aggravated_alien

I did all the tests the pickups aren't in the circuit. everything else is fine.

Now what.

I am using 4 conductor wiring if I measure from the start lug to the tip of the output jack I get a good reading.

I don't know the color codes I got them mixed up when I assembled the humbucker could this be the reason maybe I have the colors wired in the wrong places.

0 for everything

Potentiometers work I tested with multimeter and I can also turn the hum up or down.

I have followed the Seymour Duncan Les Paul wiring diagram.

How ever the is a very loud hum the goes away when I touch the strings, bridge, tailpiece , metal ring of toggle switch and the jack of guitar cable as well. when I do this how ever it kills all the sound.

I would also like the mention that I wound the humbucker pickups for this guitar, these are my first.

Both of them work when connected straight to the jack and I have a reading on the multimeter for both of them.

when I wired of them up I got the wires mixed up I am not sure what colors are what but as I said before the both worked with no hum when connected staight to the output jack

I am pulling my hair out any idea what's wrong.

Hi I have just been asked to wax pot a pickup for a friend I have no idea what to charge him.

What is a fair price ?

* Polishing gold plated pickup covers with metal polish and taking the plating right off.

* Masking gold plated pickup and pull the plated off when removing the tape.

* Changing the radius of a 16 inch Jackson Neck to a 7.25 and sanding away the sides of the inlay.

I have a quick question do I need to sand the insulation of the enamel coated wire or will the soldering iron melt the insulation off when you join the wires ?

Re offset coils:

You can go way beyond 300 turns. Typically a HB have 5000 turns per coil. At 5% difference you will start to get a tiny bit more hum, but you can go all the way up to 10% (=500 turns) difference and still get a good hum cancellation.

Re PAF tone:

What do you think a PAF sound like? Before you ask how to make a HB sound like a PAF you need to start with what you think a PAF should sound like. IMHO a Gibson Burstbucker have nothing to do with a good PAF sound. But thats me. The thing is that no original PAF sound the same. They all differ slightly due to the production methods used. And that is a bit surprisingly as they were actually machine made 100% (if you hear a pickup winder claiming his HBs sound like PAFs because he hand wind them for that scatter wind that is proof that he have no clue about what he is talking about. He might still make nice sounding pickups, but he has no knowledge of the history of pickup...sorry for the rant...). So before asking "how to get a PAF sound" you need to define what a PAF should sound like. The PAF sound I like is always on the brighter side, meaning I do offset the coils and also wind the coils a bit on the thinner side, shoot for 4750 turns for the neck pickup, 4900 for the bridge. But you also need to examine the hardware parts. There is no way you will get good sound with inferior parts. Or is I might clarify that a bit: You will get a sound related to what parts you use. Every different make of pole screws, slugs, keeper bar, base plate etc affect the sound in their own specific way. If you rewind a pickup you can for sure change the sound but at the same time you are restricted to the sound the parts will allow you to have.

Re what coil to mismatch:

I do both. The slug coil often produce a slightly higher output due to the higher magnetic flux transfered through the slugs. At the same time the slugs add to the inductance of the coil, producing a slightly bassier tone. But you also need to consider if the pickup is for the neck or bridge position. In the bridge the coil closer to the bridge will give you a brighter sound compared to the one further away from the bridge. If you make that coil the hottest that is probably the most significant factor and the most important to consider. So when asking which coil to do the hottest you need to know what you are trying to achieve.

To me a PAF style humbucker has always been a low output humbucker with good clarity that is good for classic rock and blues tones, I should have just said that it would have been less confusing.

Thanks for the tips I am not really aiming for a specific sound I think I remind in the guidelines just about anything I do will sound better than the stock pickups which are Epiphone Alnico Classics.

His guitar is a Epiphone Les Paul Classic Plus I made a unbleached bone nut for it I plan on, when the pickups have been finish to completely rewire the guitar and later on when he can afford it replace the Bridge and Tailpeice with a Faber Tune-o-Matic Bridge and Aluminum Tailpeice at the moment he is playing with a 1x12 combo with EL34s which I want to mod for him in the future.

