big_teee]

A summertime hot vehicle, at mid day temps is very hard on more than guitars.
I drove a Communications Van full of tools, and test equipment for many years.
The Heat is Murder on batteries.
Threw away a couple of Mag Lights, cause the batteries would get hot ruin, and corrode.
You couldn't get the flashlights apart after the bad corrosion.
Nicads in Power Tools didn't last long either.
Since I've retired, and all my tools are kept indoors, Batteries last much longer.
I got to where I would grease the inside of my metal flashlights, with a cosmoline like metal protector.
That way if the batteries ruined, you could still get the flashlight apart.
T

[whodatpat]

I use a double boiler to keep the temps down so I dont burn the wax. Parafin wax is fine. I use a 50/50 mix of bees wax and parafin because i had a block of bees wax on hand. As it gets used up I just add straight parafin.
I added the vacuume hand pump that you would typically use on a car brake job. When I attach the lid and start the vacuume you can see lots of little bubbles. This of course means the wax is displacing air! I have even let them sit in the parafin for 15 minutes before applying the vacuume and you still get bubbles, so hot wax on its own cant completely saturate the windings. I have torn one of my potted pickups appart and it clearly gets wax into every space in the wind.

[Chuck H]

I added the vacuume hand pump that you would typically use on a car brake job.

I use to do the exact same thing with varnish. I used a big mayonaise jar. And my pump was the crappy version, but effective anyway. I haven't tried it with the wax yet. Seems like the logical next step.

[Steve A.]

A traditional approach is a double boiler. I got a banged-up double boiler with cover at the local dump, and dedicated it to wax. There is no danger of fire, but be sure not to boil the bottom pot dry.

I went down to Goodwill and found two pots that nested together nicely that I've been using as a double boiler for many years. If you have a gas range you might need to take extra precautions.

Steve Ahola

[Steve A.]

But I'll stand by the idea that leaving a guitar in an environment that would melt paraffin is as likely to damage a guitar structurally as it is to damage the potting wax.

Perhaps it is just an urban legend but I have heard stories of guitarists who have had paraffin-potted pickups drip out a bit on hot outdoor gigs down in New Mexico, etc.- supposedly one reason to add beeswax to the mixture.

I used to pot every pickup I bought and would wrap them with copper foil tape, which turned out to be a mistake with my Lindy Fralin pickups- at least to my ears they have an air-ier sound without the potting and copper foil tape. Unless the guitar is going to be played at extremely loud volumes or with very high gain settings I don't think that potting is absolutely necessary. But I can understand why pickup makers don't want to take that chance since it could result in an unhappy customer who has to wait for you to ship him another pickup that is potted.

I like the old BurstBucker pickups which were not potted*- but I had a problem with one of them howling a bit at loud volumes on my semi-hollow PRS SE Custom. I was going to do the "half-pot" trick for HB's where you remove the cover and put electrical tape over the stud coil- something I read about on this forum a few years ago. But it was easier to just dip the whole pickup- cover and all- into my wax pot for just a few minutes until the bubbles stopped coming out. The purpose was not to actually pot the coils but to eliminate unwanted resonances with the cover- and it worked.

Steve Ahola

* Regardless of what Gibson says on their site the new BurstBuckers with 4 conductor wiring are wax-potted.
BTW I usually like pickups and preamp tubes that are microphonic to some extent- I think it makes the sound more exciting and on the edge.