repotting questions?

[morbe]

Hello all! Me again. I know that the times I come in here are few and far between sorry for all that but this seems to be one of the better musical and guitar forums.I hope every one has been doing great. Now for the meat and potatoes. I have a vintage ibanez less paul copy that was giving me some issues with horrible feedback! As long as I was playing it was great but the minute I would stop it would feed back horribly. What did I do to remedy this. I would have to turn the volume down on that pickup halfway or when it would feed back during those breaks in between playing I would have to mute the strings and some times tap the pickup altogether to get it to stop. I finally got fed up with it all and yanked those pups out and replaced them with SD hot rodders, these sound great but are mid out put pups and don't work well with pedals. The signal to the pedals ans pedal boards are so low that the signal dies mid strum or for example letting a chord play out will only abruptly die out far too soon. I want to go back to the original pups that came with the guitar. I'm hoping the repotting them will fix them! However through extensive research via the web I have not found any clear method o f potting covered pups. Mine have that nice cover over the pups and I don't know if I have to remove the covers to pot them correctly. It seems that you would but I've read that removing the cover could damage the pups. Any one know the correct way to repot a covered pickup?

[newey]

Morbe-

Welcome back!

When you say "repotting", this implies that they are already potted. If so, do you know how, or with what, they are potted now?

Instructions for removing the HB cover are here:

guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=reference&action=display&thread=3559

While the above is in connection with removing the covers to flip a magnet, it shows the process of both removal and reinstallation. You can indeed damage the pickup this way.

If the coils are not now potted (apart from the spray shot of lacquer or whatever over the coils), I have heard tell of folks leaving the cover on (or, at least, mostly on) and injecting hot wax, using the cover as a mold of sorts. Or doing the same with an epoxy resin.

But I've neither tried that nor seen it done, so I'd await further info before trying anything drastic.

[cynical1]

Honestly, potting pickups with the metal, I assume, covers is a bigger mess then you want...especially if you ever leave the guitar in the car for 10 minutes in August... I would seriously advise you to pull the covers first.

If you do a search on the board you'll find several posts on potting pickups. It isn't difficult, just somewhat messy.

DiMarzio used to epoxy their pickups when they first started out. I've seen lacquered pickups, but I always felt that was a suspect process.

HTC1

[morbe]

So like I started this whole ordeal at exactly 8:00pm Central time. I pulled the covers potted both Pickups and and reinstalled them. Yes it was a mess LOL my wife is even complaining that I used her 200$ pot as the boiler! Took a while to get the wax out. I'm not sure if they were potted before. I could not tell. even with the covers off the pickups were covered pretty tight with all that tape. but I digress, I installed them but left the covers off. I was told that they could be my issue as well. since loose covers can cause micro-phonic feedback. I hooked it up to a low gain cheep amp some one left at my door step. I didnt get feed back. It was a small solid state 5 watt amp. with only a volume and tone knob. I even tried to get feed back by laying the amp full blast right over the pickup. Nothing yet every thing seems fine. I guess the reall test will be tomorrow when I can connect this to a high gain Line 6 75 Spider II. and then to a Bugera Vintage 5 class A tube amp. So wish me luck!!!I hope every thing works fine. These pickups are really killer! They are extremely high out put pickups they create their own distortion not too much but just the right amount. Oh and Like I said I started this at 8pm and I right this too you all at 1:43am. over 5 hours of work! I'm never doing this again. I will keep you guys posted. Rock on Fellas!

[morbe]

UPDATE: All have tested no more feed back but to achieve this also I left the metal covers off! I was told this would help as well. The guitar sounds very heavy! I still need to adjust the pickup heights so its not too over powering but all in all it was a success! I got rid of the High Pitch squeal!! Here is some eye candy if interested.

Cutting the WAX

Melting the WAX

Removing the Metal Covers

Prepping the Pickups

Re-potting

[cynical1]

...and just like teaching a Congressman to swim, when the bubbles stop you're done...

+1 for the idea of using an old soft drink can. Saves time melting, you use less wax and when you're done there's no clean-up. Very clever, grasshopper.

HTC1

[morbe]

LOL on the swimming lesson, I left them in for about 30 min plenty of time for the bubbles to stop.
Thanks!

[gfxbss]

Nice job Morbe. I have done this w/ a Campbell's Soup can. Though I put a steel rod through the top, and across the crock pot, so the can wouldn't touch the bottom.

BTW, I have potted pickup w/ the cover on. You will have a rather thick layer on the covers, but it easily scrapes off leaving just the wax on the inside.

If nothing else, you could probably spray the outside of the covers w/ some kind of lubricant or really anything that will keep the wax from sticking to the outside.

