Potting Pickups

[thepath4]

Hey, I picked up some good info at the original guitar
nuts site about potting pickups. As a tech, I'm used to
dealing with the better stuff (pickups and such). In my
experimentation, I figured out a safer way to heat the
wax used pott your own pickups. It worked so well, I
wanted to share it with my fellow nuts
I simply used crockpot with 3 heat settings. This allowed me to control the heat depending on how much
wax I needed. Since all crockpots are made of an insulated inside (generally a porcelene combo) and an
outside made of a hard ceramic/glass combo, this makes it very safe, especially with a good GLASS top.
Thanks to all of you ;D

[jdtogo]

thanks for the info .

[damagedcase]

i too have just tryed the wax potting of a pickup.. and thank you guitar nuts it worked very well and made a bad pup a awsome pup..unreal how well this waxing did....and i too have figured a good way to do this safe..i went to dollor store and bought a poporie warmer for sented wax and stuff real small and stays at a steady 145-150 degrees... pup fit perfectly in the opening and it takes no more than 6 inches from your work area....thanks agian for the info...

ill post image later...thanks agian.

[UnklMickey]

welcome aboard and thanks for the tips guys!

thepath4,

if you're doing tech work for a living, you probably can't afford the time to watch the pickups throughout the process. having a covered container improves the safety of the process. and thats HUGE.



damagedcase,

that sounds like a great idea on many levels.

for instance, after re-heating wax a number of times, it changes in character. also after several pickups are potted, the residue from them builds up in the wax.

since a small vessel doesn't require much wax to fill, you can discard the wax after just a few pickups, without much waste.

your signature line:

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body,but rather to skid in sideways, champagne in one hand, strawberries in the other, body thorougly %ed up, totally worn out and screaming

"WOO HOO - What a Ride!" "


reminds me of something else i heard:

"The goal is to make sure that the very last check bounces"

[dunkelfalke]

or you can just do a couple of drops of a very liquid superglue into the coil. much simpler and faster ;-)

[UnklMickey]

dunkelfalke said:

or you can just do a couple of drops of a very liquid superglue into the coil. much simpler and faster ;-)

alright, now i'm gettin' a little worried, wouldn't that be kind of a mess if you ever had to open it up again?

[dunkelfalke]

uhm sorry for not being clear enough
remove the pickup cover
put some drops of superglue directly into the coil
wait 5 minutes or so until the glue dries
put the pickup cover back on

no mess at all as you can see :-)

[damagedcase]

I was told about clue but then i heard that over time the clue and or the wax will continue to dry and start to crack..... now your back to the start agian... but the wax will melt off the glue on the other hand will NOT! and i like the idea of a mod with no permanent effects... (when you can)..... just me tho bro.

[UnklMickey]

damagedcase said:

I was told about clue but then i heard that over time the clue and or the wax will continue to dry and start to crack..... now your back to the start agian... but the wax will melt off the glue on the other hand will NOT! and i like the idea of a mod with no permanent effects... (when you can)..... just me tho bro.

i have similar concerns. and i also wonder how well the superglue will penetrate into the lower windings.

but i must admit, it sure sounds a heck of a lot easier.

definitely worth an experiment on a cheap pup to find out!

[dumbcluck]

Hello, it's 2011, and everyone stopped talking about this at the coffee shop in 2005, so is the coffee cold now?

I am interested in the Crockpot mentioned above...is that exactly the same as an Slowcooker, anyone?

Now a Poporie warmer sounds really sensible, must try that out to see if it does stay about 155 farenheit in the bowl.

I am currently about to experiement with a "slowcooker", but wonder if some sort ot transformer with a dial could be added to enable adjustment to the actual electric current entering the Slowcooker,.. to make really fine adjustments of heating possible.

With a regular electric cooker it seems the main problem is getting the element to heat slowly and not make heat spikes (as it is constantly turning on and off with a thermostat, overheating and then compensating by turning off, yoyo style) ...and to a lesser extent this may hold true for a Slowcooker perhaps, dunno? But with a Poporie holder perhaps one can possibly adjust how far the flame is from the wax heating above in the bowl...or do they make electric gentle heating poporie holders...must search online I guess, unless anyone wants to join me for a (cold?) cuppa right now?

[dumbcluck]

Um, well hi, again.

