In the spirit of allowing you guys to see the life of a busy pickup winder/repairer, and to let you see inside some interesting old pickups, here's a dead Hofner 'diamond top' pickup that came in from our friend Lewis at
Torbay Guitar Repairs Ltd
Aside from being filthy, this old war horse was as dead as a Dodo. As most who have seen my various Hofner pickup restoration threads, internal corrosion caused by acid flux in the solder used for assembly usually is a major factor in their demise.
This pickup holds a surprise, as inside the normal humbucker shell, it is in fact a single coil ... simply half of a hofner humbucker!
Nope ... they didn't forget to put a coil in ... that's the way they made em.
Not bad in the power stakes however, ad there is a pretty substantial ceramic magnet powering the little beast.
Off with its wire to reveal the offending start wire 'pigtail' that has come adrift from the coil and killed the pickup. It will get replaced ...
And onto the winding machine she goes.
New hookup wire added as the old stuff was at the end of its life ...
And ...
Ready to rock!
A tip from the Oil City workshop: I use Turtle Wax 'Safe Cut' scratch remover as a very gentle nickel plate cleaner ... takes off the gunk and doesn't risk scratching ... smells like crap though!
Comments
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein