Fender Bullet Pickup Query

JezWynd

Just picked up a Fender Bullet from 1981. On arrival the neck pickup appears to be u/s. Bridge pu has already been replaced and sounds good, though very low output. On reading about these it seems they used pickups from the Mustang range. Is the Mustang pickup unique to that guitar or will a Tele (or Strat?) pickup fit? It fits in the plastic cover, so I need to get the right one.

benecol

I wasn't aware they were Mustang pickups. I used to have one, and the pickups were weak in that too (DISCLAIMER: this was in 1990, and I was after distortion; I wound the pickups up so they almost touched the strings).

You could try dropping in some Lace Sensors (a popular Mustang mod) or just dropping the existing covers on a replacement pickup. I'm 95% sure they're standard strat sized.

p90fool

Standard Strat pickups fit straight into the Bullet covers, though non staggered would be best as the 81 has a flatter fingerboard radius than the then standard 7.25".

Stock they measure around 6.5k, so they probably are just Strat pickups anyway. 

If it were mine I'd extend the wires on the bridge pickup and put it at the neck, and buy something much hotter for the bridge. 

The bridge pickup is fine, but a combination of it being very close to the bridge and being mounted on a steel scratchplate can make it very brittle at volume. 

JezWynd

p90fool said:

Standard Strat pickups fit straight into the Bullet covers, though non staggered would be best as the 81 has a flatter fingerboard radius than the then standard 7.25".
....
The bridge pickup is fine, but a combination of it being very close to the bridge and being mounted on a steel scratchplate can make it very brittle at volume. 

The bridge pickup has already been changed, though what the replacement is I don't know, there's a handwritten label but I can't decipher it. It has cloth covered wire.



I thought initially that the switch might be the problem but I've fiddled with it and made a good contact at all points without any success, so I'm presuming it must be the PU that's failed.

I like your suggestion of moving bridge to neck position, might give that a try. And agreed, the bridge pu could be something hotter. I'm not at all knowledgeable about pickup replacements but I wonder if a rail type might work, would it fit okay under the cover?

Funkfingers

Proper Mustang pickups have the rod magnet poles flush with the fibreboard bobbin, not protruding at all.

p90fool said:
I'd extend the wires on the bridge pickup and put it at the neck. Buy something much hotter for the bridge. 

Lace Sensors are a good call, appearance-wise. The other obvious candidate would be the Duncan Hot Rails.

OilCityPickups

JezWynd said:

p90fool said:

Standard Strat pickups fit straight into the Bullet covers, though non staggered would be best as the 81 has a flatter fingerboard radius than the then standard 7.25".
....
The bridge pickup is fine, but a combination of it being very close to the bridge and being mounted on a steel scratchplate can make it very brittle at volume. 

The bridge pickup has already been changed, though what the replacement is I don't know, there's a handwritten label but I can't decipher it. It has cloth covered wire.



I thought initially that the switch might be the problem but I've fiddled with it and made a good contact at all points without any success, so I'm presuming it must be the PU that's failed.

I like your suggestion of moving bridge to neck position, might give that a try. And agreed, the bridge pu could be something hotter. I'm not at all knowledgeable about pickup replacements but I wonder if a rail type might work, would it fit okay under the cover?

Rails pickups win't fit under a cover as they are built to have their top surface the same size as a cover.

Funkfingers

A good thing, then, that nobody suggested doing that. :-p

OilCityPickups

Funkfingers said:

A good thing, then, that nobody suggested doing that. :-p

um ...JezWynd said:

I like your suggestion of moving bridge to neck position, might give that a try. And agreed, the bridge pu could be something hotter. I'm not at all knowledgeable about pickup replacements but I wonder if a rail type might work, would it fit okay under the cover?

JezWynd

TheGuitarWeasel said:

Rails pickups win't fit under a cover as they are built to have their top surface the same size as a cover.

Thanks, just what I needed to know.

Beginners question. Does the white cover lift off, so that I can insert the bobbin etc into the existing black cover. ie. It's not glued or otherwise fixed to the bobbin fitting underneath?

I've no experience of Strat pu's and on a Tele the cover is fixed to the pickup below.

OilCityPickups

JezWynd said:

TheGuitarWeasel said:

Rails pickups win't fit under a cover as they are built to have their top surface the same size as a cover.

Thanks, just what I needed to know.

Beginners question. Does the white cover lift off, so that I can insert the bobbin etc into the existing black cover. ie. It's not glued or otherwise fixed to the bobbin fitting underneath?

I've no experience of Strat pu's and on a Tele the cover is fixed to the pickup below.

Strat covers just lift off ... some have tighter holes than others mind (oooer missus) so don't slide onto non beveled magnets as easily.

