I spent a lovely day yesterday with Ash at
@OilCityPickups workshop playing with magnets, coil winders, spools of hair thin wire and a glimpse into the laser cutter making flatwork. We had three attempts at correctly rewinding an old dead Kent Armstrong Strat pickup. Seeing a brand new lovely shiny coil cut off with scissors and chucked in the bin, twice, because it wasn't quite right was alarming but also reassuring in attention to detail and endeavouring to match the original spec of wire diameter and turns.
We then made one of Ash's new noise cancelling P90's. This will go in the Epiphone Coronet I use for slide. I'm used to P90's being noisy but this one is very hummy, particularly on the stage of our local gig venue - some horrible electrics underneath the floor perhaps. That involved three coils, two magnets, soldering, hammers, drills, hot glue, Big Bertha and the Death Star....
Fascinating and satisfying. I don't know why in 40+ years of working in electronics/engineering and playing guitars I've never been near a coil winder. Long overdue.
Lots of good nattering about all sorts of related and unrelated things whilst we worked, plus tea's, coffee's and lunch outside.
Thank you Ash for a brilliant day. I'll be studying your book and asking questions!
Jules
Comments
Showing others how to make pickups is very satisfying ... hopefully my published version of 'the book' will be available for others who can't physically make it to 'Oily Towers' to be shown the secrets :-)
Ash
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
I think we need to know more @OilCityPickups !
Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
Well I have been correlating together all my teaching day notes ... experience with old and unusual pickups, tips, tricks and general trade secrets and gradually turning them into a book on pickups and pickup winding. Those who have come to my workshop have had a ring binder version that has been gradually expanding, but a properly published version is coming. It'll be the ultimate guide for changing pickups, magnet swaps, your own pickup repairs, rewinding and making whole new pickups! As well as history and the debunking of some industry bullshit ;-)
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
It was only intended as a business-promotion thing, but ~200 A4 pages (IIRC), correctly laid out, text & graphics, colour, properly printed & bound.
Wasn't ridiculously expensive or difficult to do, even as a small run. I never intended to sell it, but with no overheads/cuts to be taken, any revenue would have been straight to me.
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message