Oil City Pickups: A Tale Of Three Pickups

OilCityPickups

The other day my good friends at Strung Out Guitars in Glasgow sent me three humbuckers to be rebuilt ... these were all working, but two had been hacked about and bodged horribly. The third was historically interesting ... so I now bring you 'A Tale Of Three Pickups :-) 
Pickup number 1 ... a fairly early DiMarzio Super Distortion. Those who know me, will know I'm a sucker for a nice old 'Super D'
Well this one had been subject to the bodgers.Those with sharp eyes may see that the 'feet' of the pickup base had been chopped off and new holes (huge ones) drilled inboard of their correct positions. This in effect trashed the baseplate ... I could have soldered modern feet cut from anothe pickup frame on ... but replacement of the baseplate seemed a better answer, especially as the pickup was going to end up being covered.

This allows me to show you the difference between classic era Super Ds and more modern DiMarzios. 

Left is a DiMarzio Evo baseplate with the modern size ceramic magnet as fitted to the newer Super Distortions ... next to it is the old Super distortion setup of a narrower magnet and a low carbon steel spacer bar. The smaller magnet mass and the unbalancing effect on the field helps to open up the tone and make it less harsh in my opinion.

Oh the gloop used to seat the pole slugs has changed over the years ... on early pickups it seems to have been sillicone bath sealent ... which goes with the somewhat 'home brewed' nature of early Super Distortions ... after all the pole pieces were simply machinists grub screws ... with the earliest being unplated. In the late seventies the seating gloop mostly changed to a yellow expanded foam type of material ... similar to the gap filling foam used by builders. Modern pickups seem to use what appears to be some form of hot-melt glue.


Gloop city!!!


A new hookup lead ... and everything is assembled to take the cover. I've taped over the pole screws to stop them contacting the cover and possibly causing squeal.


Next pickup to be tackled is a vintage Gibson Dirty Fingers humbucker ... stay tuned for the next episode 

webrthomson

Nice one @TheGuitarWeasel ; - love a 1970's DiMarzio Super distortion - is there a pickup in your range similar to this?

OilCityPickups

I have two ... the Blue Streak is pretty much an early 70s Super D ,,, my Transonic is a Super D/Dirty Fingers hybrid.

OilCityPickups

Pickup number two ...is a Seymore Duncan 59 Custom Hybrid .. a nice pickup ... but my goodness this one had been through the wringer!


Here you can clearly see the distinctive 'one low wind plain enamel, one high wind poly' bobbins ... but mounted on a nasty, brass Epiphone baseplate! What you cant  see (because i spent ages removing it before this pic) is the yard or so of disgusting, black plastic 'electrical tape' that had been wound around these poor bobbins. If you are ever going to mess around with your own pickups PLEASE don't use electrical tape for had a sort of shrink banding around the coils that has protected them from the 'LX tape'.

The sort of tape I use for finishing coils ... after a lot of testing ... is the sort used for automotive alarm installation and vintage motorcycle looms. It's cloth based, easy to work with, and can be unwrapped at a later date without damage.  

The original pickup owner has also chopped the pole screws short on the Duncan ... here we can see them compared to a normal, full length one. This was done to allow the pickup to sit lower in the guitar body ... but has the side effect of making a pickup more trebly.  I replaced those as well as the baseplate. 

The last pickup to be sorted is a Gibson 'Dirty Fingers' humbucker from the 70s.
This design is interesting as it uses a triple ceramic magnet array and a lowish (for such a powerful pickup) 16k wind. Also it featured fully copper tape shielded.
Note the absolutely huge ceramic magnets here ... this beast gives prodigious string pull! 

This is a 1976 Dirty Fingers ... later ones didn't have the T Top bobbins.

And here are all three, ready to go back to Strung Out Guitars. I must stress ... the pickups came to them in that messed about state, and they we not responsible for the bodgery! If you are ever in Glasgow do pop in to Strung Out  ... it's a lovely, friendly shop run by nice people. 

impmann

Thanks for sharing these, Ash - they are fascinating.

webrthomson

TheGuitarWeasel said:

I have two ... the Blue Streak is pretty much an early 70s Super D ,,, my Transonic is a Super D/Dirty Fingers hybrid.

Thanks - good to know! I second your recommendation for Strung Out Guitars - amazing shop in a cool bit of Glasgow!

OilCityPickups

impmann said:

Thanks for sharing these, Ash - they are fascinating.

The rewinding and repairing side of my business gives me access to all sorts of facinating pickups, and it's nice to have you guys looking over my shoulder so to speak. I never know from one week to another what will wind up on my bench ... PAFs, sixties Strat pickups, old Japanese or German stuff ... I get it all :-)