Funkfingers

HTH

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/coiloyle-uk-hand-wound-pickups-loaded-242317485

benecol

Funkfingers said:

HTH

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/coiloyle-uk-hand-wound-pickups-loaded-242317485

Ooh, well found.

Stick some Lace Sensors in it!

thermionic

Gah, I just found that link. You’re cleverer than me by 9 minutes.

JezWynd

Funkfingers said:

HTH

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/coiloyle-uk-hand-wound-pickups-loaded-242317485

That's great detective work, thanks. So it's poss the bridge is 8.0k, although the label does say special wound, so perhaps they matched to the original unit.

JezWynd

benecol said:

Funkfingers said:

HTH

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/coiloyle-uk-hand-wound-pickups-loaded-242317485

Ooh, well found.

Stick some Lace Sensors in it!

I know the name but I've no experience using them. I play clean most of the time, often with modulation and delay. The bridge pu is quite bright but the tone control is effective and I'm using an Ampeg bass amp with 15" cabinet, so the end result is quite pleasant, not too shrill or ice pick, which is good considering it's a metal scratch plate and 'utilitarian' bridge setup.

I think initially I'll try for a standard Strat style neck pu and take it from there.

Funkfingers

JezWynd said:
it's poss the bridge is 8.0k, although the label does say special wound, so perhaps they matched to the original unit.

Whack a d.c. resistance meter on the Special Wound pickup. Find out for definite.

JezWynd said:
The bridge pu is quite bright but the tone control is effective ... the end result is quite pleasant, not too shrill or ice pick, which is good considering it's a metal scratch plate and 'utilitarian' bridge setup.

If you like the bridge position pickup, leave it where it is and choose a new neck position pickup that will compliment it. 

In my opinion, the neck position pickup in your photograph looks Japanese. 

JezWynd said:

I play clean most of the time

This is the reason why I would not install Lace Sensors in the OP's guitar. They are fine with overdrive but lack *glass* and *chime* through clean amplification. (Rod polepieces are important, methinks.) Lace Holy Grail pickups should be better in this respect but, of course, will look wrong.

JezWynd said:
I'll try for a standard Strat style neck pu and take it from there.

The closed plastic pickup cover will sit on the tops of the rod magnet polepieces. The distance that the magnets protrude above the upper bobbin plate is the same distance by which the coil will then be set further away from the strings than is desirable. 

JezWynd

Funkfingers said:
The closed plastic pickup cover will sit on the tops of the rod magnet polepieces. The distance that the magnets protrude above the upper bobbin plate is the same distance by which the coil will then be set further away from the strings than is desirable. 

This would imply that I need to find a pickup with pole pieces that sit flat to the upper plate. Do you know of any such pickup?
Or else put the stock cover to one side and use whatever sounds the best.

normula1

Does the neck pickup measure on a multimeter? It looks to me like the polepieces are like you would find on a modern cheap guitar but the magnet that should be stuck to the bottom has gone walkabout.

Funkfingers

normula1 said:

Does the neck pickup measure on a multimeter? It looks to me like the polepieces are like you would find on a modern cheap guitar but the magnet that should be stuck to the bottom has gone walkabout.

Without magnetism, the pickup will induce no signal. I suspect that the adhesive just secured insulation tape.

The pickup bobbin is plastic. This construction makes it possible to tap the rod magnet polepieces down until they are flush with the top surface of the bobbin. Consequently, the magnets now protrude from the underside of the bobbin. If the pickup had the staggered rod lengths of a vintage style Stratocaster pickup, the rods will now protrude from the underside of the bobbin by the exact same distance.

JezWynd said:
This would imply that I need to find a pickup with pole pieces that sit flat to the upper plate. Do you know of any such pickup?

Yes. Replica Mustang pickups or the version of the Duncan Designed SC-101M supplied in the Squier VM Mustang.

JezWynd said:

Or else put the stock cover to one side and use whatever sounds the best.

Which brings you back to the Lace Sensors and Hot Rails idea.

I dare say that Alegree or Oil City Pickups could suggest products from their own ranges.

p90fool

I'd chat to @TheGuitarWeasel about pickup choice, basing the conversation on the fact that the bridge pickup is in the same place as the bridge facing bobbin on a split humbucker. 

That make a vast difference compared to choosing a wind for a Strat or Tele position. 

JezWynd

normula1 said:

Does the neck pickup measure on a multimeter? It looks to me like the polepieces are like you would find on a modern cheap guitar but the magnet that should be stuck to the bottom has gone walkabout.

I've reassembled it and strung it up so I can't test it unfortunately. It's a cool guitar, I won't make any claims for it being anything special but it's very comfortable to play, the neck is nice and I'm having too much fun playing it to take it apart again atm.