Jigs, Rigs, Tips and Tricks

[JGundry]

I'm sure others must have jigs or tricks that they do to wind pickups. This is a jig I made to let me drive humbucker pole screws in straight with a cordless drill without tapping and without nicking the bobbin. I'm probably not the only one who thought of this but for me it was a eureka moment.

Here is what you do. You drill out 4 dummy bobbins to the head size of the fillister screw. Then mount rods through the base plate mounting screw holes and drive them into the wood block. Drill some holes for them to fit in the block first. Also trim the ends off the dummy bobbin that your wound bobbin will sit on. Then stack everything up tightly and drop a screw in each hole. Remove the top dummy bobbin when the drill bit can't go further. Then go the rest of the way. No tapping and no chance of nicking the bobbin. Plus it is quick.




I would love to see or hear about any other tricks that can speed up the making of pickups. Lets face it the finished product is cool but if you are making more than a few pickups the zen aspect of assembly can quickly turn into a tedious exercise.

[Spence]

If you put a sleeve of neoprene over your driver bit so it grips the screw head, they'll go in just fine and there's little danger of the bit slipping off and hence scarring the bobbin surface.

[JGundry]

If you put a sleeve of neoprene over your driver bit so it grips the screw head, they'll go in just fine and there's little danger of the bit slipping off and hence scarring the bobbin surface.

I used to do the tubing around the bit thing but you still have the added step of tapping the holes if you want the screws to go in straight.

[Spence]

I used to do the tubing around the bit thing but you still have the added step of tapping the holes if you want the screws to go in straight.

No, I drill them out a little wider and then the screws more or less tap their own thread. Of course the first PAF's had a tapped baseplate rather than a clearance hole.

[kevinT]

thread cutting polepieces

"No, I drill them out a little wider and then the screws more or less tap their own thread. Of course the first PAF's had a tapped baseplate rather than a clearance hole."

maybe a possible solution...Thread cutting polepieces (type 23 for machine screw). Nordstrand is using them on their pickups. click on image for bigger view.


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[Possum]

thread cutters......

Guitar Jones pole screws that I used to get were thread cutters with like a partial slot cut in the bottom of the shank. Horrible things they would ream out the plastic on the bobbins he sold so bad the screws would just abaout fall out afterwards. The guy who's making my screws told me the Shaw screw poles are thread cutters but they do it by using a wider shank with bigger ridges in the threads. You really don't need to tap the bobbins, just drill the correct size hole slightly smaller than the screws....

[Joe Gwinn]

Guitar Jones pole screws that I used to get were thread cutters with like a partial slot cut in the bottom of the shank. Horrible things they would ream out the plastic on the bobbins he sold so bad the screws would just about fall out afterwards.

Ugh. I've had that problem in lots of things; often replace those screws upon arrival, to protect the product.

Tip: When reinserting a screw into plastic or soft metal, the trick is to get the screw to find the old thread, rather than trying to cut a new thread. This is accomplished by initially turning the screw backwards while pressing down. You will feel a slight click or bump when the screw drops into the old thread. When this happens, reverse rotation and try to screw the screw in. It should go easily. If it doesn't go easily, unscrew and try again.

The guy who's making my screws told me the Shaw screw poles are thread cutters but they do it by using a wider shank with bigger ridges in the threads. You really don't need to tap the bobbins, just drill the correct size hole slightly smaller than the screws....

I suspect that tri-lobular (aka, "taptite", the brand name of the inventor) screws would work well. These are self-tapping, but with a twist - the threads are formed, not cut.

http://www.taptite.net/taptite/product.asp

[David Schwab]

You really don't need to tap the bobbins, just drill the correct size hole slightly smaller than the screws....

Now admittedly I don't do a lot of humbuckers, and when I do, I've been using the Stew-Mac parts... but I never tap the bobbins. I just put a little soap on the screw's threads and use an electric screw driver. They go in nice and straight, but they do get quite hot!

