The first proper prototype...

Pickup: serial no RDTD001 ... the first prototype Eastend Customs 'Themes Delta' pickup gets 9000 turns of 42awg wire and clocks up a healthy 7.51k on my multi-meter. This beastie caused me a few winding headaches: though the magnets were new the top and bottom flatwork was reclaimed and the residue wax left on the Forbon caused the pressure of winding to pop off the top flatwork (when about 8000 turns was reached on the first two attempts ... sickening, frustrating and wasteful of wire). A strip down and running some water-thin super glue into the gaps between the magnet slugs and the flatwork cured the problem ... along with narrowing my winding guides.Now she awaits a nickel plated steel base-plate from Allparts, a wrap in cotton string to protect the windings ... and a nice wax hot tub!

My Themes Delta pickups are made pretty well exactly the way early Fender pickups were ... my only concession to modernity being the PVC covered hook-up wire.Yes there will be some loony who can claim to hear the difference if waxed cotton 'push back' cable is not used ... these types can probably 'hear' fifties solder too! If people want 'push back' they can have it ... then again it's not me having to wire the damn stuff up in their guitar ... most of the time!

As soon as this pickup is complete I’ll whip it into a handy Tele and upload some demo noodling through the valve LC30 Laney.

I'm completely lacquered ...

Another part of the pickup building process: here a set of vulcanized fibre flatwork, equipped with vintage style staggered alnico 5 magnets ... north up ... is about to be hung to dry after being dipped in cellulose lacquer.

This process helps bond the magnets firmly into the flatwork and stops the bobbins deforming when they are wound (it also stops the rough magnet castings from nicking the coil wire insulation as you wind on the first turns ... you get a dead pickup if that happens!

Research and development goes on with our ‘Custom T-Cycler pickups. Here are three sets of flatwork and Alnico 5 magnets that will turn into the first batch of hot Oil City Specials. The plan is to produce a sharp barking Tele bridge pickup with plenty of overtones ... for that London R and B sound beloved of Mick green and Wilko Johnson. Not so powerful that the razor edge is blunted, but with enough body to really fill out the sound of a three piece band. Nine thousand turns of 42 awg wire (only just bigger diameter than a human hair ... and much easier to break) and a custom steel base plate each ... and these babies will be ready to rock and roll.

Why did we start with Tele pickups ... well, the Telecaster is a bloody good workhorse axe that players love to customise to their own special needs. It’s timeless and classless ... practically every studio has one, everyone knows what one should sound and play like. Yet it is also one of the most versatile instruments out there, and can easily be personalised. A Tele player generally has attitude and means business!

Strat pickups will come soon ... and Humbuckers. I intend to produce P90 style pickups as well as more uncommon types influenced by sixties British brands like Burns and Watkins. Why should all the plaudits just go to US icons?

Potty time!

As an addendum to the last pickup article I thought I’d show you my lo-tec pickup potting arrangements ... an old saucepan, some coat-hanger wire and a tin can. Oh and of course some wax (altar candles are the perfect blend of beeswax and paraffin wax!)

In fairness the early Fender pickups were not potted at all ... but then they were never meant to deal with modern high gain amplifiers and high stage volumes. In fact, an un-potted pickup has a more open, detailed sound: due to some inherent microphonic action when unrestrained pickup elements move like a microphone diaphragm. But squeal is always a threat, and most people would prefer the peace of mind of wax potted coils.

An interesting fact is that the harder the potting material the more 'sterile' a pickup sounds ... thus epoxy potted units suffer no microphonic problems but sound cold. Wax is a good compromise in my opinion and allows pickups to be 'unwound' and rewound again more easily.

Pick up pick-me-up ...

For some while my business partner in crime Tim and I have been developing our range of Eastend Custom T-cycler custom guitars as well as a range of boutique T-Cycler pickups. The pickup end of this enterprise kicked up another gear today as my mark 2 home brewed coil winder has come online. It’s mostly a drill press with a face plate made from a grinder hub and a turn counter that used to be the tape counter from an old valve tape recorder. It allows me to scatter wind a single coil pickup in an hour or so.