Just been online and seemed to have got the answer that way, but you all spurred me on. Okay so a Crockpot is a Poporie, actually, and you can get them in electric.

One I found was so simple really I think you could make it from a steady lamp with a good lampshade, and simply put a not too heavy ceramic or pyrex thing bowl over the top of the lampshade. Change the wattage of the bulb, or get a dimmer switch, till you find a bulb and a distance between bulb and bowl that gives you the steady 155 farenheit. Bulbs give off a steady heat, so no heat spikes if you get the balance of heat and distance etc right...I like it!

Some sort of slight gap perhaps for air to pass between the top of the lampshade and the bowl...cut small holes in the top of the sides of the lampshade? Could cause the lampshade to melt, brown, crack? Choose a glass lampshade therefore??? The lampshade must be very steady! The lamp will keep my coffe warm too?

My impression is that GuitarNuts is a no-bull crap forum and I really like it for that.

[newey]

I am currently about to experiement with a "slowcooker", but wonder if some sort ot transformer with a dial could be added to enable adjustment to the actual electric current entering the Slowcooker,..

I don't know how many pickups you have to pot, or how much you want to spend on equipment if it's not going to be a regular occurrence for you to plop a pickup in wax.

But your wife/girlfriend/significant other probably knows where one can find an adjustable temperature wax warmer- at her salon, or a dayspa, wherein one could have performed a "Brazilian Wax Job".

This small one is $20, probably about the same as a crockpot. Not sure of the dimensions inside, though- whether it's wide enough to dunk a pickup. They make larger ones, however, for a bit more coin.


LaPetite Wax warmer

[gumbo]

...well, that's it I guess...

..the end of that "Hairy Pickup" sound.......

[dumbcluck]

Wax warmer is far-out. Ta everso.l

"bull-censored-"" is one word, not two;...and it seems like a bit of "bull" to me, to censor it! Will the term BS do in future? I will try to behave. It was brave of me to even use the word "bullshhhh..." and it was only the anonymity of the internet that made me so bold...it is not a word my Church would approve of my using too, so I feel like a naughty child right now. In any case if I say BS once, it may catch on, and pretty soon everyone will be saying all sorts of filth ans slime on this site, like the thin end of the wedge, so I accept the rebuke really! Stop the rot at it's roots!

Hmmm, I sort of like "hairy",... so is the comment "less hairy pickups" a suggestion that potting does not just hold the coil still to stop microphonics, but improves tone too by making the tone less hairy? I did read some say there is a loss of airyness (not hairyness!) at the top end of the tone once potted. Or will wax potting also give all the freaks a hair cut? Is that what "less hairy" means. Conform, join the army, kill other people, get your hair cut, be less hairy, etc... I dunno. We have some sort of notion that there is a natural way, but that since the Fall from the Garden, we are all struggling to get back to this state as we are trapped in the man-made artificial world of plastic (and wax too)...but instead of getting back to nature we all cultivate the Earth and mow our lawns to stop them getting back to nature. And women use silicon, botox and waxing to deny the essential (hairy) natural them. Cutting hair (or not) in a male is a symbol of this struggle, since the curse/fall has seperated us from the natural world and the spiritual world. Another outworking of that curse was that we generally have to work for a living, or getting anything done involves effort. Hey! Hippies used to say "every day is Sunday" but every day is not Sunday any more and it's due to the fall! We are stuck on the outside of Paradise at the moment. By the sweat of your brow shalt thou eat thy bread, before you go back to dust...nice. Thank God that is not the whole story though (but the whole story is not about guitar making or playing, though guitarists do deal with this eternal theme sometimes in their songs, so is this philosophical discussion censored too on Guitar Nuts? That is, I am going off topic and off the website's purpose here? What exactly is the meaning of music?).

Thanks for the replies, I was not sure "Coffee sh**" [self censored just in case :-)] got visited that much since 2005! But I see some took an interest in my comments, and thanks for the very helpful replies.

Actually I had to go into town today, so while there i also trawled all the shops likely to sell wax burners. The pottery ones I saw were all too small to hold a pickup in the bowl part.

