Description
NOT FOR SALE – Repair example
I was given this strange and wonderful vintage Framus neck pickup to repair. This pickup had a bobbin-less coil that simply sat inside a plastic cover that housed the magnets. Several other pickups such as De Armonds, Kay pancakes, Burns and most flat MIJ pickups also use this system. Previously I have attempted to build this bobbin-less coil and failed but this time I was determined!
To build my coil I built a jig out of balsa wood that I could take apart …and extract the coil. I used a green plastic wall insert that you use to hang pictures with as my bobbin corners. I cut the plastic insert to the correct coil width using the original coil for dimensions. I wrapped waxed pickup tape around the inserts to get the corner diameter I needed. I screwed both sides of my jig down with the short screws each side from Fender lever switches, this would make it easy to remove my coil later.
Looking at the original coil wire I figured it was 43 AWG formvar and the matching original bridge pickup in the guitar was 6.9k. Most of these vintage pickups have the same output for all pickups so I went for 6.9k. My first coil was too big to fit in the housing so for my next attempt I used thinner 44 AWG wire and nailed it! I waxed potted the whole jig and left it over night to set. The tricky part now was to use a heat gun to soften the wax and take the top off my jig. To my surprise the coil was intact and little more heat on the back and the whole coil popped out. I was able to mold the coil a little further to fit while the wax was soft which was a bonus. I connected the new leads and wrapped the whole coil mummy style like the original.
Well there you have it a great repair and a new technique that I can use to fix a wide range of flat style vintage pickups!
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