Non-Functioning Pickups

[GuitarAttack Forum]

All --

For the last five or six years I've made a number of single coil pickups for a gentleman in upstate New York. This pickup, dubbed "The Replicator", is a visual replica of the old red phenolic Mighty Mite Single Coil Mr. Van Halen installed in the neck position of his famous Frankenstrat. I wound all of these pickups, and they looked and sounded great...in my opinion.

Lately I've wound down my production of these pickups, and I've been getting some strange requests. That is, "I want you to make a non-functioning pickup for my guitar". Most of these conversations happen after they see the price of a functioning pickup. The thought process is probably (a) I won't use it anyway and (b) a non-functioning pickup must be cheaper to make. There has to be a thread on a forum somewhere on this subject!

A non-functioning pickups really doesn't wind up being much easier to make. You still have to machine the phenolic into bobbins, install the brass eyelets, install the magnets (whether functional or not), get the geometry right on the pickup, then wind something around the bobbin to make it look like a real pickup and tape it up with cloth tape -- like a working pickup. Finally, you still have to attach the black and white hookup wires.

The pickup game is tough, and most folks don't know what it takes to make a proper pickups. It is frustrating, particularly with all the Craigslist and eBay winders out there.

I hate to see the Replicator go (I think I have one left), but time to move on to something else.

John

[antares]

That's the first time I've heard of folks requesting a dummy non-functioning pickup John. I've heard of using secondary coils with no output (dummy magnets?) to give hum cancelling (I think that's how it went?) whilst preserving some aspect of the *tone*, but not this as I think you're describing. You've already implied it's at least in part about preserving the visuals otherwise the smart money would go on a custom scratchplate with a missing cut-out instead of a dummy pick up. I suspect you've nailed it with the reduced cost aspect though because otherwise anyone would just leave the pickup leads out of the circuit? This just reinforces that there's always something unsuspected to learn. I really like one pick up guitars but all this seems daft to me. When I worked for my Dad (bad idea folks!) he used to say to me "Son, if the customer wants it sky blue pink with yellow polka dots, paint it and charge them accordingly." :<D

The closest I've come to this kind of subterfuge is in my own Esquire which has a really meaty GFS Tele neck pickup (it was a proof of concept carried out at as low an outlay as possible but it's stuck) concealed beneath the scratchplate and a four-way Oak Grigsby with series winding, however I'm coming from the opposite direction, still obfuscation but with the same maxim of preserving the visuals. When I did this I thought it was unique but tgere's nothing new under the sun is there? There's a bit of the "walk softly but carry a big stick" in their somewhere too! Incidentally, it works a treat but has reduced high frequency output (ie the top "E" sounds muted compared to the others) when switched to neck alone. I think the bridge pickup masks this effect in the other three switch positions.

I take it you've wound up (sic) production on this model because you need to tool up for a small run in the interests of reducing overheads (and other associated costs?) and this would not chime with one-off requests for left field obsessions?

Thanks for this enlightening thread / post John.

e&oe...

[GuitarAttack Forum]

Sept 24, 2019 1:24:42 GMT -6 antares said:

I take it you've wound up (sic) production on this model because you need to tool up for a small run in the interests of reducing overheads (and other associated costs?) and this would not chime with one-off requests for left field obsessions?

e&oe...

The primary reason I wound up the production was difficulty in finding the correct red phenolic. I have experimented in making my own red phenolic, but it is a time consuming task which could never lead to recouping the time and funds invested.

I still do a lot of custom work, and I charge accordingly for the exclusivity!

John

[GuitarAttack Forum]

UPDATE: Yes, people are still requesting non-functioning pickups. I discovered some guy on eBay selling them for almost nothing and I guess I am supposed to do an Amazon-like price match!

I still have several of the functioning phenolic single coils left. I may just keep them to avoid the abuse!

John

[dnic]

Apr 17, 2024 11:49:50 GMT -6 GuitarAttack Forum said:

UPDATE: Yes, people are still requesting non-functioning pickups. I discovered some guy on eBay selling them for almost nothing and I guess I am supposed to do an Amazon-like price match!

I still have several of the functioning phenolic single coils left. I may just keep them to avoid the abuse!

John

That guy must have bought a batch of duds from some other company for cheap. As you have explained making a dud on purpose isn't much cheaper.

When I had bodies for sale on reverb I had a guy message me wanting one for 50$ because some offshore company was selling their's at that price. Well then buy there's.