However saw a Laver Lamp, and the top bottle (holding the actual coloured wax of these) can be taken off, leaving a recessed round metal base that has a constant temperature. It was hot enough to heat the coloured waxy stuff inside the lamp, but may possibly not be hot enough to fully melt wax however for potting? Also it would be a bit physically unstable and unsteady without additional support, but with added support then a small ceramic dish could possibly be rested on the top of that Lava Lamp base.

Due to this Lava Lamp idea I then went to an electrical shop, to ask about a lamp on an adjustable stand, able to move the bulb up and down, with a hollow tube surrounding the lamp to act as a support for the dish of wax above the lamp, and also act as insulation. I said the lamp should be able to be moved closer or further away from the dish above, and possibly with a dimmer switch too. The electrician pointed out I could use a 6 inch by 4 inch block-like industrial halogen lamp case, with a 300 watt bulb. Make a box like support so it stares straight up, lighting the ceiling above, and cover with silver foil so you dont blind yourself. Place a tin foil container on top of that, or a small rectangular ceramic dish. This would give a steady heat which can be adjusted by use of the dimmer switch. The lamp with bulb would cost £11 sterling total, and the dimmer switch cost about £9 sterling. However would a wooden box, open at the top, with an ordinary lightbulb fitted in it, and a metal tray put over it with a dimmer switch to vary the heat given off by the bulb be cheaper and work about just as well as a halogen lamp? But Surf's Up's suggestion of a wax warmer is great, it is affordable and ready to go, by the looks of it; thanks very much for the tip.

And finally, just simply buying a wax warmer pot designed for the purpose from StewMac or AllParts is perhaps best, but I was trying to chisel the costs down. And on that point of cost..is it worth my while now, seeing as I have paid out already over £10 for the Slowcooker etc, to purchase anything more? I could have just used a pan of water, with sieve sitting in the top of that pan partically covered by water, on top of which I placed a smaller aluminium saucepan. I have those pans already, no extra cost. I could,... but the designer part of my brain would not let go. But if I were now starting from scratch, I guess I would use the "sugar and wax warmer" as it is neat, does not involve water or steam, and is cheaper than a wax melter from a StewMac or Allparts I imagine.

Anyhow if someone else gets a help from my digging around on this matter, well great.

Now to find a woman to marry, so I can get her as an insider, to ge me a wax warmer...she must have other uses too perhaps, but these whole-body-warmer-helpmeets are generally very expensive, and they do not like waxy mess in the kitchen!

One of the things I like about this forum is it's lack of bullshhhhh....

[dumbcluck]

Hmmm, she might be up for a Brazilian wax job, though....

I think the following website, which I just set up at Google, should give a downloadable video I made on my phone about the Slowcooker set-up I am trying:

www.sites.google.com/site/ubllshiftyer/index

You should be able to watch it direct from the page, or download to a folder. I managed to get it to play on VLC on Windows98 (lol!) and also on MoviePlayer on Linux Xubuntu...my computer is very old and these are the only two operating systems (apart from Puppy Linux) that will run on it okay.

Only just got the joke,..."end of hairy pickups",...of course women use this sugar wax thing for removing hair...you were talking of waxing the pickup to remove hair. I went off on a tangent thinking of long hair hippy freak guitar types and waxed philosophical there for a moment.

[newey]

"bull-censored-"" is one word, not two;...and it seems like a bit of "bull" to me, to censor it! Will the term BS do in future?

Sorry, DC. None of us are prudish here, but we do try to keep things at a PG level. We have lots of kids who want to mod their guitars, so we try to keep things family-friendly.

"BS" is fine. Thinly-veiled innuendo is fine. Outright cursing gets the hammer, among other things (Consult the Rules for any questions).

Our censoring software should pick up most cursing, but for some reason it doesn't get "Bull****" unless I add a space between the
"l" and the "s"- which I did.

[dumbcluck]

REAL POTTING. AN IDEA IN THE NIGHT.

I am sorry, but often, once I get into a thought, it seems to have its own pace, and this one is snowballing or avalancing down and the thoughts keep coming, and interation with proboards is adding to the focus of my thoughts. Hopefully this will be my last post for a while as I have got a lot of other things I must do now.

Now if keeping costs low is part of the design criteria for this wax warmer, then join Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men (I avoid Weed as I am naturally spaced out enough already) in this adventure.

