Glastonbury Pickups

Starting with AlNiCo 5 rod magnets, the bobbins are lacquer dipped in nitrocellulose like was done back in the day.  This adds strength and some insulation on the conductive poles.
Of course, the magnet choice is a suggestion.  You may decide you want a unique mix of different strengths (A2, A3 and A5).

42 gauge wire is used to on both coils.  The cover for the bridge is 8 strand cotton string.  This is what was used in the early days of the Telecaster.  Finally, the bridge coil is very lightly potted in paraffin/beeswax with lampblack for the same look as years ago.  Despite the high inductance  (true output) of these pickups, the clarity is all there due to the scatter wind reduction in stray capacitance.

Remember : resonant freq = 1/ 2pi * sqr rt of (C * L)  C is stray capacitance and L is inductance.
Raise either of these and the resonant frequency goes down…along with your tone.

These pickups are wound to a high resonant frequency for true and unmistakable clarity.
Just winding to a known inductance value is not enough.  If stray capacitance is too high, tone is lost.  To a degree, hand winding (scatter winding) can increase or decrease the resulting stray capacitance.  This is what allows the highest frequencies to go to ground.  As a result, part of each coils testing includes a Bode plot on an oscilloscope to validate the coils consistency. 

 

These Pickups are balanced based on true output (inductance) and resonant frequency of each coil. This translates to more of the full sound of your instrument coming out of your amp.

The result is a sound that brings out all the sonic qualities of your instrument and playing style.

This set was wound for Jeff Pitchell (Texas Flood).

Long story – the pandemic derailed the effort and he never saw the coils.

That’s life sometimes.

I personally like to offset the 2 coil in each humbucker pickup.

Raw nickel silver covers are my favorite – Seth liked them also.
These are sanded with progressively finer paper until polished.
They are not simply buffed with a fast wheel giving polish to a pitted surface.
While the patina will dull these as time and use would, a shine can quickly be brought back.


All internal parts from the 5-40 threaded Fillister screws to the nickel plated flat top slugs are of top quality and made to be as those used in the pickups of the 50s and 60s.

A triple-coil pickup is something I’ve had on my main guitar since the early 80’s. I met a guy at La Salle Music W.Htfd. Ct. who would take 2 DiMarzio humbuckers, keep one coil, and build a brass base for the triple coil. I gave up 2 ’77 DiMarzio Super Distortions.

Now that I’ve hand-wound all my pickups, I decided to make a triple-coil using AlNiCo bar magnets and a nickel silver (vs. brass) frame for the base. I won’t even go into switching for this right now, but I have my setup for every possible configuration with many tones and an extra high inductance (when in series) for a really punchy output.

Start with 2 humbucker frames – and cut off the edge on one side.
I use an old credit card to mark the lines. I drill holes in the card to line. up with the holes on the baseplate. This ensures even matchup. I use 2-56 machine screws for a good fit – then carefully remove only 1/2 the thickness of the metal for good fit.
I use a handheld rotary tool with a high speed cutter and take my time – lots of it..
A small flat file and digital calipers help find and remove high spots.
I also use a good digital caliper to check my progress – a marking pen helps too.
Use it to mark the high spots.

Match the overlap with the other half so they mate very closely.
The 2-56 stainless steel machine screws hold these together while soldering.

Use a hot soldering iron…and some extra flux – I also use 2% silver solder.

“Buck and a Half”, A humbucker with three coils.
A unique approach to this odd pickup provides many sound options.

There are 2 magnets in this 3 coil design – similar to a P90, but 3 times the coils.
I use an A8 bar on the hot side. With a A5 magnet opposing the A8 (N to S) this would normally result in the middle pickup cancelling out the magnetic pull. However, the A8’s higher strength causes it’s South to overpower the A5’s North pole.
As a result, the center and neck side of this pickup are BOTH south.
Since I wound them in the same direction, there are several humbuckers within one pickup.

Here is the above triple coil in the ‘Bridge’ position. The original aim of this guitar was to have an LP/Strat sound all in one.
The current switches are (from top to bottom) :
1. Neck HB parallel-coil split-series.
2. Neck On-Off-On for phase shift or coil selection based on switch 1.

3. Mid On-Off-On for phase shift.
4. Mid. (to the right of 3) on-on to join with neck or bridge for volume

(far left)
5. Parallel/Series relation between 7 & 8
6. Parallel/Series relation between 8 & 9

7. Bridge On Off On for coil closest to neck
8. Bridge On Off On for middle coil
9. Bridge On Off On for coil next to bridge.

When the 2 switches 5&6 are towards 7,8 &9, in the series position,
the Triple Coil is just one long series of coils. The Triple-Bucker is the most powerful pickup Ive ever heard with 42 AWG wire. Inductance is 7.3 H with over 18 K Ohms DC resistance in that configuration. These two switches made a huge difference. In parallel, output is less than 1 H.
With the Triple-Bucker pickups coils in parallel, this pickup is “just ok”. The benefit of that position is that you can turn any one or 2 of the coils to the off position and the pickup still works – great for coloring other pickups with out-of-phase compression.
That’s not the case if the coils are wired in series. That’s the reason for 2 switches….flexibility. Even so, my favorite position is all 3 coils in series.

The last major change to this guitar over the 40 year modding is the 500k blend knob for bridge to neck pickup…in the center position, both pickups are at 100%.