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A little while ago this Rickenbacker 4001 C64 reissue pickup
was sent to me by a chain of music stores … ‘it needs a complete rewind’ they
said … they weren’t kidding! When it came out of the bag I couldn’t see
the actual parts amongst the knotted ‘pillow’
of thousands of turns on wire. Apparently an abortive attempt to remove the cover, which is sadly part of the pickup itself … had led to the top
flatwork coming off, and the bobbin literally exploding wire everywhere.
Below: held together for the pic!
The first job was to determine the direction of wind … so I cut off as much of the tangled mess as I could with a pair of nail scissors … till I had some core turns visible.
Once I’d sussed the wind direction … off came all the wire so I could get a good look at the bobbin. Interestingly enough, part of the reason the pickup came apart so easily may have been that the super glue ‘fillet’ that most maker apply to help keep the magnets in the flatwork while winding was missing entirely from some of poles, and had been done in a slapdash way on others. This wouldn’t have been a problem … apart from creating a weakness when the ‘modder’ had attempted to remove the ‘horseshoes’.After cleaning up the bobbin parts, I reassembled it. There was no trace whatever of any wax potting … another reason the pickup came apart easily … but this made the re assembly job a little easier. I always run some thin super glue around the joints where the magnets pass through the flatwork. The pressure created by the windings pushing outwards while winding is easily enough to deform the bobbins … and even burst the pickup apart without some belt and braces.
More in part 2 ....
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Having no entries in my little black book of specs for the 4001 pickup I had to use a little deviousness to determine how many turns of wire to put on the bobbin. Normally I could measure the resistance of a healthy pickup to copy it. Or if it was simply dead, put a pair of digital callipers across the narrow sides of the wound coil then simply wind till I made up the diameter. That approach wouldn’t work here. Luckily the tape wrapping had left a faint mark on the flatwork … so I had a rough ballpark coil size. I know Rickenbacker have always used super-thin 44awg wire … so knowing its resistance per foot … and the size of coil … and using some clever maths (actually I have a program on the computer to help with that) I came up with a figure of between 12 and 14k. Sounded fair enough so I tape wrapped the bobbin core to insulate the poles (another job Rickenbacker had missed out) after soldering the start of the 44awg wire to the little brass woodscrew that goes through the flatwork … jeez this pickup was is really crudely made, even Fender use brass eyelets
The universal backing plate I designed for my pickup winding machine ‘Gloria’ will hold most common bobbins just with the spring loaded tail-stock (left of picture) engaged … however for the Rick bobbin I had to resort to a little double sided tape to help out.
44awg is a bit of a bitch to hand wind: being so delicate that a sneeze while guiding the turns by hand will snap the wire, or a heavy hand will stretch it … thus making it thinner and increasing its resistance.
The final wound bobbin ready to reunite with the rest of the pickup. I decided to give it a quick 30 second wax dip … just to ‘fix’ the outer layers and avoid any nasty microphonic tendencies.
The customer was apparently very happy … as it worked out considerably cheaper than buying a new Rick pickup and the turnaround was around four hours! And I had more scrap wire to take to the recyclers.
Moral of the story? Only try to take a pickup apart if you know what you are doing ...
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
nice work fella.
I ever-so-slightly jealous that I can't do stuff like that (too delicate for my paws)
Ringleader of the Cambridge cartel, pedal champ and king of the dirt boxes (down to 21)
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
If only, I'm happy to do mechanical/engineer-y stuff, but electrics/electronics stump me. I'm happy to solder pups etc I, but that really is a bit too delicate for me.
Ringleader of the Cambridge cartel, pedal champ and king of the dirt boxes (down to 21)
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Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message