Oil City/ASL repair and restoration of 67 Tele pickups

OilCityPickups

A customer of mine has had the same 1967 Telecaster, owned from new and bought in Liverpool when he was just 17. 

Sadly the pickups both died many years ago, and have languished in a drawer while new, hot replacements did stand in! Now the customer is having the guitar returned to original finish (it has had several resprays) and wants the original pickups back in.

This is where I come in :-) 

I thought you all might be interested to see a restoration in progress and see inside a pair of 'golden era' pickups.

Side view of the bridge unit ... showing that classic (and slightly odd) sixties stagger.

Top view showing classic corrosion on the treble side ... a clue as to what probably killed the pickup: moisture getting down the magnets causing corrosion to swell and break down the inner coils. Fender didn't tape their magnets and only sometimes lacquered them ... so this kills many old Fender pickups. I rewound a Custom Shop Twisted Tele pickup recently that proves they haven't learned their lesson! 

A missing baseplate completes the tale of woe!

The neck pickup ... showing the over-spray from an old English white re-spray :-) and sporting a broken off front cover tag ... yet more to fix

 

In the next part .... stripping the pickups ....

Richardj

Interesting.  Doesn't look like there are as many windings on the bridge pickup as we are used to seeing now.

OilCityPickups

Being bust I couldn't get a reading ... but I used a vernier caliper to get a rule of thumb ... and I would doubt that it crept much over 6k. The customer asked that I make both units a touch beefier when I rewind ... and also cure a nasty tendency the bridge unit had to feedback like hell.

OilCityPickups

Right .... on with stripping!!! I tend to use a pair of sharp, curved nail scissors to chop through the windings. Some use a Stanley knife ... but I find it easier to damage the bobbins/flatwork with one of those.

Off with the string ... not waxed like some I've seen ... 

And no sign whatever of potting. Fender lacquer dipped their pickups at this time ... but this pickup clearly hasn't. Everything else about it is original ... so one must suppose this one slipped through the net.

And off it comes ...

You may be able to see the corrosion right at the top of the high E magnet ... it has a bit of original wire actually 'grown' into it ... probably where the break was. I clean off the corrosion, then put a 'fillet' of Cyanoacrylate adhesive around the top joint with the flatwork ... to make sure the bobbin stays together when rewound ... and also to help stop moisture from coming down and killing the pickup again. I also lacquer the magnets as a belt and braces measure!

Right .... scatter rewound with the proper spec, US made plain enamel 42awg wire ... to bang on 7k. Factory norm was 6.5k ... but as I said, the customer would like a touch more 'girth'.

  

The customer had lost the baseplate over their years of storage  ... so a period correct, copper plated steel one is added ...

The screws are there just to keep the flatwork and baseplate aligned while the pickup is potted. I went for a light wax potting that will keep the 'air' in the tone ... but fix the baseplate and outer coils firmly to stop squeal. The baseplate will tarnish down quickly to match the aged look of the pickup :-)

Some string added after the potting (in the fifties it was often added before potting)... and we are there

Next part ... the neck pickup ... and they are little buggers!

OilCityPickups

Interestingly the neck pickup out of this pair had been lacquer potted ... 

the tape will be saved and put on the re wound coil.

Chopping through lacquer dipped coils is a touch more 'energetic' ... but resistance is futile ;-)

You can see there that the cellulose lacquer has mad a pretty solid lump out of the windings.

Some 43awg US plain enamel wire and we are at this stage. Coil is wound out to 6.8k ... 

That tape goes back on nicely

Now to fix that pickup cover that's minus a 'lug'. Ordinarily I would simply fit a new cover ... but the 67 original has such a nice patina of age I will resurrect it!

A lug is cut from a cheap modern cover ... with a little 'tab' then soldered inside the old cover and ground back  neatly ...

Totally invisable from the outside ... but with three lugs as Leo intended :-)

OilCityPickups

Then .... a wax bath and we have ...

Two fully working and restored sixties Tele pickups :-)

Evilmags

A guitarists version of Fast and Loud....

VimFuego

nice story/break down of the pup makers art (and you have excellently manicured nails as well, mine look like a badger has used them as a chew toy).

IvisonGuitars

Great work Ash!

capo4th

Loved reading that great pics thanks for sharing

Samgb

That was great. Feel free to do more of this - good stuff. Nice to see a craftsman at work says the idiot who burned his little finger quite badly last night just swapping a pickup. The other end of the skills scale as it were!

OilCityPickups

I will be doing lots more of this :-) trying to show the processes that are part of the design as well as the production of my pickups ... and maybe dispelling a few myths along the way!

Working with old pickups is huge fun .. plus also a valuable source of information. I have the gauss readings for the magnets, the wire diameter and turn count ... plus many, many other gems of information salted away about these pickups ... so producing a reproduction '67' set is now a fairly simple matter!

 

ThePrettyDamned

Love write ups like this.

I get a bit giddy when I read about those weird Japanese pickups being restored. They look so damn cool, and so... Awkward to put into anything that's a standard guitar!

But vintage fender is also way cool.

rpr

Interesting how does this compare to late 50s Tele pickups? Oh, also what did you make of the old Dimarzio SDS1 i sent down to you a while back

sweepy

A lovely job indeed, have to wait and order a set of 60's for my Strat  this year,,,I must, really

OilCityPickups

rpr said:

Interesting how does this compare to late 50s Tele pickups? Oh, also what did you make of the old Dimarzio SDS1 i sent down to you a while back

Late fifties pickups were significantly more powerful (in general) slightly less twang ... but more growl. The 67 is a classic 'Nashville' pickup. 

The SDS 1 has been scoped within an in of it's life ... and will be forming the basis for a couple of new designs shortly!

CMT

Great job! Nice touch with the tab repair. I've had the same experience as you - neither the older or newer Fender pickups get the magnets laquered or taped to stop corrosion killing the windings.

And yes - nice nails.

OilCityPickups

CMT said:

Great job! Nice touch with the tab repair. I've had the same experience as you - neither the older or newer Fender pickups get the magnets laquered or taped to stop corrosion killing the windings.

And yes - nice nails.

You'd have thought they'd have learned about taping the coils after sixty years wouldn't you? But then Rickenbacker still persists in making shoddy centre connections to their bass coils (little sawn off brass screw for gods sake ... with no strain relief) and won't RWRP either! I don't 't mind tradition ... but traditional bad engineering?

breakstuff

Great thread Ash.I too would love to see more like this.There's something very therapeutic about seeing broken things being stripped down and repaired.
Brilliant stuff.

joes16

Very interesting thread. I might be putting in an order soon.

TTony

Really interesting. I'm never going to attempt anything remotely similar, but still intereting to read and see how it's all done.