Oil City Epiphone Wildcat rewind/upgrade

OilCityPickups

The Epi Wildcat (and also the Casino) are great guitars seriously let down by their pickups (at least in my view). 

For some reason best known to themselves, Epiphone chose to fit these very traditional guitars with stupidly over-wound and dark P90 style pickups. The pair on my bench meter out at 15k bridge and 12k neck so are obviously wound with 43awg wire instead of the usual 42awg that proper P90s use. 

They have other issues too ... the non standard neck pole spacing makes fitting any other P90 under the chrome cover impossible, and the bobbins are shallower than a standard P90, so fitting the correct number of turns of the thicker wire needed to produce a proper P90 tone is a total pain. 

All is not lost however, and through the magic of specialist winding we can make them as good as regular P90s ... er ... with some work!

The first job is to remove the heavy, chrome plated brass covers ... fitting nickel silver ones would improve the top end at a stroke ... but they are not available in the neck spacing. We have to get cunning!

Here we see the bridge bobbin exposed, and once we remove the bobbin and magnets we see another reason for the lack of tone. Epiphone have fitted short alnico 5 magnets, not really right at all for a P90, as they tend to 'smudge' the top end a little. Perfect in a low wind, snappy pickup like a T-Top, but combined with the thin wind and high turn count here, that's a recipe for mud! 

I've chosen to replace the short mags with 59 pattern A5s of my own, well charged up for top end snap, to help counteract those covers! 

I will spare you the pictures of cutting off the old wire ... the pickups were severely over potted with the foul smelling gloop that Chinese pickup manufacturers seem to invariably use. It sets the coils into a hard 'lump' of wire ... that may well be okay in a pickup for heavy metal levels of gain ... but is totally over egging it on a semi acoustic! As I've said before, a tiny level of microphony adds to a pickup's harmonic content ... these were choked! 

Onto Tweedle Dee my no1 winding machine to replicate as closely as possible a 50s style wind ... and I start to cram those weedy bobbins with more wire than they were designed to hold!

I chose to use Polysol wire in this wind instead of plain enamel as it also will help to add more top end sparkle and nullify the effect of those covers.

Putting that much wire on-board really makes the bobbins flare! But again that was common in the fifties!

Damn full too ... but with the proper 42awg wire.

The pair done ... they now meter out at 8.5k bridge, and 8k neck. Much more like it!

Now to add decent vintage braided hookup wire, and reunite them with their covers! 

Strapped to a handy lump of scrap maple ... awaiting the attention of my huge 150w soldering iron.

After their hot wax bath ... the finished result: P90s that will actually sound like P90s ... not like someone is trying to smother them with a duvet!

P90s are one of the oldest pickup designs  -and I have said this before - one of the easiest to cock up in the design/building stage. These Wildcat units are now able to cut it with with the best of em.

RedRabbit

I've got a Wildcat and can confirm how dull and muddy the original pickups are.

How much would you charge for doing this?

Richardj

@erky32 ...... hmmmm.

benmurray85

I have been pondering getting a wildcat for a long while now. This may have just pushed me over into taking a punt on one. Would also be interested in prices for the upgrade please.

Love the pickup porn pictures as well

steamabacus

I've read that the quality (or lack of) and length of the internal wiring on the Wildcats dulls the top end considerably and that rewiring with decent cable makes a considerable improvement.

OilCityPickups

Basically the rewinding+mods cost the same as a pair of Oil City pickups of similar spec. To raise the Epi pickups to FireWatch standard spec costs ... ie £106.00 for the pair plus £7.60 P&P

steamabacus

I've remembered where I read about the internal wiring. It's in this link from Stewart Ward of Award-Session ....

http://www.award-session.com/pdfs/Epiphone%20WildKat%20Tone%20Mods.pdf

FelineGuitars

Yup . We'll be doing something about the internal wiring when we get these pickups back. I may not go the same direction that Stewart suggested but using a more typical Gibson wiring type and reducing the amount of wire will help, and with Ash's special wind we'll be sounding good

impmann

Ash - thanks for another really great thread that explains the science behind the 'magic'.

I've resisted buying a Casino for many years because I've not heard a reissue that sounds anything like a 1960s one and I can't afford a real one. Even the ones with US pickups have sounded way too hot and muddy.

I think GAS may be attacking...

OilCityPickups

impmann said:

Ash - thanks for another really great thread that explains the science behind the 'magic'.

I've resisted buying a Casino for many years because I've not heard a reissue that sounds anything like a 1960s one and I can't afford a real one. Even the ones with US pickups have sounded way too hot and muddy.

I think GAS may be attacking...

As so often happens with Epiphones, very nice instruments ... let down by poor wiring and lack luster pickups. 

tbm

Ash did this very thing to my Casino pickups about 18 months ago. Transformed the guitar.

OilCityPickups

tbm said:

Ash did this very thing to my Casino pickups about 18 months ago. Transformed the guitar.

I'v gotten a bit more 'set up' for these mods now ... so the pickups don't have to spend as long in workshop :-)