How To Wind A Guitar Pickup - 1957 Stratocaster Pickup Restoration

In this episode we head up to House Of Tone Pickups in Chester with Huw’s 1957 Stratocaster to sort out the middle pickup. The Bridge and neck settings sound like the real deal, but there’s something about the middle pickup that doesn’t quite cut it.
Mat Bascetta identifies the issue and gives us a masterclass in scatter winding, magnet measuring and vintage pickup restoration.
0:00 Intro Jam
0:36 Intro
1:24 Scatter Winding Explained
6:10 Magnet Wire
9:58 Suspect Stratocaster Coil
10:39 Tone Test Before
12:29 Under The Cover
15:12 Measuring Magnets
18:25 Coil Removal & Prep
20:45 Rewinding
29:29 Leadout Wires
32:29 Wax Potting
34:53 Reassembly
37:12 Tone Test After
39:00 Outro Jam
Huge thanks to our friend Matt Bascetta at House Of Tone (www.houseoftonepickups.com) for hosting us and putting up with all of our questions.
Diolch

[@deanallen927]

I had to laugh at Dave Hunter's article about how there's no such thing as "hand winding". He stated the obvious; how nobody sits down at a table with a bobbin and a spool of wire and winds it with their bare hands. I laughed and thought "nobody thinks that!" which may not be ENTIRELY true, but come on! The problem is, he doesn't know what "hand winding" actually means, which is bizarre, considering his profession and seeing as how there are thousands of videos on youtube of people doing it - like this one. Really like this one.

[@soljawaiian]

Excellent video! Even as somebody who works within the electromagnetics realm, I found this video very insightful. Keep sharing the knowledge my friend.

[@brewstercarr]

An interesting insight into how and why pickups are what they are. Matt clearly has a deep knowledge and history of his craft. Cheers lads :)

[@tonetwinstv2863]

Her certainly does. And it was enormously kind of him to 'download some of his vast hard drive' for us.

[@FabianSalomonsson]

What a great episode, lots of good info. That repair came out great. Thank you.

[@tonetwinstv2863]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@davidsharp3675]

Impressive! Seen so many features that just are smoke n mirrors. Fab work. Will be in touch for mine now.

[@bruceburton3515]

Excellent episode. Thank you

[@Furtheronmusic]

Phenomenal knowledge! Great episode guys.

[@Guitar5986]

Fascinating. Thank you for sharing! Sounds great

[@tonetwinstv2863]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@thevalvinist5713]

Lots of great info. Fascinating stuff! Thanks guys.

[@tonetwinstv2863]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@nolatone]

Excellent video, very informative. Tip for soldering iron, have a wet sponge to dab the soldering iron tip to thermal shock it shiny chrome clean.

[@tomasotomaso4936]

Fantastic video, very educational, thank you! The chimeyness in those pickups is insane, what a great tone the 50’s spec low-output pickups had. Is the chimey tone more down to the resistance, the wire gauge or coating? The magnets? Potting? I’ve always been super curious about what causes the chime and bell-like tones in vintage strat pickups! Nothing harsh nor hairy-fuzzy. So warm and clean.

[@RideAcrossTheRiver]

I like to think of the 1950s-60s Fender employee doing a batch of bridge pickups. Most got done in the same way, but a few escaped with overwinding because of a few extra drags on a Winston or an interesting baloney sandwich ...

[@captainchaos3053]

My dear old grandad did wind pickup wire by hand. Well that is to say a hand cranked spinner and guiding the wire with the other. I still have the little jig in my shed. He built it from the guts of an old clock and its mounted on a breadboard. He taught my dad how to make them and me too, but i have never been able to make any money from it as pickups are easy to get now.

