Tele Blade Pickups

[big_teee]

I'm going to make a Tele Bridge Blade pickup.
Does anyone know what the Specs, and DCR of the Bardan Danny Gatton Tele Set is?
My goal is a fairly hot pickup that is bright like a Conventional Tele pickup but with good hum canceling.
What Size wire is a good place to start?
The bobbins are small so probably use 43 or 44 wire.
Also, would you go with no baseplate, or use a steel baseplate like a regular Tele pickup?
What do you think?
T

[David Schwab]

You can't use a steel baseplate unless you want to short out your magnetic circuit. Think about how the magnet is oriented.

My notes say 4.436k and 2400 winds #43 single build, each coil.

I had a Bardern Modern Tele bridge pickup in for repair. It measured 6.03k.

Here's some photos:





The coils with the black cloth tape removed




All the flatwork was made from black plastic.

[big_teee]

Thanks David, yes I wasn't thinking about the Steel baseplate.
I have a couple of country players that may be interested.
Do you know if those were the Mojo type molded bobbins.
Yours look pretty tall?
T

[David Schwab]

They aren't molded bobbins, it's the top and bottom flatwork on the blades. I don't think I took measurements of the dimensions of the bobbins. I'll have to look in my notebook. But I think they were normal height.

Oh and the magnet read about 400G at the blade, with North towards the bridge.

The Mojo bobbins should work fine.

[SonnyW]

I made a couple of these for a customer a while back. At that time I used the Mojo Strat bobbins with the rounded ends in them instead of the half round Tele variety but either one would have worked about the same. My customer wanted a hot humbucker to match up to a wide range in the neck of his tele deluxe. So these specs are probably going to be pretty far on the hot dark end for what you want Teee, but it shows probably the max. He didn't want to lose ALL the "teleosity" of them so they were still not as dark as some other hot humbuckers though. Resonant peaks were around 4.5 kHz, vs around 7.0 kHz I measured on a normal Tele bridge.

Wire was #43 Polysol 155 Elektrisola from Remington.
5750 turns per coil, or about 5.6K per coil, for 11.2K ohms total
I made one with a ceramic 8 magnet and one with a cut down A3 humbucker mag.
The C8 one was a tad brighter. The customer took them both eventually. For a while he played the C8, then he changed bands and came back and had me put in the A3.
For the "baseplate" I just used copper foil tape and a small flat solder lug.



Edit: for some reason it isn't really attaching the photo. Tried three times. Maybe it will eventually show up, if not here is a link to another photo on my facebook page
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.n...24230688_n.jpg

OK if you aren't logged into fb here it is on photobucket. As my Granddaddy used to say, "There is more than one way to skin a cat besides choking em to death on butter."
http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...umbuckers2.jpg

[Joe Gwinn]

You can't use a steel baseplate unless you want to short out your magnetic circuit. Think about how the magnet is oriented.

To be pedantic, most kinds of stainless steel would work, as they are non-magnetic. But brass is easier to use.

[David Schwab]

To be pedantic, most kinds of stainless steel would work, as they are non-magnetic. But brass is easier to use.

Right, but I think he was thinking about the steel "reflector plate" on the bottom on the tele pickup. You wouldn't want to stick one of those under one of these rail pickups.

You can get brass baseplates for these blade pickups:

PB19BP - Base Plate for Telecaster® Type Pickup, Brass - Guitar Parts USA – The Source for Guitar Parts for Electric, Bass Guitars

I have a cheap Tele dual blade pickup made with that brass baseplate. It's not a bad sounding pickup. I don't know how the baseplate might have affected the tone.

I have one of those plates here but haven't used it yet.

[big_teee]

I'm going to make a Tele Bridge Blade pickup.
Does anyone know what the Specs, and DCR of the Bardan Danny Gatton Tele Set is?
My goal is a fairly hot pickup that is bright like a Conventional Tele pickup but with good hum canceling.
What Size wire is a good place to start?
The bobbins are small so probably use 43 or 44 wire.
Also, would you go with no baseplate, or use a steel baseplate like a regular Tele pickup?
What do you think?
T

The Bridge looks easy enough.
The neck pickup in a tele has the routing and hole size restriction.
I do want to work on a pair of these.
T

[big_teee]

I have the bridge Pickup built ready for potting.
After Potting, will tape them up with cloth tape, and take a picture.
Still not sure how to do the string grounding.
Maybe an external ground wire to the bridge itself?
TBC.

[Joe Gwinn]

Still not sure how to do the string grounding.
Maybe an external ground wire to the bridge itself?
TBC.

What I've seen done is to run a bit of 0.003" brass shim stock from under the pickguard (which is shielded) to under the bridge, thereby grounding the strings.

Brass shim stock can be cut with ordinary steel scissors and formed by hand, and is dead cheap.

[big_teee]

What I've seen done is to run a bit of 0.003" brass shim stock from under the pickguard (which is shielded) to under the bridge, thereby grounding the strings.

Brass shim stock can be cut with ordinary steel scissors and formed by hand, and is dead cheap.

Yes I was looking at the brass baseplate David S has a pic of.
Was just trying to come up with something simple.
Would have been nice if leo would have put a screw hole that I could put a ground terminal on the underside of the bridge plate.
Next time I have a Tele in pieces spread out on the work table, I'll try for an altenative ground location.
T

[Joe Gwinn]

The advantage of shim stock is that no special hole or solder terminal is needed. The connection is purely mechanical, and the piece of shimstock can be wide enough to ensure both mechanical strength and high electrical reliability.

[big_teee]

The advantage of shim stock is that no special hole or solder terminal is needed. The connection is purely mechanical, and the piece of shimstock can be wide enough to ensure both mechanical strength and high electrical reliability.

For the Tele bridge I could put a piece of shielding tape on the wood at the back of the bridge edge.
Solder an external ground wire to it.
Then when you tighten the bridge screws it would ground the bridge.
Hokie, but I think it would work fine!

[Joe Gwinn]

For the Tele bridge I could put a piece of shielding tape on the wood at the back of the bridge edge.
Solder an external ground wire to it.
Then when you tighten the bridge screws it would ground the bridge.
Hokie, but I think it would work fine!

Yep. One can also solder to the brass shim stock.

[copperheadroads]

For the Tele bridge I could put a piece of shielding tape on the wood at the back of the bridge edge.
Solder an external ground wire to it.
Then when you tighten the bridge screws it would ground the bridge.
Hokie, but I think it would work fine!

If you bridge is grounded ,a jumper wire soldered to this brass insert might help ,screw this insert on over one of the 3 mounting screws after the pickup is installed
BTI0632 - 6-32 - Brass Threaded Inserts for Wood - Micro Fasteners