Post Type Archives: SWD

I often get pickups in that look like they have been used to pickup debris from the bottom of the ocean. To loosen the ferrous debris you need to remove the magnetic field they the objects attract to. On humbuckers it is easy to remove the bar magnet and use compressed air to blow away…

I would carefully remove the magnet and remember how it was taken out. There is usually a black line on one edge of the bar magnet that usually designates the North polarity and faces the stud side of the coil. Having access to a table mounted motor and fine bristle wire wheel will usually do…

Stringmaster Steel Guitars were made with either 6 or 8 strings. The instrument had pickups similar to old Duo-sonic and Musicmaster Guitars. They had Alnico rod magnets cut to .625″ and diameter of .192″ in the early models down to .187″ in the later ones. The pickups were flat on top and the ground end…

A patent is a government grant that allows the inventor to make, use and sell for a certain amount of time. It gives the inventor exclusive right to an invention or discovery. To be eligible for a patent, an invention must be new, useful or improvement of an existing patent. All patents other than design…

The Fender Mustang has two three-position switches, the center being “off”. Sliding the lever switch either way from center reverses the electrical phasing of the coil in the pickup. The pickups are in series with each other and can be in phase in two positions or out of phase in two positions. Reversing the electrical…

While I was working at the Fender Soundhouse on Tottenham Court Road in London, England I remember talking to a guitar and pickup builder named John Birch who’s company was in Birmingham. I tried to contact him recently by making several calls but could not locate him. I was always impressed by the pickup ideas…

Doing research and talking to George Fullerton and plastic molders I found that the plastic was called Cycolac brand polymers and is from a unique family of ABS (Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene) thermoplastic resins produced by the Marbon Chemical Division of Borg-Warner. The info I found was from 1963 and at that time the plastic came in nine…

Recently I’ve been listening to many surf instrumentals and trying to figure out what instruments the guitarist and bass players used. In my early years of playing guitar I’d often look at album covers with a magnifying glass hoping to see what position the switches were in or perhaps figure out if they were using…

I have collected much info on Fender pickups and recently Tim Pershing send me info about his Fender Mustang. Tim’s Fender Mustang serial number L45879 has both grey and black bottom flatwork on the two pickups. This may have been a transition period when Fender switched from black to grey. The pickups had the date10-16-64…

There were several types of pickups used on K & F and Fender lap steels. In Leo’s and “Doc” Kauffman’s early patent number 2,455,575 filed on September 26, 1944 and granted on December 7, 1948 there are several components. The bobbin consisted of a Vulcanized bobbin with 6 tubes in which the strings would go…