Soapbar bass pickups!

[Joe Gwinn]

Joe, None of that sounds practical.

Sure it is. Just take one long blade and snip it into three little bladelets, each one third the length, and hold them slightly apart with tape as you put the assembly back where the one big blade had been.

By the way, this has nothing to do with the total number of such blade assemblies are used per pickup, one in the center (between coils), or three (center and both outsides). We are discussing cutting the individual blades.

They Sound good, and I'm about done.

That is certainly a good reason to stop. But I was trying to alert people to an added control alternative, to be applied only as needed.

This is a parallel to laminating the blade in a blade pickup: one solid thick blade will have far more eddy current loading than a blade of the same total thickness that is a stack of thinner sheets of steel insulated from one another. It's the same physics as why power transformers have laminated cores. How many sheets and of what thickness is decided empirically, by building and listening.

[Joe Gwinn]

I think the three blades also darken the tone because they are now picking up a wider section of string.

This is also true, and acts independently of the eddy-current effects.

[big_teee]

In my case that would constitute to 9 little bladelettes!. lol
I have 4 of these pickups, so that would be 4x9=36 bladelettes.
I've found that cutting the overall size of the blade down helps too.
blade size + turn counts = good tone. =
T

[David Schwab]

What I found is that as you either add a thicker blade, or more blades, you are increasing the inductance, and the pickup gets a little louder/fuller. It also changes the strength of the magnetic field over the pickup, which can affect the tone.

I electrically ground my blades, so if they are cut into sections, they will still be connected together electrically. But the smaller continuous surface area should help reduce eddy currents.

I've experimented with blades a bit when designing my Sidewinders. Also, another style is to have the blade extend through the bobbins, and the magnet in the middle as the pole piece.

[big_teee]

I haven't been grounding these.
They are still real quiet hum wise, and no static ticking to speak of.
I'm still experimenting, but think I'm getting real close, to a wrap.
T

[David Schwab]

I ground the blades and enclose the entire pickup in copper foil. I found them susceptible to certain kinds of interference otherwise.

[big_teee]

Good idea, I figured that was the case.
I will try the grounding and foil.

[Joe Gwinn]

I electrically ground my blades, so if they are cut into sections, they will still be connected together electrically. But the smaller continuous surface area should help reduce eddy currents.

Yes. It isn't necessary for the cut go all the way through. So long as the connection between bladelets is a fraction of the cut dimension, one will get the bulk of the eddy current reduction effect.

Alternately, one can daisy-chain the bladelets by soldering (or spot-welding) a wire from bladelet to bladelet to bladelet.

[big_teee]

Yes. It isn't necessary for the cut go all the way through. So long as the connection between bladelets is a fraction of the cut dimension, one will get the bulk of the eddy current reduction effect.
Alternately, one can daisy-chain the bladelets by soldering (or spot-welding) a wire from bladelet to bladelet to bladelet.

Have you actually done any of this?
Trying to figure where all the room in the pickup cover is to do this?
I guess it looks good and easy on paper? lol
Back to practicality, and building soapbar pickups!
And, if you sold a pickup like that, you would need to charge $300, for all the added work.
T

[Joe Gwinn]

Have you actually done any of this?
Trying to figure where all the room in the pickup cover is to do this?
I guess it looks good and easy on paper? lol
Back to practicality, and building soapbar pickups!
And, if you sold a pickup like that, you would need to charge $300, for all the added work.

No, I have not. But it is not hard, and yes it will fit where the old full blade fit, so I suspect that you are not visualizing what I visualize. I'll draw a picture, which will be a few days.

[big_teee]

** Edit:
Still trying different designs.

[big_teee]

I rebuilt them several more times, and finally got everything worked out.
Only thing remaining is some internal shielding and grounding.
I think that will be easy enough.
The Sidewinders, are much harder IMO to get all the minute details worked out, but a worthwhile project.
Biggest issues with sidewinders is lack of data.
With no starting data, it's strictly a trial and error adventure.
After the shielding and grounding, I'm going back to the guitar sidewinder project on another thread.
GL,
T