Sweat kills!

OilCityPickups

Just did a rewind on half a Fender P bass pickup ...

Often rewinds are requested due to physical damage to the outer coils of an older pickup. This one was perfect on the outside ... but it was only when I stripped off the old coil that I discovered that sweat ... wicking down the pickup poles had rotted through the inner windings that lay against the magnets. This is one problem with Fender pickups of a certain age. These were not wax potted ... which would have kept the acid sweat out ... they were lacquer dipped. This fixes the outer coils well, and stops the unit being microphonic ... but ultimately provides little protection from corrosive sweat from creating havoc inside the pickup.



I lightly potted the rewound coil ... not wanting hot and steamy gigs to kill this pickup again.

More pickup stories soon

holnrew

Ewww. Happen often?

OilCityPickups

With some pickups that's the major cause of 'death'. Old Schecter pickups are quite prone to it ... some Lacquer potted Fender ones. If the inner windings are held away from the magnets by tape etc it doesn't usually happen. If not then the sweat attacks not only the magnets but the enamel wire insulation ... eventually the wire will get brittle and give up.

DrBob

My mate Karl had/has such corrosive sweat that we'd have to change out the Floyd Rose on his main guitar every 2-2 1/2 years because he'd end up going straight through the plating and actually rust away the body of the trem. He also killed a couple of bridge Humbuckers In similar circumstances to those outlined above..

OilCityPickups

To my mind another pretty good argument for wax potting ... at least for stage guitars. If you sweat that much in the studio you really must suffer for your art
I've put a superglue fillet on the top of unpotted Strat and Tele pickups around the magnet (under the cover obviously on a Strat) ... as a precaution before now. Superglue will probably get broken down by some peoples 'alien queen' bodily secretions fairly rapidly ... but it is better than nowt.

FelineGuitars

Rust is the killer 

Rust expands up to 8 times the size of the ferrous metal molecules it attacks and that expansion can break through the wire's insulation or even the wire itself.

Sadly unlike a break right near the outside of the coil where you can unwrap a few turns  till you eliminate the break and re-solder the copper wire and get playing again , the rust on the pole-pieces attack the innermost turns which requires you to strip all the wire off and rewind the pickup to save it.

In some of these cases you might still have a signal from the pickup but it will sound weak and wrong - because the coil is no longer attached to earth a there is a break in the winding near the magnet

lustycourtier

Angus young has killed the electronics in his SGs many times like this.

OilCityPickups

Springsteen's Esquire was sealed with silicone ... partly due to sweat .. and partly due to his habit of dunking his head in a big bin of water on stage to cool off ... then soaking the hapless Fender!

p90fool

TheGuitarWeasel said:

With some pickups that's the major cause of 'death'. Old Schecter pickups are quite prone to it .

Ah, that's interesting. I gigged quite heavily with a Shecter Strat pickup in 81/82, and that died suddenly. It was one of the old ones with a sheet of copper wrapped around it, must dig it out.
I was going to get it fixed, but Kent Armstrong was still living here then, and he built me some lovely pickups, so I forgot about the Shecter.

OilCityPickups

Yup it's pretty certain sweat killed many many old Schecter pickups. Perhaps why there is quite a collectors market for working old ones!

Evilmags

Some people really smeg up guitars. Thankfully my sweat is not that corrosive, but I've played other people's guitars and it was just rank. TimmyO of this parish showed me a lovely Avalon acoustic and the strings felt like they had been in 20 bukkake films without a clean. Given its a known problem I think Ash should design a sweatbucker especially for the Angus Youngs and Rory Gallachers of this world.

OilCityPickups

Simples ... black placcy covers with no oles ... like EMGs ... then the guitarist can concentrate on corroding the whole guitar to the size and finish of a blackened ukelele!

holnrew

I measured the acidity of my sweat on my fingertips once, pH 2. I can clean pennies by rubbing them.

OilCityPickups

A surprising number of people have very acid sweat ... yer all aliens ... I keep warning people!

breadfan

Evilmags said:

Given its a known problem I think Ash should design a sweatbucker especially for the Angus Youngs and Rory Gallachers of this world.

I was about to mention Rory Gallagher - could you imagine what condition his pickups were in given the state of his guitar!