Thought I’d follow a set of our Strat™ pickups through the production
process just to give everyone the idea exactly how bespoke my products really
are!
Firstly the order from the customer … in this case a set of
very mildly over-wound vintage style ‘staggers’. I haven’t had much cause to
produce staggers with the popularity of my ‘flush magnet’ Triple Blues sets, so
a quick order had to be banged out to our magnet suppliers for alnico rod in
the right lengths. Note to self to carry more lengths in stock in future!
While the magnets are on route I got on with cutting the
flatwork. We use traditional vulcanised fibre
… as real fifties pickups would have used … and, also probably like Leo’s first
hand produced ‘steel guitar’ pickups, I hand cut the bobbin blanks using a ‘follow
router’ and a set of ‘plugs’ held in specially made jigs. I’ve built Jigs for
all the common shapes … from P Bass™ to Telecaster™ … and am developing Jaguar™
and Jazzmaster™ ones too. One great advantage of this hand cutting process is that I am able to make subtle changes to bobbin specifications very easily to produce 'one offs' for customers. Eight string Strat™ anyone?
Here you see a pile of Strat™ flatwork with a couple of ‘stagger
‘magnet sets ready to be assembled.
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