Slumbucker pickups

[Markku Nyytäjä]

It has been a while since I've posted anything here. I finished a couple of new guitars last summer, but since that I have concentrated on my early guitars by thinning their necks (used to have a tendency to make them too thick) and replacing cheapo pickups with ones I've wound myself. I wound a pretty standard set of AlNiCo5 Tele pickups and three sets of humbuckers of my own design. They're made most of scrap and recycled materials. They are wired with 4-conductor wire and can be split to single coils. I call them Slumbuckers.

I wound the first pair of these in the summer of 2012. I was trying to participate in the MIMF $100 Local Materials Challenge, but I missed the deadline and didn't submit my work. I did finish the guitar, which I sold to my guitar instructor. He loved the pickups. Trying to keep the budget I made as much as possible out of material I had got for free or very cheap, so the pickups were made with no other manufactured parts than the plastic spacers under the bobbins. I made the base plates of copper sheet, the bobbins of 5 mm steel bar & forbon sheet and used neodymium button office magnets, one for each steel slug. Ok, I didn't make the AWG42 magnet wire myself, but practically everything else I did.

Later I made a new version of the pickups with manufactured bobbins and base plates. They turned out nice too but not quite the same. The originals had a bit taller bobbins and sounded different. So I decided to return to the original design, just replacing the soft copper sheet of the base plates with a more rigid brass sheet. I call the later version with standard parts Scumbuckers. What I have wound during this autumn is Slumbuckers.

I have often seen pickups with really nice tops such as pearloid, so I decided to wind my own. The first pair was with black pearl tops and machined steel slugs. I leveled the ends of each steel slug by attaching it into a power drill, running the drill at top speed and and pressing a file against it. Once the pickups were assembled I felt a little discontent with how they looked and decided to polish the top ends of the slugs for the next pickups. It took me 90 seconds more per slug, but it certainly paid off. After filing the slug end I polished it with 320, 800, 1200 and 2000 grit wet sanding papers with oil and polishing wax in a piece of felt. I don't mind the extra time and work going into the pickups if they look nicer.

Here come the portraits:

Slumbuckers with black pearl tops, machined slug ends.

These are with white pearl tops and polished slugs.

Mint green tops here. Does anyone, by the way, know where to find mint green 1.5 x 6 mm binding for guitar bodies? I have searched but have not found.

The Slumbucker is a high output pickup. The number of windings and the DC resistance are moderate, but the neodymium magnets give the pickup quite a bit of output. I usually wind the coils of the neck pickup up to 6000-6300 turns and the bridge pickup coils somewhere close to 7000 turns. You'll get the same volume from a 10 kΩ pickup that you'd expect to hear from a 16 kΩ bucker. The moderate number of turns enables to keep the high end of the sound nice and clear while the basses and the mids get a powerful growl when overdriven. Played through the clean channel they sound smooth and clean. I posted links to a sound gallery back in 2012 when i introduced the Circulatrix guitar. I can post links to new sound clips when I have recorded them, if the Circulatrix topic isn't available any longer.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

I usually take work-in-progress photos at the workshop. Here come some of them.

I used standard 50 mm and 52 mm spaced humbucker bobbins for models when I made plywood jigs for flatwork.

I used the jigs and a table router to trim the flatwork to right size and shape.

I secured the slugs to the flatwork with CA glue.

Winding a coil with my crude but functional power drill winder.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

I cut the base plate out of 0.7 mm brass sheet and folded the sides and the lugs into place. Here I'm drilling the wire and screw holes to the plate.

Soldering the coil wires to the lead cable here.

The assembled pickups were potted in a mixture of paraffin (80%) and beeswax (20%) and bound with Stewmac's fabric based pickup tape. Finally I polished the pickups with a rag wheel on a power drill and Farécla G3 paste compound. The pickups look hand made, with some rough edges, but that's kind of the whole point. I can't achieve factory accuracy and tolerances with hand tools, that's not what I'm driving at. These pickups have unique looks and sound the way I want them to. I'm happy with them.

[Mark Swanson]

Good work! If you look at many commercial pickups, the slugs have a bevel on the visible edge..you could easily do that with your file too. I think it looks nice. And you could also make a little handle that would hold the small plywood jigs while you are routing them- it makes me nervous to get my fingers that close to the router!

[Markku Nyytäjä]

Thank you for your endorsement and for your concern, Mark. When trimming the rough edges of flatwork flush I do use handles. I put two-inch pieces of steel bar into the two outer holes of the jigs and hold them with pliers, so my fingers don't go anywhere near the spinning trim bit. I don't rout without pliers until finishing the rounded ends of the bobbins, then holding the jig at the other end. I didn't get a good picture of the earlier stage of routing and the one I posted is of finishing the ends. I respect and awe all machinery that poses a threat of injury. I like playing the guitar too and kind of like all my fingers where they are.

I bevel the lower ends of the slugs to facilitate the bobbin assembly. My eyesight isn't what it used to be and I have occasionally installed one slug in a bobbin the wrong way. Once it's glued into place and I have wound the coil, there's no turning it around. If all the slugs were upside down, it might look fine, but one odd slug doesn't. Sometimes I have tried sanding the slug flat, but haven't been happy with the outcome. Polishing the visible ends gives the slugs the look I'm after and prevents me from installing them the wrong way. Of course I could use a magnifying glass to inspect the bobbin before adding glue. I should have thought of that earlier.

