Most of what I do all day is make new pickups ... Oil City and ASL ... but sometimes something cool and old comes in to be restored ... and I like to share
:-)This is a lovely old pickup made for Hofner between 1955 and 1957. Sadly it had suffered major damp damage, and was full of corrosion and dead as a dodo!
The coil in this sort of pickup is an 'air coil' wound without a bobbin ... originally on a wire basket affair in a lathe chuck. After winding the coil was tied at three points with cotton then wrapped in plain old sellotape ... no potting.
Below is my two part 'dummy bobbin' made just for doing these Hofner coils.
aAnd above ... the pickup rewound. I stuck to the fifties German method right up to the tape wrapping ... where I used much tougher modern cloth tape.The pickup will receive a very light wax potting to 'seat everything together nicely ... and make it usable on the lovely old jazz box it came off of. Not enough to deaden the tone ... just stop the worst of the squeal these units are renown for.
Doing this sort of job gives you a real feel for the era and production methods ... and lets some nice old kit get used again.
Comments
Hi @TheGuitarWeasel seeing as you seem to like restoring old things that don’t work any more would you like to have a go at repairing this. Its a Gibson H/B out of my “V” 90 one coil dose not work.
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Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
Isn't the problem with these pickups that the wire coating produces an acid when it decays over time, which then eats through the wire? So they're all destined to die eventually.
I certainly see an almost endless number of dead old Hofner pickups.
"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
My advice to you if you have a nice old Hofner pickup: DON'T DESTURB IT! It will almost certainly peg out if taken out or messed about with. Luckily later ones a doddle to rewind.
Interestingly the next most common pickup to die for no real reason is the Rickenbacker HiGain bass unit ... I rewind nearly as many of those as Hofners! The usual problem there is that the coil centre connection is simply the raw 44awg wire soldered directly to the tip of a sawn off brass screw! No shock or strain relief ... and no potting to stabilise the parts.
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message