Rewind od 60s/70s Japanese semi acoustic pickups

OilCityPickups

Old 60's and 70s Japanese pickups are endlessly fascinating: they come in a vast range of different shapes and sizes, and although most were super cheaply built, they can offer tones that we simply don't hear any more. I don't know the make of instrument this came from, but I've seen similar pickups on guitars branded Zenta, Top Twenty and Teisco (as well as many others. 
They are a lowish wind that uses an unusual grade of wire (a tad thicker than standard 42awg used for example by Fender on Strats, and Gibson on pretty much everything). I keep over specced wire if it comes in (sometimes wire manufactures make mistakes)... so I end up with a lot of half gauges. I was lucky to have some wire that perfectly suited this pair.



Contrary to popular belief the covers on these are not riveted on as it might appear, but a 'click fit' with dimples on the cover lining up with holes in the baseplate lip. Not the most wonderful solution, as these covers are free to vibrate about a bit and cause some microphonic issues. Still we are doing a restoration job here, and I'm not setting out to correct design 'flaws' here, just get the pickups back to factory spec.




Stripping down is pretty easy ... note the card shims that the factory corrected the height difference with between the bobbin and the 'keeper bar' (which is an inverted u section of pressed steel).



The bobbins are rather wobbly when you strip off the old, buggered wire. The thin plastic was never meant to survive potting ... so we won't risk a melt down!




So wobbly were the bobbins that I made a 'plug' to stop the pressure of the winding wire collapsing the bobbin core while winding.



Core in position ...



And it provides a handy point for 'Tweedledee's tailstock and centre to engage with (we have two CNC/manual winding machines: Tweedledee and Tweedledum).




All wound, and with correct masking tape style coil wrappings.


Reassembly is straightforward



And all done. Output on these is low from factory, with a typical DCR of sub 5k ... but the sound is quite up front due to the large ceramic magnets.

Watch out for a rewind on a Burns Rez-O-Matik pickup shortly ... the dreaded 'air coil' with no bobbin!!! Deep joy!

JayGee

I love this stuff. I really enjoy reading about near forgotten, occasionally quirky “off brand” stuff stuff, I love that somebody cares enough about a funny old guitar which probably isn’t worth very much to pay Ash to sort it out, I love that Ash cares enough to put time and effort into doing the work, and I love that I get to read about it.

And maybe there’ll turn out to be an overlooked gem waiting to be (re)discovered...

OilCityPickups

JayGee said:

I love this stuff. I really enjoy reading about near forgotten, occasionally quirky “off brand” stuff stuff, I love that somebody cares enough about a funny old guitar which probably isn’t worth very much to pay Ash to sort it out, I love that Ash cares enough to put time and effort into doing the work, and I love that I get to read about it.

And maybe there’ll turn out to be an overlooked gem waiting to be (re)discovered...

Actually these sound really interesting ... a sort of jangly 60s pop tone, that with a bit of distortion turns into nasty garage rock. Their ability to take drive is hampered by the construction that basically does everything that's bad as far as feedback is concerned ... but a re-manufactured modern version ... with a tight cover and some potting would be a nice pickup for nasty blues, slide guitar, and use with a fuzz (the low pickup output works well with fuzz circuits).

impmann

Thanks for sharing, Ash. I love these restoration features you do - properly fascinating.

If you ever did make a modern version of this, I had a half drunk daft idea for a name for it...

The Gnarlington

Great for gnarly blues and garage fuzz abandon.

Actually it sounded better in my head...

Jez6345789

Always find these rebuild jobs fascinating, were they machine wound or hand guided. 

Those japanese girls were not like the old sloppy Mexicans winding at Fender filling the bobbins to full whilst they talked about hairstyles LOL.

I had something similar on an early japanese guitar might of been Zenta

Nice work

OilCityPickups

Jez6345789 said:

Always find these rebuild jobs fascinating, were they machine wound or hand guided. 

Those japanese girls were not like the old sloppy Mexicans winding at Fender filling the bobbins to full whilst they talked about hairstyles LOL.

I had something similar on an early japanese guitar might of been Zenta

Nice work

Originals were very tightly and evenly wound ... I'd say by machine. Very even winding can actually help the tone of very simply made pickups as it helps smooth out some of the rough edges and eases gritty ceramic magnets.

impmann said:

Thanks for sharing, Ash. I love these restoration features you do - properly fascinating.

If you ever did make a modern version of this, I had a half drunk daft idea for a name for it...

The Gnarlington

Great for gnarly blues and garage fuzz abandon.

Actually it sounded better in my head...

I may well do some 'influenced by' pickups of this sort of design ... maybe in humbucker cases 

normula1

And that's just introduced a Vietnam flashback... I was already thinking the bobbin was just like the ones in the pickups on a Satelite LP copy I had as a kid. They looked like humbuckers too from the outside but turned out to be noghing like that under the cover

OilCityPickups

normula1 said:

And that's just introduced a Vietnam flashback... I was already thinking the bobbin was just like the ones in the pickups on a Satelite LP copy I had as a kid. They looked like humbuckers too from the outside but turned out to be noghing like that under the cover

Yep ... basically the same pickup ... but with a bigger magnet in these