Hi again I am about to rewind a Humbucker for a friend i am going for a PAF like tone I want to also mismatch the coils like Gibson did on their Burstbucker models.

Which coil is the best one to add the extra turns to and is 100 extra turns too much or can I go more ?

i have heard both have been mismatched i would overwind the screw side as the slug side it more magnetic .i know some boutique winders that mismatch as much as 300 turns

Thanks

Hi again I am about to rewind a Humbucker for a friend i am going for a PAF like tone I want to also mismatch the coils like Gibson did on their Burstbucker models.

Which coil is the best one to add the extra turns to and is 100 extra turns too much or can I go more ?

You can be pretty certain a plywood top means plywood back and sides too, but plywood is not the end of the world. I think it makes very little difference with the back and sides. And as far as the top goes, being plywood does not mean it sounds worse than every solid wood top acoustic. There's likely plenty of solid wood top acoustics out there that will sound worse.

Let your ears be the judge. Make some of those hollow screws like stewmac sells, which allow you to bolt a bridge on and string up the guitar and play it.

If you want a guitar to take camping or store in less than ideal conditions, a plywood top can take the abuse.

I have been fooled before, using my ears before using my eyes. I found a curbside acoustic and after I got it home, started picking on it and thought it sounded pretty good and then figured it must be a solid wood top. Later found out it was plywood, and yeah, of course after I knew that, it didn't sound as good to me, but there was no doubt that I had liked what I heard before I "knew too much" about the guitar.

It looks like a big chunk of mahogany with a spruce veneer 0.25mm thick.

Does the sand through look like mahogany to you ?

Damn it the top is plywood. Could the back and sides be the same?

Umm, yeah, well, all the plywood acoustics I have sitting around here, if I put a mirror inside it looks like solid wood. I mean what the heck else would the inside look like ? It's not like they're required to rubber stamp " PLYWOOD" all over the inside. Plywood acoustic guitar tops look like solid wood on the faces of either side. Only an exposed edge or sand-through of one of the thin ply layers reveals what it is made up of.

Gotta check that sound-hole edge. You pretty much see the growth rings all the way from top to bottom (solid wood), or you see lines running the other direction (plywood). Sometimes it's hard to tell if there's a heavy finish rolled over the soundhole edge. Sometimes you can see the ply layers in the bridge pin holes.

Sorry I meant to say you can see if you look inside with a mirror that the whole sound board is spruce the grain orientation is exactly the same as it is on top.

It's definitely solid you can see it if you look inside the guitar. I don't know the guitars history but looking inside the guitar with a mirror it's definitely not plywood.

Looks like someone sanded all the way through the top to the bridge plate???? If' that's the case I'd say new top time.

I couldn't patch it up ? it's a 30 year old top. I can't imagine how good it would sound providing I got the guitar working again.

I acquired this guitar its all solid wood over 30 years old everything else is structurally sound except for the the top.

The discolored area is the bridge plate.

If you are starting out...and you feel teh cost is a bit high...you could perhaps try rewinding cheap pickups...they have the parts in them of course. There is also the advantage that you can get to hear them with all the factors in place (bobbins, magnets, etc) as per the "factory" and compare that to what happens when you rewind them...that way you get a feel for some of the things that go into pickup qualities.

Also, I think that one should have a pretty good idea about the way the things work, at least enough to see through the hype...and good ears, really go out and hear what a "PAF" is or whatever, not just the 'hype' or the resistance...find out what a great pickup sounds like compared to an average one.

It's good that people are getting into pickup winding, but it would seem that a lot of people see it as a business rather than a passion. Lot's of people want to be artists, not all of us are going to have talent for it, less still are going to be successful. Hype will only go so far, but in this 'trade' there is an explosion of hype and 'pretenders' as well as 'contenders'...I think people like SD were successful because they had the ears and experience with the real things...and listened to the customers and could actually get the results for them. Now, that's going to be hard to compete with.

