Mudbucker mods

[Helmholtz]

The baseplate is a pretty substantial piece of brass, about 2mm thick. It’s only held on with 2 screws, so it might be worth trying without it?

If it's easy to do I would give it a try. But the eddy losses depend on the amount of signal flux that penetrates the plate. Looking at the PU details I don't think there can be much signal flux at the plate's position.

But if the PU cover is (plated) brass (instead of favourable nickel-silver), it is much more likely to cause eddy losses than the baseplate, even though it's much thinner.

Here is an interesting article on eddy losses by PU covers and possible countermeasures. See especially illustration #28:
http://kenwillmott.com/blog/wp-conte...r_Geometry.pdf

But before modifying the cover I would try the PU without cover to see what could be gained.

[big_teee]

What about the amount of gauss at the 4 screw heads?
If you don't have anything to measure them with, at least try something steel.
A paper clip or something that is not magnetized.
If the magnetic pull is real weak at the screws, then I would pursue the gauss, before a rewind.
You can take the magnets off and try other magnets.
The Artec pickup I rebuilt had 4 C8 magnets, 2 on each side.
Like stated try without the cover, and try different magnets.
Beyond that, you could rewind or rebuild it.
GL,
T
**Also consider the pots, and caps.
I would try 500k pots, and small tone caps, .022-033uf
Or even bypass the pots and caps all together to test for pickup clarity!
Try different things until you change the tone.
Divide and conquer!

[big_teee]

Your picture of the coils show they are full coils.
So Calculating wire size of 35, 36 & 38 awg, I came up with following screenshots.
The pickup name says 42sp, I didn't change that.
The 36 gauge still almost 3500-3950 turns.
T

[Roffe]

Thanks for all your suggestions!

Quite a few things I could try here, looks like I have an evening (or more) of experimentation ahead of me

[Roffe]

A little testing later:
- The sound "opens up" a little without the cover, but it's still a bit clunky and muddy.
- In parallel it's quite a bit clearer, especially without the cover, but it loses too much output and sounds weak.

I don't think the character of the mudbucker is important to the owner, so we're trying a blade humbucker under the stock cover. It's a lot more balanced sounding and completely noiseless, I just have to flip the phase of the bridge pickup. If that doesn't work out I'll experiment more with the mudbucker.