Here are two examples of pickups we have restored - a 1956 and a
1974 Stratocaster.
1956 Stratocaster pickup
before rewinding
This pickup was brought to me by a man who found
his father's 1956 Stratocaster
in pieces while settling his estate. This pickup was dead and
the other two pickups worked,
so I was asked to rewind this pickup for lead pickup playing
and rewire the other two
for rhythm and middle pickup use.
I wanted to keep this pickup as original looking as possible,
so I was very careful when cleaning
the bobbin. Once the original coil wire was removed from the
bobbin, I cleaned rust and debris
from inside of the bobbin and the pickup magnets and dipped
the bobbin in nitrocellulose
lacquer to protect the new coil windings and keep the magnets
from rusting.
Then I rewound the coil with 42 gauge heavy Formvar insulated
coil wire in a slight 'barrel shaped'
wind, just slightly overwound compared to the original
pickups. I then wax potted the pickup and
added new cloth covered 'push back' hookup wire to all the
pickups.
This is
the 1956 Stratocaster lead pickup after rewinding.
The background is Angeltone's Keithley LCZ meter, used for
electrical testing and generating
the datasheets that are included with every Angeltone pickup.
The pickup in this photo's inductance was measured at 2.367
Henries
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This 1974 Fender Stratocaster? pickup came in for a
for a rewind not too long ago.
It's supposed to be a stock pickup, but I think the
coil wire's insulation may have age degraded
because it read only 4.7K DCR
before restoration.
The customer wants it very slightly overwound
over stock 1974 Strat specs so it works better
as a lead pickup. I can see it's been rewound at
least once already or at least repaired.
The pickup
after cleaning and restoring the bobbin. The owner of this
pickup was very fortunate
because rusty magnets from sweat and liquids inside the pickup
destroys the pickup's coil,
and these original magnets are totally rust free! This made
restoring this pickup easy
After thoroughly
cleaning the pickup's bobbin, the bobbin was dipped in
nitrocellulose lacquer
to seal the bobbin and keep the magnets from rusting, and
rewound in 42 gauge plain enamel
coil wire. The pickup was then wax dipped per customer request
for feedback suppression
and 'modern' vinyl covered hookup wire was added
