Floating Pickups

[Jason Robitaille]

Does anyone know if there is any way for a Pickup Maker to get into building floating neck mount pickups for ArchTop guitars? I love playing Jazz on Archtops and I've purchased cheap asian made single coils and humbuckers which get the job done, but i'd love to be able to wind my own. Unfortunately the ones i see from asia are usually Epoxy filled at the back which doesn't seem like the kind of thing I could do. Are there any kind of Kits anywhere? or is it really only for the larger companies to fabricate?

I've attached an example of what I usually find.



Thanks in advance for any input.

[big_teee]

Hi Jason:
It appears that a floating jazz pickup, is nothing more than a mini-humbucker, that includes a cover with a mounting bracket attached?
So probably any mini hum kit would work, as long as you have the proper cover.
You can buy the covers from AllParts, though they are quite pricy.
https://www.allparts.com/Pickup-Cove...c_593-4-3.html
So another alternative I would persue, is making a neck bracket, and attaching it to a regular mini cover.
You could simply solder the bracket to the cover.
Or you could use small rivets, or both rivets and solder.
Please let us know what all you come up with.
Thanks,
Terry

[Jason Robitaille]

You are the best!!!

thanks Big_Tee

[PeterPan]

Does anyone know if there is any way for a Pickup Maker to get into building floating neck mount pickups for ArchTop guitars? I love playing Jazz on Archtops and I've purchased cheap asian made single coils and humbuckers which get the job done, but i'd love to be able to wind my own. Unfortunately the ones i see from asia are usually Epoxy filled at the back which doesn't seem like the kind of thing I could do. Are there any kind of Kits anywhere? or is it really only for the larger companies to fabricate?

I've attached an example of what I usually find.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]42829[/ATTACH]


Thanks in advance for any input.

Nice work! I tried my hand at building a low profile neck mount many years back. This had to be back in the late 70s, and I didn't find kits or even coil forms with a low a profile as I needed, and I ended up fabricating my own. As I recall, I had some cheap pickup coils I got as surplus and unwound a couple, sliced the coil form into parts with a band saw, and then glued the modified pieces back together with a plastic solvent. I was so concerned about it being low profile, I believe I searched long and hard to find magnets the right shape and depth to fit flush inside the coil forms. So that precluded any individual adjustment screws for the pole pieces. As I recall the end product looked pretty good and didn't sound awful, but like many first time DIY projects it didn't sound ideal either. I never tried again, but if you do discover any suppliers that would inspire some of us to have another go at it, please post it. :-)

[Jason Robitaille]

Is there such a thing as a single coil bobbin that would fit inside a mini humbucker cover? I know i've seen it done in mass produced pickups but just not sure how I would go about it.. I'm wondering if its more like a P90 approach or something altogether different.

[big_teee]

There are lots of options to make a single coil in a mini cover.
If you start with a no holes firebird cover, you could have the bobbin poles and magnet in the middle of the cover.
If a 49.2 mm full sized PAF bobbin fits in the cover, you could use it.
Or you could make your own bobbin with forbon fiber flatwork material.
Magnets could be rod magnets, or steel poles with a magnet on the bottom.
Instead of epoxy, I would cut a plastic baseplate, and build it all on that.
I do that same thing when I build a bass pickup into emg plastic cover.
Not sure what DCR, or wire gauge you want your Single coil?
That can be modeled with a software database.
T

[Jason Robitaille]

Okay well here's where i'm at currently... I've reached out to Artec (major pickup maker in Korea) to see if i could at least just get the empty covers which include the mounting bracket. Its from a pickup model they carry called MHFC94-CR (comes in chrome and gold). As much as I'd love to fabricate the entire thing from scratch I'm really not setup for that kind of production. If I at least have a source for covers I can try and figure out which mini humbucker approach will work best for it. So I've requested a sample cover and I'll see what I can come up with.. Maybe the stewmac mini humbucker kit might fit into it, not sure. Last thing to mention is that unfortunately this is not a low profile neck pickup solution, but I have my doubts those are doable without a factory due to the epoxy sealers etc.

[David Schwab]

Artec pickups are usually cheap enough on eBay that you can just buy one and rewind it, or use the parts.