Best Fender Factory-Made Stratocaster Pickups?

[JGundry]

Hey Jon, do you know what year the pre cbs strat pickup is? Any markings on the p'up bottom? 1963-64 pickups may have been wound on a coweco, I never disputed that. I do know that by late 64 the mounting marks that you mention disappear, which is when they probably started using a multi bobbin winder. Do you know what gear set is in the fender owned coweco? I'll let you know this, the pre cbs machine winds that i have rewound did not all have the same tpl. actually neither do cbs pickups, which confirms my opinion that fender had more than 1 winding machine. Maybe even a different type than the meteor, or another meteor with a different setup.

Hi Bill I have the pickup buried somewhere but I'm pretty sure it is a 64' or a 63'.

Here is some of the boring info that I think points to the Coweco being used by Fender.


The Coweco CS does not have a tailstock so you can't stack bobbins with it. But the drive shaft is hollow with a set screw to accept a steel dowel. I went the the hardware store to see if they had a threaded dowel and they said sure you want a threaded post dowel and they produced one that fit the Coweco easily. What they had in stock had a little bigger thread than 6-32 but a 6-32 could easily be made if not bought ready made. The machine wound Pre CBS Fender pickup I have has this 6-32 threaded mark whihc is for mountin ght ebobbin to the shaft.

For the TPL of the Coweco Fender still has I found a picture online of the back of it probably from a NAAM show. The Coweco has 3 gears on the back to control the TPL. One of the gears is an idler gear common to all Coweco winders (it does not change the other two gears control the TPL). Using that idler gear as a known size reference, as I have the same gear always on my machine, I could blow up the photo in photo shop and extrapolate the size of the two gears that control TPL. Even taking into account the low res of a photo pulled from the internet I narrowed down that larger gear to one of two possible gears from the standard Coweco gear set that came with the machine, (I have the complete standard gear set). The smaller gear was not as easy to nail down but knowing that the two TPL gears were indicated in pairs for specific TPL it was easy to narrow that down with the Coweco chart TPL chart that indicated which gears would work with the larger gear I had nailed down. Anyway of the two possible TPL's one fell right in the TPL range of the Strat pickup I have and the second choice was still extremely close. The evidence is pretty anecdotal that the Coweco Fender has was used for machine winding some Pre CBS pickups but it seem pretty convincing to me. To me it makes no sense that Fender would pay big dollars for a auto winder and not use it. It makes total sense that if they were winding single handed guided bobbins that they might first buy a single bobbin auto winder before they put up more money for multi bobbin winders. Of all of the anecdotal it all points to the Coweco CS being used for machine winding at Fender.

[Joe Gwinn]

For the TPL of the Coweco Fender still has I found a picture online of the back of it probably from a NAAM show. The Coweco has 3 gears on the back to control the TPL. One of the gears is an idler gear common to all Coweco winders (it does not change the other two gears control the TPL). Using that idler gear as a known size reference, as I have the same gear always on my machine, I could blow up the photo in photo shop and extrapolate the size of the two gears that control TPL. Even taking into account the low res of a photo pulled from the internet I narrowed down that larger gear to one of two possible gears from the standard Coweco gear set that came with the machine, ...

Are the photos good enough to count the teeth on the two non-idler gears? If so, you can know the gear ratios exactly, even if you cannot quite determine the diameters: the speed ratio is the ratio of the tooth counts, never mind the exact diameters.

[greenfingers]

For all we know that winder may have been used just for the pickups on a Mandolin, or for Bass pickups which i know that winder has been used for some years back. Its funny how people see a Fender winder and instantly think it wound Strat or Tele pickups.

Some of the cams on the back may not be original. i was told by the guy who wound on it he had to create his own cam to get the TPL count for the different pickups he was doing in R&D.

Hay, maybe it wound Jazzmaster's

[Berman]

Think more busines-like
I believe the auto winder was used for the cheaper instruments .

Just an idea

Hermann

[David Schwab]

What I have read said that Fender got some of the Cowecos to try out and start transitioning to machine wound coils because the demand for their guitars had increased. I think it was George Fullerton that said that, maybe in the G&L book. So it would make sense to find machine wound coils at the same time as the hand wound.

Fender sold more Strats and Teles, so why would they use the machine winder on lower production instruments?

[JGundry]

I unwound some Pre CBS Duosonic pickups and they were all hand wound.

[greenfingers]

Video from 1959 Fender Factory.

5:34 and 5:53 you see what appear to be coil winders, cant see the Coweco but who knows???

Just noticed the winder at 5:53 could well be Abigail

[JGundry]

Cool video! Everything you can see in that video says hand winding. It is great to see how much of that work was hand done like the contour. When you see people making this stuff when there was no CNC machines it makes you wonder how much is really being saved over having a person do it. Everyone seems pretty low key in this video but they are clearly efficient and skilled at what they are doing. Of course they are on camera.

I found the Strat pickup I have that I think is Coweco wound. It's from 1964.

[greenfingers]

Cool video! Everything you can see in that video says hand winding. It is great to see how much of that work was hand done like the contour. When you see people making this stuff when there was no CNC machines it makes you wonder how much is really being saved over having a person do it. Everyone seems pretty low key in this video but they are clearly efficient and skilled at what they are doing. Of course they are on camera.

I found the Strat pickup I have that I think is Coweco wound. It's from 1964.

Yea! its a great little snapshot of that time. The winders are the same as the one Leo had at the G&L workshop with the rubber band, wonder if they were employing that method instead of a belt at that time?

I feel sorry for the guy spraying the body's, hope he had long breaks,..but i doubt it. His lungs must have had some colour changes over the years

The 1964 pickup is interesting, I've seen a 64 Strat with 65 pots as the year of the guitars vintage is dictated by it's neck stamp and not when it was assembled which is a bit of a nuisance. I still don't think machine wound pickups featured heavily in production pre 1963.

Hay, does the winder in the first station look a bit like Don Mare's "Josie" to you

[ckngumbo]

YouTube - Fender Factory Tour 1959

Jump to about 5:30 and there are several winders

[Beef Coon]

Cool thread, curious as to whether anyone's found any more info on Fender's winders.