I agree with SL, $25 bucks for all those bits in an HB, doesn't look to bad as a one off...but you know, it sounds like you have a lot to learn yet if you need to even ask if a shiny piece of steel is better than an old rusty one!

I thought initially that a unpolished magnet may be stronger than a unpolished one as a smooth clean surface transmits energy more efficiently than a dirty one.

And having read about pickup aging I though that this may be one of the ingredients in getting that aged sound it may only be a vintage correct thing.

At the end of it all I will have to hear these things for myself and then make up my own mind.

Thanks

I am about to start winding my own pickups I need to clear a few things up first.

*Is their a tonal difference between an unpolished bar magnet as opposed to a polished one?

*At lot of pickup makers seem to prefer enamel coated wire over poly coated wire is there a sound difference between the two providing the same gauge of wire is used?

*I have read somewhere that there are high and low quality magnets,

If this is true how can I tell a good one from a bad one.

Will lower quality magnets sound worse given the same type of magnet is used.

StewMacs pickup parts and kits are a rip off. Is there anywhere else I can buy this stuff from. The only other place I know of is Mojo Music Supply.

Thanks.

I am buiding a four string bass, and after gluing up the fretboard, I ended up with a bad back bow. I am using a double acting truss rod, but I pretty much max it out trying to correct it. Also, I dont want this bass going out to the world and suddenly falling apart due to the fact that it is under stress from the truss rod. I have made many necks this way, and never had anything this bad happen. Should I steam off the fret board? And if so, what is the best technique/tools. I have seen it done, but Im kinda nervous about trying it myself.

I see you haven't put the frets in yet. I would just level the board with a leveling block.

I have thought about that, but I have some rather nice block inlays in there. The fretboard is probably thick enough, but I am not looking forward to sanding through, and replacing inlays. I am considering taking it apart, and salvaging the fretboard and truss rod, but making a new neck blank and starting fresh.

What is your relief on the neek. Have you measured it.

I am buiding a four string bass, and after gluing up the fretboard, I ended up with a bad back bow. I am using a double acting truss rod, but I pretty much max it out trying to correct it. Also, I dont want this bass going out to the world and suddenly falling apart due to the fact that it is under stress from the truss rod. I have made many necks this way, and never had anything this bad happen. Should I steam off the fret board? And if so, what is the best technique/tools. I have seen it done, but Im kinda nervous about trying it myself.

I see you haven't put the frets in yet. I would just level the board with a leveling block.

Another possibility is you may have sanded through.

I've never read it, so I can't say. But... I don't believe Stew-Mac would put out a book on guitar finishing that would have bad info in it. FWIW: Flexner's book is about the same price, but covers a LOT more info and territory than just finishing guitars. If you ever plan on doing any woodworking besides on guitars, get Flexner. Otherwise, I'm sure you'd be fine with Stew-Mac.

Thanks for that.

What about the routing questions.

If a guitar already has binding does it need to be removed or is it ok to rout purflings with the binding still attached.

You probably won't be in danger so long as you're leaving a strip of wood between the purfling & the binding. Should you tough the binding with the bit, there COULD be trouble.

Ok Thanks

Does a Dremel tool have enough juice for this sort of thing.

Too many variables: which Dremel model, what type of wood, width of channel, quality of bit...

400i Digital , Maple and Rosewood , 5 mm including Purfling , Carbide

What Size routing bits do I need for routing bindings purflings and inlay.

Are you wanting to do it in one pass or multiple?

About 3 Passes.

Do I need to attach a wedge to correct the router angle problem or is that only and issue with bodies.

IIRC, Stew-Mac (and others) have a product to address this issue.

Sorry that didn't really answer my question.

Is their anything else I need that I might not know about besides glue and binding and purfling material.

Does the guitar currently have a finish on it? If so, you should refinish the area. Get "Understanding Wood Finishing" by Bob Flexner and read it 46 times.

How do this compare to Finishing Step By Step