Adjusting Strat Pole Pieces

ICBM

thegummy said:

I think maybe the Fat 50s are the plastic one. Didn't have the reference pics at the time and obviously the wire was on it so it's hard to tell.

Not unless they've changed them.

Modulus_Amps

I changed the stagger on my mex strat pickups, I now don't have a reason to change them out, sounds so much better.

I find the vintage stagger on strats is so uneven in response that it is annoying, you know that feeling when you go to play lead on the B or high E string and it just looses oomp.. that why the pole pieces need corrected.

If I do ever change them then I will either get custom made ones or ones I know I can adjust properly.

thegummy

ICBM said:

thegummy said:

I think maybe the Fat 50s are the plastic one. Didn't have the reference pics at the time and obviously the wire was on it so it's hard to tell.

Not unless they've changed them.

Feel like I should go back in and provide a pic for the benefit of people finding this thread in the future. It's a bit of pest to do with all the screws bit I'll try getting it tonight.

thegummy

Modulus_Amps said:

I changed the stagger on my mex strat pickups, I now don't have a reason to change them out, sounds so much better.

I find the vintage stagger on strats is so uneven in response that it is annoying, you know that feeling when you go to play lead on the B or high E string and it just looses oomp.. that why the pole pieces need corrected.

If I do ever change them then I will either get custom made ones or ones I know I can adjust properly.

Was initially going to change the stagger to be the same as my fretboard radius but it was difficult to push the poles with any precision so just put them all flat.

The only problem really was going between the g string and the higher 2 and that's solved.

Surprised the stagger is so popular, to me that problem is a lot more important than many things people do as subtle tone tweaks.

normula1

In the past, I've used one of the strong magnets from my son's Geomag toy to slightly demagnetise the G pole.

OilCityPickups

The reason most makers use the 'old' flatwork method of producing Strat ... and for that matter Tele pickups is the very fact that the plastic bobbins don't allow the inner coils of the windings to lie close to, and in the sweet spot of the magnets. This changes the shape of the coil you are obliged to wind on a plastic bobbin, and changes the tonality of the resulting pickup. 
Added to this the plastic bobbins have a nasty habit of melting around the soldering eyelets when you add the output wires. Many plastic bobbins have magnet sleeves too broad to allow you to wind 'heavy formvar', and so getting the early Strat sound is practically impossible as you run out of winding space before putting enough turns on. 
 

ICBM

OilCityPickups said:

Added to this the plastic bobbins have a nasty habit of melting around the soldering eyelets when you add the output wires.

Which then leads to the workers at Fender being instructed not to get them too hot, which then leads to cold solder joints. Very common on modern Fender pickups - even some of the fibreboard ones, presumably because they're assembled by the same people.

I impressed a friend the other day by diagnosing his dead USA P-Bass and fixing it in about five minutes from when he walked in the door... cold solder joint on a pickup bobbin. It would have only been four minutes if I'd guessed which bobbin correctly first .

CasperCaster

@thegummy the Fat 50's are made traditionally with alnico magnets pressed into Forbon flatwork i.e. no plastic bobbin. I am aware of people getting away with it on these vintage style pickups, but it does result in a dead pickup a significant proportion of the time. Not something I'd risk myself but you got away with it, so a win for you!

OilCityPickups said: CasperCaster said: none of the big pickup winders reverse wind anything - their RWRP pickups are wound in the same direction as their equivalent 'normal' pickups but they swap black/white with respect to coil start/finish - the magnet polarity is reversed and black/white are swapped, but that is all. Very true, but not the best way to wind RWRP pickups at all! 
PS ... on non plastic bobbin pickups most small pickup winders will reverse the polarity of a middle pickup for you for a small charge. 

Absolutely agreed just making the point since in some circumstances it's a useful hack.

thegummy

Glad I did it when I did or I'd have been scared off it by the replies in this thread lol

I wonder how often it really does damage the pickup if I did it on all 3 and it was fine.

Funkfingers

CasperCaster said:

none of the big pickup winders reverse wind anything 

Seymour Duncan does. Follow the start and finish ends of the coils in this photograph.

https://i.imgur.com/u7v4CyZ.jpg?1

SSL52-1 RP/RW
SSL52-1 regular
APST-1 Twangbanger

thegummy

Here's a couple of photos of my pickups:





I find it very hard to tell which it is with the wire on it.

MatthewXR

ICBM said:

If they're Fender USA Standard-type pickups then you can easily and safely adjust them just by pushing them down, because they're mounted in tubes in a plastic bobbin.

Thank you so much for this post. As soon as I read it, I pushed the flat of my pick down on the G & D poles on each pickup (2005 MIA standard). They took some firm force but they shifted. Now that weird warble sound that I get on those strings above the 12th fret is gone. Been wanting to do this for years but was too nervous to try it. The annoying noticeable volume difference on the G is gone as well. Cheers