Zhangliqun
Questionologist
So I’ve got a set of Fender Fat 50’s on my 50’s RI MIM Strat. They sound good, dare I say even great -- but I want some more oomph from neck and bridge. I’m serious, the Fat 50’s really do sound great, and in terms of low-mid punch, I think the neck and bridge sound as good as Strat single coils can and still be 6.3-6.4k.
All well and good, but rather than blow $150 on two new pickups what if I add a few turns on my own?...…hmmmm….
I bought some of the #42 wire from Stewmac and got down to business the day it arrived. I really should have had a video camera running because the process -- the ham-fisted, jerry-rigging, thoroughly unprofessional quality of the work -- was so comical that it might have been worth a Pay Per View. The fussin' and cussin' that went on would have been worth the price alone and the close-ups of what was happening would have been gut-busters.
I had done the neck pickup earlier and added about 0.3k to it, and in spite of the sloppy and amateurish way it was done it turned out pretty well, well enough that I was encouraged to try the bridge too.
So I get started.
I was cutting some of the insulation off the pickup hot lead with an Exacto knife where it protrudes above the bottom "plate" of the pickup so I could wind the extra coil wire on it and solder it in. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that maybe it would be a good idea to do this with the cover…..ON.
So, yup, you guessed it -- my big ham-fist slipped and I poked the coil with the blade and shorted it. After a few choice words about how the teacher who gave me my IQ test years ago must have felt sorry for me and skewed the results heavily in my favor, I cooled off and decided, well let's peel off the coil until we can get a clean read on the meter again. Maybe the cut isn’t too deep. I had to take about 600 turns off, which, considering it was a solid poke with an Exacto knife, wasn’t too bad. It started as a 6.4k pickup and was now reading about 5.87k, so it was a setback but not a disaster.
But the point is I was marching backwards. I wanted to ADD turns, not remove them.
END OF PART 1...
All well and good, but rather than blow $150 on two new pickups what if I add a few turns on my own?...…hmmmm….
I bought some of the #42 wire from Stewmac and got down to business the day it arrived. I really should have had a video camera running because the process -- the ham-fisted, jerry-rigging, thoroughly unprofessional quality of the work -- was so comical that it might have been worth a Pay Per View. The fussin' and cussin' that went on would have been worth the price alone and the close-ups of what was happening would have been gut-busters.
I had done the neck pickup earlier and added about 0.3k to it, and in spite of the sloppy and amateurish way it was done it turned out pretty well, well enough that I was encouraged to try the bridge too.
So I get started.
I was cutting some of the insulation off the pickup hot lead with an Exacto knife where it protrudes above the bottom "plate" of the pickup so I could wind the extra coil wire on it and solder it in. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that maybe it would be a good idea to do this with the cover…..ON.
So, yup, you guessed it -- my big ham-fist slipped and I poked the coil with the blade and shorted it. After a few choice words about how the teacher who gave me my IQ test years ago must have felt sorry for me and skewed the results heavily in my favor, I cooled off and decided, well let's peel off the coil until we can get a clean read on the meter again. Maybe the cut isn’t too deep. I had to take about 600 turns off, which, considering it was a solid poke with an Exacto knife, wasn’t too bad. It started as a 6.4k pickup and was now reading about 5.87k, so it was a setback but not a disaster.
But the point is I was marching backwards. I wanted to ADD turns, not remove them.
END OF PART 1...