At the moment I have three guitar projects with my own pickups in progress. One will have a vintage AlNiCo5 Strat set, the other will be equipped with retro style AlNiCo2 humbuckers and the third gets a pair of Slumbuckers. I just hope that I won't have to move my shop. The owner of the house it's in (the City of Raseborg) is planning to sell the house to the local Pentecostal congregation and a real estate agency is presenting the building to the potential buyer next Sunday. If the house gets sold, I may have to find a new space for my workshop. I may be able to share the shop of a friend and take my stuff there, but I'd rather have my own shop where I can work in my own way without bothering anyone else. I love my workshop and I really would like to stay.

[Jason Rodgers]

If I haven't said it before, your PU spinning adventures make me want to give it a go myself. Cool stuff! And good luck with the shop space issue.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

Go for it, Jason! It' ain't rocket surgery. You'll just have to be careful and patient. It's hugely rewarding to hear the sweet sound of a good pickup you've wound yourself. You can easily build a winder yourself, Youtube is full of instructions. Mojotone has a good variety of parts. Stewmac has probably the best deals for flatwork, but there are several good web stores in Finland with magnets, magnet wire and other pickup parts that are less expensive. Most of them have sites also in English and they all mail worldwide. The last one is in Finnish, you may need a translator.

Magnet wire: http://www.stenbacka.fi/DowebEasyCMS/?P ... y&lg=en-US
Magnets, covers: http://www.uraltone.com/?___store=engli ... tore=suomi
Pickup parts: http://www.spelektroniikka.fi/tuotteet/ ... arvikkeita

[Art Davila]

Mint green tops here. Does anyone, by the way, know where to find mint green 1.5 x 6 mm binding for guitar bodies? I have searched but have not found.

http://www.guitarfetish.com/Uncut-Pickg ... c_224.html

There is mint green.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

Thanks, Art, but I*m not after pickguard sheet but ¼" wide binding to go with it. I'm familiar with Guitarfetish pickguard material and I have purchased uncut sheets from them several times. That's great stuff but I'm really looking for mint green binding.

[David King]

I know some folks have used drum skins in the past but the clear and color-coat layers are extremely thin.

[David King]

I looked through all possible permutations of green drum wrap and nothing turns up there. I think after looking at threads by folks looking for 1 layer mint green pick guards on other forums that you would need to contact a manufacturer directly and then be willing to order many hundreds of square feet at a time. I'd mix up a batch of tinted polyurethane and "pour" the binding right onto the guitar. That might just be a faster, cheaper, easier and more secure way to bind an instrument anyway.

[Art Davila]

Here are full sheets that measure 24" x 54"

http://www.wdmusic.com/full_sheet_mint_ ... inate.html

you can buy it and cut it into thin strips up to 54 " long

[Markku Nyytäjä]

Thanks, Art. That is an option. 3-ply binding with black in the middle would also look neat. I've cut plastic to strips with a bandsaw before, so that would be no problem. The pickguard sheet is a lot thicker than standard binding material, so I'd need a new rabbet bit for the binding channel. Bending the strip into shape would also take a little more effort than usually. The only real issue is that I just don't need that much mint green pickguard sheet. I'd only need a few strips of binding every now and then, a whole sheet is rather expensive. Thanks for the idea anyway.

[David King]

Markku,

There's a youtube video of applying liquid binding from a factory tour that someone posted here not so long ago. It looks pretty straight forward. You basically build a dam around the routed ledge and pour in your polyurethane or epoxy mixture that you've tinted to the correct color.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

Many thamks, David. Finding that liquid binding stuff in the right colour would be cool.

[David King]

Markku,
Have you been following this thread? http://www.mimf.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2770

Check out this video from Stewmac:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBRtDGaVP5w
At 00:19 He shows us a plastic (LDPE) cutting board with grooves routed to hold the binding strips while they are being glued up.
You could simply cast your custom color PU bindings using the same set up but using a lot of Vaseline in the groove so you can pull the binding out later.
You would have to mix your own color using whatever pigments are appropriate for the PU. Hopefully all the necessary materials would be available locally to you.

[Art Davila]

Markku,

You could simply cast your custom color PU bindings using the same set up but using a lot of Vaseline in the groove so you can pull the binding out later.
You would have to mix your own color using whatever pigments are appropriate for the PU. Hopefully all the necessary materials would be available locally to you.

Can you use vaseline?
I would think that it would react to an plastic, I know it does not mix with latex, just wondering if there would be any chemical reaction.

[David King]

Good question Art but the two aren't going to mix. Vaseline is a common mold release so I'm guessing it won't be a problem. If it is then I'm sure there is a recommended mold release for PU resin.

[Markku Nyytäjä]

Thank you, David. I hadn't followed that thread before. If I choose to use liquid resin for binding, I guess I'll just have to find the right resin material and practice on scrap first. I have lots of both opaque and transparent pigments to obtain the right colour. The video was most inspiring too. BTW, maybe we should move this discussion to Wood & Materials. We've wandered quite far from electronics.

[Jason Rodgers]

Hi, Markku, I'm waking up this discussion to ask some followup questions about your pickups.

For these particular pickups, you say you're giving them 6000 to 7000 turns. How are you counting this, or is it just a guess based on the resistance you get? Is that both coils total, or each coil? What is the resistance you're getting? In the 8kOhm to 10kOhm range?

With the neo magnets, what are the dimensions of the little discs you're using? Are there 12 on each pickup, 6 on the slugs and 6 on the screws, one coil north and one coil south? And you say that the neos give more output than alnico or ceramic, or just a different tone? I was looking at some magnet sites today, and even those itty bitty neos can have a big difference in pull with a small change in size.

Thanks!