Maker Pro
Maker Pro

Question: Building Guitar Pickups

J

Jason Myers

Jan 1, 1970
0
I've got a project going on and I think that I'd best seek some advice
to save a little (lot of?)troubleshooting. I need to build a pickup
for ONLY the 5th & 6th (E & A) strings of a telecaster. I was
originally going to mount an extra single coil the long way but as it
turns out there's no room. My main concern is what to house it in, or
what to use to shield the magnet. For the magnet I had planned to use
stainless steel machine screws screwed in 3/4 inch spacers, w/ the
spacers mounted on a piece of plactic or perf board w/ nuts mounted on
for general height adjustment like a commercial PU. I figured on 7,000
to 10,000 wraps with copper wire ought to do, but the big question is
the insulating material. Epoxy? Bondo? My strat PU's seem to be
nothin' but plastic, while my Seymour Duncans are a mystery, some kind
of heavy, non-conductive material.
I've built simple circuits, rewired guitars, and made minor
repairs/mods to guitars & amps, but pickup construction is something
new to me. By the way, the E &A string pickup is to be routed to an
octaver (built on board) and a separate output, so when I do "bass"
lines with my R. thumb the'll be in the bass range while the chords I
play with my fingers are not transposed.
Any tip is appriciated.
Thanks in advance.
Jason
 
J

John Woodgate

Jan 1, 1970
0
I read in sci.electronics.design that Jason Myers <[email protected]>
For the magnet I had planned to use
stainless steel machine screws

Do you know that they are usable for the purpose? Some stainless steels
are non-magnetic, and the permeability of the magnetic varieties is
pretty poor. How are you going to wind 7000 to 10 000 turns of the very
thin wire? That is not at all a trivial task.

I think you need a permanent magnet as well, otherwise you will get
double-frequency output.
 
A

Active8

Jan 1, 1970
0
I've got a project going on and I think that I'd best seek some advice
to save a little (lot of?)troubleshooting. I need to build a pickup
for ONLY the 5th & 6th (E & A) strings of a telecaster. I was
originally going to mount an extra single coil the long way but as it
turns out there's no room. My main concern is what to house it in, or
what to use to shield the magnet. For the magnet I had planned to use
stainless steel machine screws screwed in 3/4 inch spacers, w/ the
spacers mounted on a piece of plactic or perf board w/ nuts mounted on
for general height adjustment like a commercial PU. I figured on 7,000
to 10,000 wraps with copper wire ought to do, but the big question is
the insulating material. Epoxy? Bondo? My strat PU's seem to be
nothin' but plastic, while my Seymour Duncans are a mystery, some kind
of heavy, non-conductive material.

a nail wrapped with electrical tape with wire wound on it would do.
I think your estimated turns count is way off.
I've built simple circuits, rewired guitars, and made minor
repairs/mods to guitars & amps, but pickup construction is something
new to me. By the way, the E &A string pickup is to be routed to an
octaver (built on board) and a separate output, so when I do "bass"
lines with my R. thumb the'll be in the bass range while the chords I
play with my fingers are not transposed.
Any tip is appriciated.
Thanks in advance.
Jason

How about starting with a steel sewing machine bobbin? You can leave
it round or cut/file it to any shape. IIRC, I can get about 800
turns of 32 AWG on one bobbin. What you might think about is filing
the circular ends of two bobbins flat (maybe just on one side of
each bobbin) so when you stick them together, you get something that
fits under the E & A strings. Leave the thing as long as possible
along the direction the strings run so you can get as many turns as
possible on the final bobbin. IIRC, guitar pickups are around 3 k to
5 k resistance, but that's for a full length pickup. You'll end up
with much less for this little gem, but that shouldn't kill you.

I'd use high iron content set screws for the pole pieces. Grab a
magnetic pick up from the checkout line (or wherever) at the
hardware store to see which screws stick the most and therefore have
higher iron content. You can fill the hole on the bobbin with epoxy
or whatever and drill and tap it for the pole pieces, but the air
gap (non-ferrous metal) between the bobbin and the screw isn't the
best thing for the magnetic circuit so you'll have to do something
about that. The Gibson style pickups had a piece of metal bent like
so:

bottom
_ _
|_| |_| 2 magnets hot melt glued or epoxied on to metal
___ ___
U i think the coil was wound on a bobbin surrounding this U
^ bend
^
|_ pole pieces screwed into metal here

that configuration allowed the magnetic field to align along the
metal/pole piece right up close to the string. I never disected my
Carvin / DiMArzio style pickups but I figure it's much the same.

Maybe cutting the top end of a steel bobbin off and replacing it
with plastic would be better.

While yer at it, google for guitar pickups, hot-rodding guitars,
whatever keywords you can think of for more info. There's gotta be
some more info out there. I can't remember what all I read about
pickup design. I think Craig Anderton did some articles related to
electronic music projects for Guitar Player and/or Guitar For The
Practicing Musician, plus he wrote at least one book. Look for
article reprints, too.

