A little OT... new leads on pickups?

[MikeH]

I recently inherited a whole bunch of old pickups of different sorts, I'd like to see how they sound but whoever removed them cut the leads off right at the pickup (frickin' idiot!).  Does anyone know of a way (is it possible) to crack of a pickup and replace the lead?  Or is the lead actually part of the winding?

If so, maybe this will be an opportunity to to start winding my own pickups...

[Scruffie]

You should be able to slip the pickup cover off then you just want to find the start and the end of the copper winding, sand off the enamel coating from it and solder on the new leads and glue them in place through the little holes that are usually under the cover. Then you may want to also Repot the pickup http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/potting.htm

[foxfire]

i have replaced the leads on a few pickups and it wasn't much of a pain at all... just don't break the coil wire.

[MikeH]

Thanks guys, I'll give it a try.

Foxfire: So does my wife.  Odds are, they're both right.

[Mark Hammer]

Because humbuckers have two coils connected in series, there is often (though not always) simply a wire or two linking the two coils.  In the case of single coils, the coil ends usually attach to a rivet of some kind in the flatwork.

There are a couple of "issues" with attempting to repair old pickups of the type you describe.

• Getting the damn coil end free.  The adhesive on the tape wrapped around the coil can break down over time leaving a gooey mess that makes it far too easy to accidentally tear that precious last inch of free mag wire off.
• Soldering something onto the free end of the coil.  It IS possible to dissolve the insulation...if you know what it is and canlocate the stuff that dissolves it.  Given how rare that is, personally I just lightly pinch the wire between the two halves of a folded-over piece of emery paper (400 or finer) to gently rub the insulation off before tinning.

When reassembling the pickup, I cannot recommend highly enough the practice of using teflon plumber's tape.  It conforms wonderfully and snugly to the coil, and adheres without any adhesive, making it easy to remove any covering on the pickup coils non-destructively in future.  Because it's so thin, you can stick a bunch of turns over top of any connecting wires you have attached tot he end of the coils to secure them in place without worrying about a big tape buildup.  Dirt cheap too.

[foxfire]

oh and for what it's worth, the pickups i worked with were mostly gibson humbuckers and had jacketed leads coming from the coils to solder to so it was like i said, pretty easy.