Cooling Down a Hot Rails

Butch Snyder

Butch Snyder

ObsoleteChickenPickingologist
I like my Hot Rails Tele bridge pickup; but it's pretty freaking hot and it does feedback a bit because of it's heat factor. I was wondering if there was a way to cool it down a bit like maybe replacing the ceramic bar magnet with an alnico 5 bar.

Would that be possible and what do you think the tone would be like then?
 
Re: Cooling Down a Hot Rails

the magnets on a hot rails are smaller than a typical bar magnet so i dont think it would work but ive never tried it
 
Re: Cooling Down a Hot Rails

Magnet swap in this particular case would probably be a job for the custom shop. They are in there pretty good and once you take one out, the two rails coils can come free from the entire chassis. You're begging to break coil wires. I would say try it wired with a series/parallel switch on the tone pot. (push/pull) You should find that to be a really nice, clean, more vintage sound. The Alnico magnet would sweeten it a bit, and reduce the output, but not as much as parallel.
 
Re: Cooling Down a Hot Rails

Spin a split and spin a sumethin 'ruther (cap in parallel with two lugs a la the volume pot treble bleed mod) will both tame the hotrails a bit, although a single hotrails coil sounds like a twangy, less beefy hotrails...which might make a good hot tele sound. Maybe a push-pull pot with a hard wired spin mod or a series/parallel switch?
 
Re: Cooling Down a Hot Rails

Something similar was brought up in another thread . . . but it would be "cool" to see a Cool Rails Tele bridge. That baby would spank! ;)

Edit: I wonder if Cool Rails, Vintage Rails, in both the Tele neck and bridge versions would sell. Sounds good on paper.
 
Re: Cooling Down a Hot Rails

ArtieToo said:
Something similar was brought up in another thread . . . but it would be "cool" to see a Cool Rails Tele bridge. That baby would spank! ;)

Edit: I wonder if Cool Rails, Vintage Rails, in both the Tele neck and bridge versions would sell. Sounds good on paper.
Click to expand...

I know I'd get a set of eaCh. :burnout:
 
Re: Cooling Down a Hot Rails

I suggest that you wire your HotRails in parallel instead of series. It will cut the output and extend the treble. There is not much to do besides that, small alnico magnets are not readily available.

Edit: I don't recommend using a half of Hotrails (single coil mode): the tone is uninspiring and this mode is not humbucking.
 
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Re: Cooling Down a Hot Rails

BTW, how much of an output drop will there be by wiring the Hot Rails in parallel? I don't want to lose too much. I have an Air Norton in the neck position and it's pretty loud...
 
Re: Cooling Down a Hot Rails

the output will be more than the output of the single coil mode and less than the output of the humbucking (series) mode. since Hotrails is a pretty hot pickup (14.8K), I would say, expect the output of a PAF pickup, a little less than the AirNorton. You may have to raise the bridge pickup a little to compensate for the change in output. Anyway, you can't go wrong because the change is completely reversible and takes 5 minutes (if you know how to use a soldering iron).
Post your impressions afterwards.

Also I recommend that you take a look at this link:
http://buildyourguitar.com/resources/lemme/

A quote:
"Normally, both coils are switched in series. Switching them in parallel cuts the inductance to a quarter of the initial value, so the resonant frequency (all other factors being equal) will be twice as high. Using only one of the coils halves the inductance, so the resonant frequency will increase by the factor of the square root of 2 (approximately 1.4). In both cases, the sound will have more treble than before."

Good luck.
 
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Re: Cooling Down a Hot Rails

Butch, send it to MJ for a magnet swap...it doesn't cost too much and I bet it would help...If you wanted to spend the scratch you could even have MJ wind you a lower output version of it and try that out...
 
Re: Cooling Down a Hot Rails

Another note on the Alnico magnet, for those of you that find the coil cut on a Rail uninspiring, A Rail pickup powered with an Alnico magnet splits extremely well. Splitting a standard Rail leaves you with a slim blade powered by a harsher magnetic field. The Ceramics work very well in a balanced humbucking format for the Rails, but when you go single coil Rail, the Alnico is super sweet and juicy.
 
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