Lipstick Pickups

[Meowy]

Can anyone answer any of the following questions pertaining to lipstick pickups?

1) Approximately how many windings are used in a vintage Dano vs a Duncan?

2) Do they typically use #42 wire?

3) Other than physical dimensions, are there any fundamental design differences in a Dano vs a Duncan?

4) What is the orientation of the magnetic poles?

5) Why are lipsticks wound directly onto the magnet instead of using a bobbin or other non-magnetic core material. Have any single coils or HBs been similarly designed that are wound directly onto a bar magnet?

Thanks!

[soundmasterg]

I've got a set of custom shop lipstick pickups that Seymour wound for me personally a couple years ago. They took quite awhile to get but sound great. In answer to your questions,

1. I have no idea of the turns count, but these ones of mine are around 4.3k, and most vintage ones seem to be quoted around 4.75k.

2. I believe these are 42 gauge wire, but I have no idea of the specific type.

3. The Duncan ones should be the same exact dimensions as the old ones as long as you get ones for a Dano guitar. He also makes lipsticks for Strat style guitars which will have different dimensions.

4. I have no idea about the magnetic poles.

5. That is just the way they made them. It was probably for cost reasons. I'm sure there are others that were made this way too but can't think of any offhand at the moment.

The important thing about the lipstick sound is to use the vintage correct Alnico 6 magnets. Duncan doesn't use them to my knowledge in their pickups, and Wolfe ended up sending some down to them so they could do my pickups. (Thanks Wolfe!) To my knowledge the only current maker of lipstick pickups that uses the correct magnets is Jerry Jones, but I don't think they sell their pickups except on their guitars. Some will tell you that you don't need the alnico 6 and you can just degauss alnico 5 or 2 or what have you to get the same sound, but the sound isn't just due to the magnetic strength, but is also due to the different metallurgy of the different types of alnico magnets, and while you can get an alnico 5 to have approximately the same magnetic strength as an alnico 6, since the metal composition of the magnets are different, it affects the inductance among other things, and greatly affects the sound IMHO.

Greg

[Bernardduur]

I have just aquired a vintage Danelectro (one from 65) and the lipstick pickups measure 3.94k

Just to mention

[Chris Klein]

Duncan uses al6 on the dan lipsticks.. They are 4.3k ohm and 9.4 KHz resonant peak. The only difference between Duncans Strat and the Duncan Dan lipstick is the Magnet. Strats come with al5 and Dan's come with al6.. output and resonant peaks are the same

[soundmasterg]

Thanks for the update Chris. When I wanted to get my pickups, I wanted alnico 6 magnets, an since I wanted 3, MJ was assuming I wanted a Strat set. They wanted to just degauss some A5 magnets for me. Once that misassumption was out of the way, we got it straightened out, and I got my Dano pickups, but I ended up buying the Strat set too, and both have A6 magnets. I haven't tried out the Strat set yet, but plan to. The Seymour Duncan Dano pickups sound really nice btw.

Greg

[SK66]

Lipsticks use 42 nominal wire...they were often at the heavier end of 42 awg. As for other designs similar...many dearmond types are wound directly around the magnet. specificly designs like the archtop retrofit singles...The reason is simple, space savings considerations. They are a bitch to wind....I can ONLY do them with a tailstock winder.

[soundmasterg]

They are a bitch to wind

Thats probably why MJ told me they wouldn't do another custom shop set even if I wanted them.

Greg

[RedHouse]

Anybody posted any gut-shots of original lipstick pickups anywhere?

[soundmasterg]

I would hazard a guess that no one would do this unless the pickup was bad. The ones Duncan did for me are epoxied because to not epoxy them invites the chance for severe microphonics due to the way they are made. They are basically just a bar magnet with lots of wire wrapped around it, and then stuffed in a lipstick tube. I believe the old ones had something in there to encapsulate the coil, but not epoky. I seem to remember it was some kind of black stuff, but don't quote me on that.

Greg

[Peter Naglitsch]

the one I've seen was simply wrapped in black tape...

[RedHouse]

Anybody posted any gut-shots of original lipstick pickups anywhere?

Anybody have any pic of the innards they might want to share?

[GlennW]

18 left on ebay. Look up Danelectro lipstick.

[soundmasterg]

the one I've seen was simply wrapped in black tape...

Thats right.....the old ones were black tape and the new ones are usually epoxy. I'd forgotten that it was tape.

I have three lipsticks from my DC3 from around 1999 that are epoxied. If anyone wants them for experiments, make me an offer. They're just sitting here unused since I put the Duncan custom shop ones in.

greg

[jonson]

unwrapped

Ther is a pic of one unwrapped on p44 of the Donald Brosnac book which is fairly clear but the sketch on the cigar box site is as realistic as you could get.
Packing the coil assembly in black auto Sikaflex adhesive (like a silicone putty)
gives a pretty good copy of an origional.

www.cigarboxguitars.com/.../Pickup_Workshop.php

[David Schwab]

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