What to do with a broken pickup?

skullfunkerry

I'm putting new pickups in my Performance, and selling what was in there... a chap in Colchester bought the JB off me last week for £40, but has tested it and one of the coils isn't working.

I've looked at rewind prices online and they're around £50... with the cost of the pickup, someone would be spending about the same as getting a new JB... so my pickup is really not worth selling now.

What would you do with it? I have no need for it, but it seems a shame to throw it away...

normula1

I'd have one of our resident pickup gurus have a look as it could be a simple repair rather than a full rewind.
Or you could always put it up for sale at a nominal amount for a tinkerer to have a go at fixing it or use it for spares.

skullfunkerry

Wez is the man for pickups isn't he? Is there anyone else?

ICBM

Don’t throw it away - even if it’s not worth rewinding, find someone who will buy it as-is. A humbucker with a dead coil can be repaired by swapping it for the good coil out of another dead humbucker .

If you want to be adventurous they don’t even have to be the same type of humbucker... this is how one of the most famous DIY pickups was made - George Lynch’s original which the Duncan Screamin’ Demon is based on was a Gibson pickup with one DiMarzio coil. (Or possibly the other way round, I forget which!)

WezV

skullfunkerry said:

Wez is the man for pickups isn't he? Is there anyone else?

Not me    I have wound enough to know it's one job I am happy paying others to do

ICBM

@TheGuitarWeasel, @Alegree, possible others I don't know here...

Keefy

I sold a WRHB with a (declared) open-circuit coil on here. There are people who are happy to buy them and work on them.

OilCityPickups

skullfunkerry said:

I'm putting new pickups in my Performance, and selling what was in there... a chap in Colchester bought the JB off me last week for £40, but has tested it and one of the coils isn't working.

I've looked at rewind prices online and they're around £50... with the cost of the pickup, someone would be spending about the same as getting a new JB... so my pickup is really not worth selling now.

What would you do with it? I have no need for it, but it seems a shame to throw it away...

30 quid to rewind one coil from me plus P&P

thermionic

Fridge magnet.

Seriously, I have a broken MIM Fender Jazz Bass pickup that wasn’t worth fixing on my fridge. Very powerful. £30 to rewind something like a JB sounds worth doing though.

Funkfingers

ICBM said:

A humbucker with a dead coil can be repaired by swapping it for the good coil out of another dead humbucker . this is how one of the most famous DIY pickups was made 

It is also how the Seymour Duncan SH-16 '59/Custom hybrid humbucker was created.

SD user group forum member, BachToRock, wanted to combine some of the characteristics of the SH-1 '59 and SH-5 Custom pickups. He put one coil from each model on the same baseplate. Result, a great humbucker for HSS Superstrats. Coil splitting to the higher output coil makes for a better balance with a traditional 6k middle position single coil.

bloodandtears

The timing of this post is uncanny, I was restringing an old guitar today and discovered a weak pickup, have taken it to bits to discover a dead coil. The information here is very helpful.

sweepy

I have an old Fender Custom Shop RWRP Strat pickup thats dead if anyone wants it for a tenner plus postage 

skullfunkerry

sweepy said:

I have an old Fender Custom Shop RWRP Strat pickup thats dead if anyone wants it for a tenner plus postage 

And once the buyer has returned it to me, I'll have a Seymour Duncan JB that someone can make me an offer on...

bloodandtears

pm'd you @TheGuitarWeasel ;