Get a brick (red unglazed should be cheapest) flower pot,
get a metal bulb holder with a cord and plug.
Screw the bulb holder into the hole at the bottom of the flower pot (the brick is a good insulator of heat and can cope with heat), having lined the inside of the pot with silver foil to reflect radiant heat upwards (or possibly silver stove paint will do?). Cement the pot to two bricks either side of the hole where the flex comes out of and these two bricks act as the stand. Get an aluminium bowl of a suitable size for the wax, pickup and top of the flower pot,... but if you can (but more expensive) get a copper bowl as it is slightly more heat conductive. Paint the bottom of the bowl black with black stove paint, as black absorbs heat the best. But keep the inside as shiney metal as this will help pass heat outwards to the wax. If the bowl has a shiney lid so much the better, but a bit of cardboard covered in aluminium should do. Fix a dimmer switch along the wire as some useful point in the wire (a small dimmer switch should be cheap). Plug in, turn on and drop out the wax (adaption of Timothy Leary of course). Join the Flower Pot Men, sit back and kiss Weed if you must. Flobbalob, weed, and the little house knew something too.

[thetragichero]

dang this is some excellent stream-of-consciousness from dumbcluck... once i have some time i'll give it a more thorough read

[dumbcluck]

Sept 22, 2011 6:52:49 GMT -5 gumbo said:

...well, that's it I guess...

..the end of that "Hairy Pickup" sound.......

Hi...well got the slowcooker all set up, but still have not potted a pickup yet. :' (time, energy, doubt obstruct the flow). I say doubt, because I stumbled upon some discussion page online where people were discussing how they wanted to remove the potting from pickups. They said there was less "aireyness" in the top end of the tone when the pickups were potted. Perhaps this term "aireyness" was a typo error?...Should it by "hairyness" as quoted above? I am confused on this point now....just a light dunk in the wax to seal it, but leave the inner coils free of wax to allow a little microphonic vibration of the wood body to get to them so they resonate (is this resonating what gives "hair" or "air")

Well so that's a bit more "hot air" and a "bad hair day", from me!

[cynical1]

Opinions are like...

If you have a microphonic issue with your pickups you'll pot them. Not half pot them, but fully pot them.

The pickups will spend anywhere between 20-40 minutes in the wax\paraffin mixture until all of the bubbles are out.

If you do not have a microphonic issue with your pickups, then you won't bother.

A magic happy medium is nothing more then conjecture, or opinion...or just feldergarb. Sorry, but just because someone put it out on the Internet, and uses vague terms like "airy", "hairy", "whispy" or "extra crispy" don't make it so.

There, got that off my chest.

Pot your pickups the proper way and life will be good.

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[KIIMH]

soury gais - tihs "crsipy" busnis mite be my falt ... i tohuhgt potting ment deep-frying and reportd teh resultz.

kyle

[reTrEaD]

Dec 22, 2011 18:58:16 GMT -5 dumbcluck said:

I am confused on this point now....just a light dunk in the wax to seal it, but leave the inner coils free of wax to allow a little microphonic vibration of the wood body to get to them so they resonate (is this resonating what gives "hair" or "air")

Assuming there what even a grain of truth to what the cork-sniffers were telling you, partially potting a pickup would be virtually impossible to control. How little is too little? How much is too much.

Resonate? A tin can telephone resonates. Is that a good sound? The kind you would want in your guitar sound? For all you know, the outside of the coil is where the supposed "airy" resonances are and the inside is where the tin-can sound is. Maybe partially potting will get rid of any "good" that might be there without doing much to get rid of the bad.

And even if there is a good quality to the resonance in the microphonic nature of a pickup, it will still give you tons of grief when you crank your amp and the pickup screeches and howls.

If you want to add some of the body vibration, install a contact pickup with a volume control. Add however much pleases you. Want more, turn the knob up. Want less, turn the knob down.

Dec 22, 2011 21:29:18 GMT -5 cynical1 said:

Opinions are like...

If you have a microphonic issue with your pickups you'll pot them. Not half pot them, but fully pot them.

The pickups will spend anywhere between 20-40 minutes in the wax\paraffin mixture until all of the bubbles are out.

If you do not have a microphonic issue with your pickups, then you won't bother.

A magic happy medium is nothing more then conjecture, or opinion...or just feldergarb. Sorry, but just because someone put it out on the Internet, and uses vague terms like "airy", "hairy", "whispy" or "extra crispy" don't make it so.