[Spence]

Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to spend so much time modifying these components. Putting up with substandard components is a way of life in Wales where i live so it becomes second nature to sole these little challenges but it doesn't answer the question why we tolerate this shoddy crap.

[David Schwab]

Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to spend so much time modifying these components. Putting up with substandard components is a way of life in Wales where i live so it becomes second nature to sole these little challenges but it doesn't answer the question why we tolerate this shoddy crap.

I guess the whole thing is there really isn't a standard. Even Gibson has changed their parts over the years. It's like with so called "IBM clones" People talk about IBM style PCs as being "open", but IBM never released any specs for others to copy, as it was never their intention to "open" up their computer, so you had a lot of PC's that were not always compatible.

I was always bothered that as a guitar maker, I had to use parts made as replacements for Fenders and Gibsons! This is true of the pickup form factors too.

But I do agree, that as long as companies are going to make replacement parts, they might as well decide on some standards. But then I guess a standards board would have to be set up, and different companies would want their parts to be the standard, and yadda, yadda, yadda.

[ken]

Pickup 'Zen'?

Does it REALLY matter if we use the exact same parts that Gib and Fender used?

For example, 99% of the buying public probably can't tell the difference between butyrate and polyethylene plastic if you cast bobbins of it. Is it really more important to sound exactly like a benchmark pickup, or is it more important to look like the pickup - possible tone differences be damned?

I'm now making Pbass pickups that fit in the cavity routings, but aren't exactly the way 'Leo made 'em'. David Schwab is right, I'm learning that most bass players seem to be more accepting of a new design as long as it sounds 'good'. The pickups I pulled from my used MexiPbass are nothing at all like Leo's original design, but people still buy them.

Happy New Year,
Ken

[Spence]

It's a tricky one. There are more experts out there than pickup makers. trouble is, most of the experts are full of shit.
A friend of mine was asked to make a replica pickup a little while ago. The customer said that he had a friend who was willing to lend him a Seymour Duncan Antiquity from which he could take measurements and get the general look. As if the Antiquity is the closest thing to a genuine original.

No, the average punter has never even seen an original. They don't know what these things really look and sound like. The first impression they have will often be a lasting, unshakeable one. I can remember people talking about vintage pickups as rubbish. But then I suspect the likes of DiMarzio and Duncan directly benefitted from this kind of propaganda.

As a consequence, I suspect it makes no odds what materials you use or whether they are dimensionally correct.

My aim is to recreate the vintage parts. If the customer thinks the pickup looks wrong then I will have nothing to apologise for and will stand by my product.

[Possum]

getting it right.....

I for one believe in getting the parts as right as possible, small differences in pickup design can have a quite big effect on the final tone. Get some bucker pole screws from Guitar Jones, then get some from Stew Mac and swap them out, you will hear a vast differnce in tone, simply because the two alloys are different. I've been obsessed with PAF tone for a couple years and keep finding out more about them, and believe me the tiny details are what matters to get that tone. I noticed a couple years ago that one of the famous early Fender pickups was being made drastically wrong by all the big companies, I still have my friends' original here for safekeeping, just copying the mechanical aspects of it was a big part of nailing that tone. Sometimes there's no other way... I also believe that once you do your history homework on how things were done then you can vary from it more intelligently I think. Just my opinion. You can't buy Gibson pickup parts for sure, and most of the suppiers parts are not that good....so you either make them yourself or spend alot of money getting them made....

[mick]

Well you can get their pole screws , for $450 per 1000....

Mick

[ken]

Spence might be right, most of the average people I meet have never held a real
PAF or Strat pickup, and wouldn't be able to tell one apart if you put it in a pile with a bunch of copies. What I meant IMHO is it's more important to sound real
than look real. Unfortuantely, many listen with their eyes, not their ears. A SD
Antiquity 'looks' like an old pickup, so some want that pickup even if it doesn't sound right at all. Funny, huh?

Ken