Tyler

[dumbcluck]

Hi, I am completely shiney, new, and naive.

I do like the drinks can idea, particularly as those cans are made aluminium which is not magnetic, so the pickups will not attach to the sides of the can. It is thin metal however and heat may move too quickly through if the water heats up too fast? And the instant disposal, no cleaning up a pan, is nice also.

I have just bought some wax nightlights and melted them down to remove the wicks and the metal bits underneath, poured off the clear wax to a pyrex jug. I used an aluminium saucepan, with an aluminium collander/strainer sitting in it, the water is right up nearly to the top of the saucepan so the water is showing in the bottom of the collander too, and then on top of this is a small milk pan of aluminium. Simple sort of stable double boiler.

But also found for £7.00 (uk prices) a 1.5 litre slow cooker today. This has a nice thick earthenware crock pot inside which holds heat well and because it is thick and dense, like me, it does not quickly overheat. No water double-boiler is needed, the crock pot acts as the heat buffer. I have only tried heating up water in it so far, to trial it. With the lid on it heats up the water slowly going up to about 170 degrees Farenheit (77 degress Centigrade roughly), and might even go up further. This is much too high if left on too long. However with the lid off the water stayed at an even temperature of about 145 degrees Farenheit, which should just be about right for Paraffin wax to melt. This static temprature could vary up or down depending on the temprerature of your room, I guess, however. It has two settings low and high, and high got me the 145 temperature; the low setting may just be too low at about 130 degrees farenheit...with lid off...with lid on it goes, very slowly, too high even on low. It is marketed by Wilko (Wilkinsons, but not Trevor Wilkinson!, it is a cheap store in the UK) and I saw a similar slow cooker in Argos stores. It seems to me you can put the wax straight in the crockpot, heat up the thing to about 155 degress Farenheit with the lid on (checking temperature from time to time), then turn off the power and the heat might well stay pretty good for 20 mins while you pot a pickup, as the heat is stored in the Crock Pot which will both insulate and slowly give off its heat to the wax, and even if it goes down to 140 degrees by the end of 20 minutes, you still have molten wax I think. Well I just wanted to add this in case it is one more interesting thing to play with. Could use it for Hide Glue I suppose also, if you cannot afford a real glue pot?

[dumbcluck]

I realise it may be frowned on to come online again, without getting any other peoples comments to my last post yesterday, however I get on a roll and the thing is on my mind. So here is a bit more trivia that may be of interest to someone...but I am sure most of you know this already or think it redundant information.

Wilko (Wilkinsons) sell a big bag of nightlights, 100 of them, for £2.00. This may help those of you who find it hard to find a source of paraffin wax. 25 of these nightlights makes 1/2 pint (500 mls) of wax, once you take out the wicks and silver bits by melting the nightlights in a pan, and then pouring off the clear wax leaving the bits behind. 1/2 pint of wax weighs approximately 220 grams (the silver bits and wicks weigh about 25 grams, so 1 gram per nightlight). However the silver containers holding the wax I had to removed prior to melting, by snipping one edge of the containers, which are only thin aluminium, with a pair of scissors using just one blade slid between the wax and the side of the container and then twisting the blade 90 degrees outwards. This breaks the edging of the container and then peel off the sides of the cover, voila. I did cut my thumb slightly doing this on one occasion as the metal edges are still on the sharp side.

It seems to me that to get a good enough depth of wax in the slowcooker you need about 1 1/2 pints (750mls). So if if 25 nightlights makes 1/2 a pint and this weighs 220 grams then 1 1/2 pints should weigh 660 grams and you need 75 nightlights in total.

So armed with this info you can count out how many nightlights you need to make a certain amount, either by weight or by volume. You can also calculate the volume of wax of any given block of wax by its weight...and this weight/volum ratio is probably similar to all paraffin wax wherever you buy it from. This may help if you have a block and a pan, but do not know if all that wax will fit your pot or not. You can also weigh out the amount of beeswax to add (I read 10% to 20% beeswax by weight...or was that by volume?). I bought strips of beeswax from an upmarket candle shop, so probably paid way too much for the strips. Each strip weighed about 40 grams. So I plan to add one strip per 1/2 pint of wax (that is per 220 grams of paraffin wax).

