Making a Custom 'Val-Tone' pair for one of 'this Parish'

OilCityPickups

A few years ago now I made a run of Airline style pickups ... and a short while ago  I was asked by @paulnb57 to make a pair for him ... and post some pics of the build. 
Pretty much all of my Val-Tone 'Valc' style pickups are made by hand ... old style. I only do these to special order as they are pretty intensive to build
Everything starts with a chunk of steel 


Then a bend a bend  :-)


 a bit of cutting ... and some drilling and tapping

To create a bracket to hold the huge, double thickness magnets needed (the bobbin is a stand in for the final one) 



Till we get this (still stand in bobbin) 


Checking the fit ... before making another bracket  ... 

So now I'll strip down the whole thing and make it pretty ... 

and in the next part wind the bobbins and add covers and leads ... 

see you in part 2 :-)

paulnb57

Im Excited!
Ive got ValTone fitted as standard in a Supro reissue and I really like the tone of it, this set will go into a Gibson SG Special Faded

OilCityPickups

So I sprayed the fabricated bracket to rust proof it ... 



And the newly wound with 44awg plain enamel wire  bobbins mounted  ... 



I covered the magnet with rayon tape so that it won't contact the cover directly ... 



Rinse and repeat for the other pickup ... RWRP wiring them so the pickups will fully hum cancel when both on. 



And here they are ready to post! 

WezV

Sneaky, just like the originals

Dave_Mc

Wow excellent work  

Is that a wee bit like a Hi-Lo Tron? I might be way off but I seem to remember seeing some pics of them and they seem to have only one coil/bobbin, and the magnet where the other coil/bobbin would be in a Filtertron...

paulnb57

Superb!

OilCityPickups

Dave_Mc said:

Wow excellent work  

Is that a wee bit like a Hi-Lo Tron? I might be way off but I seem to remember seeing some pics of them and they seem to have only one coil/bobbin, and the magnet where the other coil/bobbin would be in a Filtertron...

Pretty close to a Hi-Lo Tron ... but with more meat and two veg :-)

Dave_Mc

OilCityPickups said:

Dave_Mc said:

Wow excellent work  

Is that a wee bit like a Hi-Lo Tron? I might be way off but I seem to remember seeing some pics of them and they seem to have only one coil/bobbin, and the magnet where the other coil/bobbin would be in a Filtertron...

Pretty close to a Hi-Lo Tron ... but with more meat and two veg :-)

Interesting... Thanks!