There, got that off my chest.

Pot your pickups the proper way and life will be good.

Happy Trails

Cynical One

This ^

[reTrEaD]

Dec 22, 2011 22:27:45 GMT -5 KIIMH said:

soury gais - tihs "crsipy" busnis mite be my falt ... i tohuhgt potting ment deep-frying and reportd teh resultz.

kyle

kyle, potting, fried



must ... resist ... making ... joke ...

[cynical1]

Dec 22, 2011 23:10:22 GMT -5 reTrEaD said:

must ... resist ... making ... joke ...

Oh, just go with it...

KIIMH...SMITE!

HTC1

[reTrEaD]

Speaking of kyle, isn't he almost due for a karma update or smth?

[thetragichero]

swapped the alnico 2 magnet on my bridge humbucker with alnico 4 last week
gave it a more "bridgey" sound, but i didn't repot the nickle cover so it squealed
last night repotted in a coffee can double boiler with 80/20 paraffin/beeswax mix for 15 minutes and all is good with the world

[dumbcluck]

Great pithy slightly annoyed replies, thanks...even if you said it all 1,000 times before for the sake of newbies (is that the term?) like me. Okay, so in theory all is good, as I only play in my bedroom, no need to pot a thing. However I would like to learn now, so if I do get as far as cranking and squealing I will know what to do.

Okay so nothing ventured nothing gained, but nothing risked either...like risking my cheap pickups being fried.

I took one out, being brave enough to take a soldering iron to the wires on the pots, gosh, and if I can post a pic of the pickup I will as I have a question about the tape around it, but dont know how to post pics here yet. It is a standard type of strat copy single coil, but once you take off the hard white plastic casing, I noticed around the actual coil is a black sort of electrical tape which looks pretty well stuck on (but have not attempted removing it yet, as the pickup is old the glue may have given way long ago?), which I suppose gives some sort of "potting like effect" in that is must stop the wires vibrating a little bit. Is this standard, and can I safely peel this off, or will it rip off the delicate wires? Anyone know what I mean? I did put simple videos on my Google free website, called ubllshifter. I will try to post a pic of the pickup there:
website is: sites.google.com/site/ubllshiftyer/index
but at the moment cannot remeber how to log into this anymore...duh....to add the photo, so dumcluck by name dumbcluck by, etc...

Oh yes, if you dont mind, another question: is it easy to spot when a pick up is reverse wound by checking the wiring or by putting a standard North South magnetic needle compass near it?

[reTrEaD]

Feb 23, 2012 18:44:20 GMT -5 dumbcluck said:

Oh yes, if you dont mind, another question: is it easy to spot when a pick up is reverse wound by checking the wiring or by putting a standard North South magnetic needle compass near it?

You can't tell the winding direction, but you can check the magnetic polarity.

If you want two single coil pickups to hum cancel when used together (in-phase), one must be north up and the other must be south up.

[newey]

I noticed around the actual coil is a black sort of electrical tape which looks pretty well stuck on (but have not attempted removing it yet, as the pickup is old the glue may have given way long ago?), which I suppose gives some sort of "potting like effect" in that is must stop the wires vibrating a little bit.

I wouldn't attempt removing the tape. Your wax should seep in around the edges nonetheless, tape or no tape. Pickup winding wire is very fragile, and if you damage it pulling off the tape, you've turned your pickup into a refrigerator magnet.

[cynical1]

Feb 23, 2012 18:44:20 GMT -5 dumbcluck said:

However I would like to learn now, so if I do get as far as cranking and squealing I will know what to do.

We have broached this subject several times here. Rather then recite the entire litany again, I'm gonna toss out a thread that should do more then just get you started.

repotting questions?

I think you've seen it. And you can just do search for "potting pickups" here and you'll have a bunch of stuff to read.

Biggest thing is safety. No open flames. Let me repeat that: NO OPEN FLAMES.

The tin can inside of the pan is a good one. There are any number of ways to heat the wax. Remember that whatever you use will probably be useless for anything else once you're done.

The clean up after is the worst part, but a good ink eraser and some patience works the best. If you wipe as much wax away as possible before it sets that will make the cleanup go a bit faster.

It really is a simple, albeit messy job.

Happy Trails

Cynical One