Wilko (I do not work for them, really!) also sell taper candles at £1.00 for 4, I think and due to their length they probably have Sterene added, which I read is often added to candles to make them physically harder, and its addition raises the melting point. They do a larger block candle which may be better value per gram of wax. Both these candles are more opaque and creamy coloured than the nightlight wax, which could be due to Sterene addition, but could also be a dye. Possibly dyes, and even Sterene, attack the coating on copper wire or attack copper? I did read that Strene will eat rubber and latex...so if your pickups have either of these, rubber or latex, then beware of wax with Sterene. If Sterene also attacks plastic then such wax is best avoided, but my guess is it does not attack reguar plastic. One advantage is Sterene raises the melting point a little, which means you pickups will not melt and bleed wax so easily if you happen to leave your guitar in the sun, But perhaps having to heat the pickups that extra bit higher to pot them damages the pickup? I doubt it does however. Steren also may cause the wax to contract a bit more than usual when it cools, and this may be a good feature of wax with Sterene in, as the copper wires will be pulled tighter together, changing the tone (for the better one hopes) and tackling microphonic issues better. As far as I can tell, and it is likely to be the case, the nightlights are just pure paraffin wax, as they melt properly (though some melting occures prior to this, earlier, at lower tempratures) at the correct range of heat for the melting points of paraffin wax....given that my cooking thermometer is working correctly.

If, when you have finished, you put the wax in a pyrex jug and let it set, you have a large mass to melt next time. It is far easier to melt wax when it is in smaller pieces, as it then has a larger surface area and melts quicker. So I think I will try to use my rectangular grill pan by lining it fully with silver foil, and by putting ridges in the pan made of a seperate folded sheet of silver foil, so the wax forms a slab that is cut across by the additional foil into thin parrallel troughts. I hope this will form thin sticks of wax which, when solid, can be broken into smaller bits. I saw someone use cup cake holders for the same purpose, but thin sticks should give a better surface area than a cup cake ingot.

Wilko (again!) also sell (on the same shelf as the candles) glass flattend marbles called "glass pebbles in a net". I read that the much respected Paul Reed Smith puts these sorts of glass beads at the bottom of the wax pot jar he uses, for the pickups to rest on them so they do not make direct contact with the much hotter base of the pot. The glass pebbles I bought have an attractive slight multicolour sheen to them, which may be a dye of some sort, so I plan to boil them a bit in water first to remove any chemical that may be on the surface of them. Then fully dry them before using, to avoid introducing water into the wax. The only thing is that pouring off the wax when finished by be harder when you have to strain out these glass pebbles, but with a thin metal strainer it should be possible, but slightly more messy.

I realise this is complete trivia and I rattled it off so fast it may be impossible to make sense of, but anyhow I have also photographed my double boiler method and hope to post it here too. Too may words! So much to do.

[dumbcluck]

Sorry! My mind rattles on when I get a subject.

Cryo treatment seems to be the opposite of heating a pickup in wax. It is a tricky business, I am told, to cool you picups or even freeze them, and you really need to know what you are doing... which I do not! But it seems to me the heating of pickups is opposite and causes the wire to expand. Do they work against each other? I guess Cryo treatment (if it is a good idea at all) should be done prior to wax potting, as the wires cannot contract or recrystallise inside the metals structure so easily if encased in wax? Also the wax may crack and break up if frozen? However if Sterene is added to wax, and due to this addition the wax does contract more on setting, will this not do the same thing to the copper wire that freezing may do; causing everything to tighten up? Just a thought, from an over stimulated brain...caffine high.

[dumbcluck]

If I don't say it now I'll forget. Sorry to be a complete bore right now.

Older vintage pickups are often sought for due to a change in the sound as they age. I was told this "sweeter" tone or variation of tone is possibly due to corrosion, and cannot be manufactured in a new pickup. So if you pot a good new pickup does this stop the, desirable, corrosion so you cannot get a matured sound later? However I have just bought an 1975 cheap Jedson. I am assuming the pickups have corroded enough, thanks, and potting therefore stops this corrosion before it kills the pickup, I am hoping. So if you get a vintage pickup with great aged tone, then you may at some point want to pot it just to make sure it does not corrode too far. Assuming that is, that potting stops the corrosion by excluding oxygen and moisture from getting to the wire. Something to mule over.

If the purpose of adding 10% to 20% beeswax is to ensure the paraffin wax stays supple and reduce the risk of it cracking, then will not using a wax with Sterene (Stearin or Stearic Acid) contradict that? You have a lot of high pitched vibrations to contend with going through the guitar, particularly if played at high volume and sustain. Sound stress on the wax. Sterene seems to harden paraffin wax, but this may mean also that it becomes more brittle. You could after all just use pure Sterene 100% for a really hard wax, but it may chip or crack. Therefore beeswax is added. So should we not use Sterene, as it defeats the object of a more pliable wax? However with Sterene added it wont melt in the sun so easily as Sterene raises the melt point, and the shrinkage of Sterene when it solidifies may be desirable to tighten up the strings. Any thoughts, anyone?

Thankfully I think my brain has stopped now, and you may not hear from me for a long time, as I move from deep thought to deep space.