You could hack up a full sized pickup. Dremel tool is your friend :)
Don't forget the safety glasses.
 
A

Active8

Jan 1, 1970
0
I read in sci.electronics.design that Jason Myers <[email protected]>


Do you know that they are usable for the purpose? Some stainless steels
are non-magnetic, and the permeability of the magnetic varieties is
pretty poor. How are you going to wind 7000 to 10 000 turns of the very
thin wire? That is not at all a trivial task.

I think you need a permanent magnet as well, otherwise you will get
double-frequency output.

Yeah, I misunderstood what he said. The permanent magnets set up a
field in the ferrous yoke which the adjustable pole-pieces extend
further out to the strings. The string(s) vibrating in the field
change the field which induces a current in the coil which surrounds
the part of the yoke holding the pole-pieces.
 
B

Bob Stephens

Jan 1, 1970
0
I've got a project going on and I think that I'd best seek some advice
to save a little (lot of?)troubleshooting. I need to build a pickup
for ONLY the 5th & 6th (E & A) strings of a telecaster. I was
originally going to mount an extra single coil the long way but as it
turns out there's no room. My main concern is what to house it in, or
what to use to shield the magnet. For the magnet I had planned to use
stainless steel machine screws screwed in 3/4 inch spacers, w/ the
spacers mounted on a piece of plactic or perf board w/ nuts mounted on
for general height adjustment like a commercial PU. I figured on 7,000
to 10,000 wraps with copper wire ought to do, but the big question is
the insulating material. Epoxy? Bondo? My strat PU's seem to be
nothin' but plastic, while my Seymour Duncans are a mystery, some kind
of heavy, non-conductive material.
I've built simple circuits, rewired guitars, and made minor
repairs/mods to guitars & amps, but pickup construction is something
new to me. By the way, the E &A string pickup is to be routed to an
octaver (built on board) and a separate output, so when I do "bass"
lines with my R. thumb the'll be in the bass range while the chords I
play with my fingers are not transposed.
Any tip is appriciated.
Thanks in advance.
Jason

Roland made a retrofit pickup back in the early '80's that allowed you to
use a standard electric guitar - like a Tele - as a synthesizer controller.
It came with a bolt on pickup with individual sends for each string. You
might be able to find one on ebay and modify it for your use. I don't
recall the model number, but Google probably does. I *THINK* the syntesizer
part was called the GS-7.

Bob
 
T

Tim Wescott

Jan 1, 1970
0
John said:
I read in sci.electronics.design that Jason Myers <[email protected]>
wrote (in <[email protected]>) about
'Question: Building Guitar Pickups', on Sun, 11 Apr 2004:




Do you know that they are usable for the purpose? Some stainless steels
are non-magnetic, and the permeability of the magnetic varieties is
pretty poor. How are you going to wind 7000 to 10 000 turns of the very
thin wire? That is not at all a trivial task.

I think you need a permanent magnet as well, otherwise you will get
double-frequency output.

4xx series stainless will work for applications like this -- its
permeability equals that of mild steel. It's a bitch to machine,
though, so most stainless steel parts are 3xx material, which is barely
magnetic.

If it attracts a magnet the same as a steel screw it'll work. If it
acts like brass in the presence of a magnet it won't.
 
N

Nicholas Brown

Jan 1, 1970
0
I've got a project going on and I think that I'd best seek some advice
to save a little (lot of?)troubleshooting. I need to build a pickup
for ONLY the 5th & 6th (E & A) strings of a telecaster. I was
originally going to mount an extra single coil the long way but as it
turns out there's no room. My main concern is what to house it in, or
what to use to shield the magnet. For the magnet I had planned to use
stainless steel machine screws screwed in 3/4 inch spacers, w/ the
spacers mounted on a piece of plactic or perf board w/ nuts mounted on
for general height adjustment like a commercial PU. I figured on 7,000
to 10,000 wraps with copper wire ought to do, but the big question is
the insulating material. Epoxy? Bondo? My strat PU's seem to be
nothin' but plastic, while my Seymour Duncans are a mystery, some kind
of heavy, non-conductive material.
I've built simple circuits, rewired guitars, and made minor
repairs/mods to guitars & amps, but pickup construction is something
new to me. By the way, the E &A string pickup is to be routed to an
octaver (built on board) and a separate output, so when I do "bass"
lines with my R. thumb the'll be in the bass range while the chords I
play with my fingers are not transposed.
Any tip is appriciated.
Thanks in advance.
Jason

I tried something similar some time ago to make a simple pickup for a
fiddle. I don't know how many turns they have, but those tiny 5v
relays from radio shack will work and they are quiet small. It's not
that hard to get the coil out without damaging it. you will have a
coil with two pins that are easy to solder to. You will have to figure
out what to use as a magnet, I used a magnet taken off a fridge. It
was suprising how acoustic it sounded.

Nick
 
Top