Use a kit or Re-building from Cheap new stock

[Lyrebird Steve]

Hi all,

I've been looking to do some more work on Humbucker type pickups ... mainly to rebuild an ol Les(s) Paul clone I have.

I've purchased a few HB Kits from StewMac at $28 each. Quality was OK ... then I noticed MojoTine had similar kits for about $20 each.

However, I've recently seen some reasonable looking China built clones on ebay that are coming in at $16 a PAIR shipped !!

Aside from the Bar magnet (which I suspect will be a crappy fridge magnet) what else could be wrong when compared to the Kits available ?

Has anyone had a go at rewinding similar el-cheapo pickups ?

Cheers
Steve

[big_teee]

Hi Steve:
I've rewound several el cheap-os pulled from import guitars.
The first thing I see wrong with the ebay pickups is the brass baseplates.
Brass baseplates, are normally darker sounding, than the good nickel silver baseplates.
If you are talking more of a PAF type pickup, I would stay with the kits, or just use loose parts.
I just built some of the mojo PAF kits, and they are pretty good quality.
If you use good pickup parts, the end result should be a good quality Pickup, if you do your part.
Most cheap pickups use small cheap magnet wire.
T

[Lyrebird Steve]

Brass baseplates, are normally darker sounding, than the good nickel silver baseplates.

Learnin something today ... thanks T

[David Schwab]

I made a couple of nice sounding pickups with StewMac kits when I first got into winding. One of them is still in one of my guitars. They are good quality parts. Same with Mojo.