[dumbcluck]

I'm fading....epoxy therefore?

[cynical1]

Hey, I admire your staying power...

All good information on potting pickups. And you're right, candle shops are expensive for beeswax. I used to get mine from a shoe repair shop in Chicago. He bought the stuff by the bucket to waterproof shoes and he'd sell me a "scoop" for a few bucks. As a side note, I would suggest making said purchases in the cooler months...

And I read something about the cryo thing a few years ago. They do it with golf balls to "realign the molecules" in the ball to allow for a longer flight. The same premise is floated with pickups, but I tend to think all the coin floated to obtain access to the cryo machine would seriously outstrip any benefit you may get in freezing them.

And don't sweat the concurrent posts...provided you're not talking in tongues it's fine.

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[newey]

Hi, dumbcluck!

Hello and welcome to G-Nutz2!

Lots of good ides in your posts. I question whether corrosion is responsible for any "sweetening" of the tone as pickups age. I've heard so many claims and counterclaims for the source of the fabled "vintage mojo" that I'm skeptical of all such claims.

The one major difference between old and new pickups comes down to whether they are scatterwound or handwound versus being wound uniformly by a machine, but that is only an argument as to the '50s and '60s- by the '70s everything was being machine-wound except for boutique pickups.

Potting should help prevent microphonics/feedback, but AFAIK won't change the electrical characteristics and therefore should not affect the tone at all.

[dumbcluck]

Thank you both for being so darn nice to me. I am worried about carrying on a bit, and I guess I might have a slight compulsive manic side to me drives me on.

Tried this afternoon to look up Cryo stuff (Calligan pickups?) and they talk also of pure sliver winding wire: you gotta be loaded man! Who can afford this stuff? And as Cynical One says, what do you get for it all? Speaking in tounges:...that;s Pentecostal talk, brother.

Okay, so the white stuff in the nightlights looks like the white stuff in the pictures on this forum above, so I think I have ordinary paraffin wax. Great. Dont want Sterene. But, having added the beeswax I would say (unless I overheated it, I read it turns browner over 85 degrees centigrade) that if you look at a guitar that has potted pickups, it would be prefered if the potting wax looked a light coffee colour, and if it looks just plain ice cake white then it does not have beeswax in it. Less supple without it. Also read on the Wiki that paraffin wax also expands when heated, so conversly it must contract on cooling, so it will tighten up your coils just like Sterate would/could/should. In fact when I poured out my wax to set in a pyrex jug, I should have noticed this shrinkage, as the very centre of the top of the brew when cooled hard had shrunk down in the middle, showing it contracts. Also another test to see if you have Sterene in your wax is it's melting point; if the wax will not (possibly slowly) melt even at 66 degress, then you might some stronger wax in there like Sterene. The colour is a clue to, if it is not originally that pure white colour it may have Sterene.

Well the slow cooker heats from the back and not the base, and the heat is higher towards the back wall of the crock pot. I found getting the back to 170 (checked with a cooking thermometer), rising very slowly on the low setting (long time to melt the wax) meant that the wax at the very centre of the pot was at about 155 degress farenheit as the heat diffused across to the centre. So at that point if you immediately turn off at the mains and wrap around the outside of the slowcooker using something like an old jumper or a couple of towels, the heat in, it then cools very very slowly, long enough to pot a pickup in 20 mins easily I guess. It seemed to stay hot and liquid for about 40 mins (with lid on even more?). But I have not tried it yet with an actual pickup. But as you have now turned the slowcooker off you can do this potting without worrying about a heat spike while the pickup is in the wax. The cold pickup going in the wax may take a lot of the stored heat out of the wax, so perhaps this method will not actually work in practice, you may have to turn on the slowcooker again midway, but as the wax holds heat very well it may cope.

I tried the flattened glass marbles I bought, and yes there is a coloured coating that came off with boiling in water and then when cool rubbing on an old towel. I now think however that regular round marbles would be better, as they will be less physical contact with the (possibly) over hot base of the crockpot, and the round spheres give more room for the wax to circulate beneath the pickup resting on top of the marbles.

Due to the way heat moves from the back of the slowcooker to the middle, I would place the pickup in the centre, with the pointy ends going from left to right. The crockpot, at 1.1/2 litres, is not deep enough for the pickup to be comfortably hung (or comfortably numb!) on a single wire and dipped vertically straight down in from above. Lay it on the marbles is my plan. Put the lid on, come back in 5 mins, jiggle it about, put lid back on and come back in another five mins, check the temprature is not too low, jiggle again, wriggle, joggle, jump up and down and scream in a hyper way as you practice your stage act, air guitar, etc...till no more bubbles. Never tried it before, so here goes.