[@roberttodd2414]

and thats why real vintage will always sound better because hes hand cranking it and the modern 'hand wound' actually use a computer based scatter program, whereas a computer csn only simulate randomness, it cant create true chaos like an organic human

[@capaya8139]

@@roberttodd2414real vintage pickups weren’t hand cranked either. They used large machines where humans only guided the wire

[@roberttodd2414]

@capaya8139 honestly I doubt they weren't hand cracked in the 40s and 50s, at the most they were very primitive electric machines controlled by a foot pedal, there were no computer algorithms. I mean when did electric sewing machines really come in? 60s and 70s? And that was a way bigger industry. My grandma was a seamstress and she used a foot pedal cranked non electric sewing machine up until she retired in the early 2000s cause that's what she trained on, and she was a trained typist too, and used an old school typewriter her whole life. I dunno, I've got some awsome old books about fender with some great photos, guess I'll take a look

[@capaya8139]

@@roberttodd2414 most boutique pickup winders dont use computer aided winding machines. 90% of them are just simple motors with a turn counter that are manually stopped

[@vincentvincent8325]

Great , thank, that's very usefull, could you provide any link to get a magnet gauss meter ( spin doctor or other wit appropriated calibration for pickups? available for shiping in France...

[@qddk9545]

Very interesting. I would have liked to se the re magnetization 🙂

[@niltoneduardoalayochavez4395]

Excellent video. A question. Between what resistance range should the three pickups have to preserve a vintage sound from the 50s, using alnico 5 and heavy formvar 42awg?. Thanks for answering.

[@tonetwinstv2863]

Matt says anywhere between 5.8K and 6K would be correct for this era.

[@niltoneduardoalayochavez4395]

​@@tonetwinstv2863Thank you very much for answering. Greetings.

[@jwilkinson341]

When I have ordered pickups they have always come with an elastic band holding them together admittedly not the best quality but this must have an effect when they are touching for a long period of time

[@jorgecontreras7631]

Tiene sonido común, y se escucha bien, pero hace muchos años que no escuché el sonido fender original, a la cual los single coil no se veían los polos magnéticos, parecía una lámina acrilica

[@the-creech4790]

👍👍👍

[@GerryBlue]

Nice video, how much time did the actual winding take?

[@tonetwinstv2863]

Glad you liked it. Just a matter of minutes once all the prep was done.

[@GCKelloch]

Sounds like he was plucking a little stronger and maybe the PUP was raised a tad higher after the rewind. I don't hear any significant difference. BTW, weaker Gauss would make it warmer sounding due to less upper-harmonic emphasis from string pull effects. What about the total R load? If the tone pot was swapped over to the bridge PUP, as many of us do, the R on the middle PUP would be ~250k instead of ~125k, and the resonance peak would be a few dB stronger. That alone would account for a thinner sound, but the middle pos can sound a bit strident on the thinner strings anyway, and worse on the bridge PUP. Wiring a ~20 over the middle pos log to ground might be in order. BTW, I'd be very surprised if any new Strat PUP poles measure over 1100G after settling, and are probably somewhat under that. 100G difference would hardly be noticeable anyway, considering all other factors.

[@deanallen927]

BTW how does a guy from Massachusetts end up winding pickups in Chester?

[@deanallen927]

My Dad's '56 sunburst had quite neat and uniform coils, slightly bulbous in the middle, coil impedance varied from one multimeter to the next, average 5.8k. I have yet to hear a better sounding electric guitar.

[@thesjkexperience]

That middle bobbin looks like it’s from a different set. Seems like that full a bobbin should have been over 7k. We wind very differently and I never thought to go over the top of the guide.

[@das250250]

Were the strings changed ?

[@toby8261]

Lol good point

[@sjoerdfeenstra010]

Anybody knows what kind off pigment he use in his wax?

[@gregburke0073]

Choose a crayon and melt it in the parrafin.

[@thesjkexperience]

Traditional is called Lamp Black. You can get it online. It’s messy.

[@Liberty-hw9dh]

Alnico 3?

[@barrychristian4050]

When I say Bo you say selecta !

[@mitzzzu_tigerjones444]

This guy is like the Brian Green of pickups… … whole other kind of string theory 😅

[@deanallen927]

No black wax, too uniform, wrong color and..........they didn't use zip-ties in the '50s. Fun video.

[@chrisdrake447]

Everyone should have a bench built around a 4 x 12 Orange cab ... why wouldn’t you?

[@LeviBulger]

The middle pickup sounded undercharged rather than underwound. I guarantee that whoever did the rewind on it didn't charge it adequately

[@thesjkexperience]

They probably didn’t remagnetize it. Tip a Strat against an amp and the middle pickup is right where the speaker magnet is. I’m not sure it matches the other two, but who knows.