We have a thing about lo-tech ... Leo Fender produced legendary guitars in the early fifties with virtually no tech at all. We love reclaimed wood, re engineered and up-cycled components and low environmental footprint construction.

The first working result of this is the T style bridge pickup below. It meters up at a nice vintage 7.5k

Observations: pickup winding is made more difficult with the ‘help’ of several playful cats trying to catch the wire on its way off the spool!

The Weasel's myth buster

An occasional series with my take on the common beliefs and voodoo that surround the guitar world.

Myth: they used to build guitars better in the old days ... Arggggggggggh have you ever played a nasty seventies Les Paul copy? Never mind that some twat says that because it’s ‘law suit’ you have to pay a couple of hundred notes for it. It was a turd when it was squeezed out of the factory ... it’s still a turd thirty years later ... okay perhaps an old, rare turd ... ill give it that. Today you can buy a guitar new for a couple of hundred quid that will destroy a Kay or Columbus or even an exalted Ibanez. Yet I see so often, Avons, Jedsons, CMIs Antoria and Ibanez ... going for silly money on e bay. They are okay guitars ... but they don’t really feel or sound like the instruments they copied. If you like old curiosities buy one ... but do everyone a favour and don’t pay daft money. After all, Austin Maestros are rare cars nowadays ... that’s because they were crap and people couldn’t wait to scrap them!

Fender Strats, even old fifties ones are not rare ... that is because in general they were superb instruments and people have ensured they survived. Rosetti Lucky Sevens and Top Twenty guitars were sold in Freemans catalogues and Woolworths all over the country... and yes they are now quite rare. Ever tried to play one?

This was the worst set up bass I have ever bought ... being honest ... whether it was as bad from the factory or just got bad through being owned by a plonker I don’t know. Well it all amounts to the same thing really: A perfectly well made Westfield Precision bass copy: nice feeling neck, adequate fret job, nice, deep, rich punchy pickup ... a match for any Squier really (except for the plywood body perhaps). However when it came to me the truss rod was slack, leaving the neck bent forward like a banana and the action six miles high. A cheap plastic nut (too narrow for the slot and broken at one end) was ruining the sustain; there was no neck set angle, so the bridge saddles rested on the bridge base –plate ... the one remaining strap button was held in with Blue-tac and the strings were actually rusty!

Okay so it was super cheap ... well it had to be really ... and sounded potentially nice, so I set about putting it right. Firstly I made and installed a new bone nut, re strung, tightened the truss rod until there was only a small amount of ‘relief,’ then shimmed the neck joint until the action came right down. I ordered new, oversized strap buttons from my old friends at Axes-r-us, and a new set of bass strings. The ripped-out strap button holes were plugged with maple dowels (after drilling out the Blue-tac gunk)

What’s this bass like now you might ask? Well pretty much like any Precision really: chunky, clunky, conservative, non – threatening yet punchy ... we’ve all played them ... they are ubiquitous. Sure the US made Fender originals are better made ... but I’ll stick my neck out and say there’s not a lot to choose between them in the sound ... through the right bass rig. A Precision is a bit of a ‘blunt instrument’ anyway.

So what am I going to use it for? Well I don’t like carrying expensive instruments to jam nights (even if I owned them these days).I am planning to sing and play bass on a few numbers at local pubs and I want a ‘beater’ I’m not too fussed about scratching. I’ve owned BC Rich basses, vintage 60s Fenders, Warwicks and Shergolds ... lord knows I owned a whole shop stocked with expensive basses I could chose from when I came to gig ... but so long as the neck is nice and the pickups good ... there is not much difference to me between a £100 bass and a £1000 one. Sure the expensive one will feel better finished, survive a bit longer perhaps, and will have snob value I suppose. But getting a cheepie to perform well has its own satisfactions.

Recipe for guitarists wanting to ‘double’ on bass: take one second hand, cheap far eastern bass ... Richwood, Westfield etc, etc, with solid hardware and a reasonably straight neck (remember, cheap bass pickups are far better than cheap guitar pickups). Put in a decent nut and have a pro setup done (or do it yourself). Enjoy!