Tech Stuff

Wax Potting:
There is no "one size fits all" recommendation for wax potting, but I will try to address this the best way possible.

1. Wax potting is not as simple as recommending potted or not.  Wax potting does affect tone, but the degree to which the pickup is wax potted matters as well.
2. I break the potting discussion up into 4 categories.  (1) Unpotted does make a difference! Especially while playing clean, you can hear richer overtones and some indescribable complexities to the notes. The down side, is that unpotted pickups are prone to microphonics when playing higher gain and higher volume situations and also room dependent. A small room, high gain, and higher volume is a sure recipe for microphonics.  That said, the tonal advantages of unpotted are more noticeable in the feel and in an isolated situation and not hugely noticeable in recordings or in a band mix, so if that's your use case, I strongly recommend potting.​ (2) Wax dipped is a method that I recommend for the PAF variants.  The goal here is to get wax penetration in the covers and other metal parts that account for a large portion of potential microphonics and provide only slight penetration only in the outer most coils., leaving most of the coils unsaturated.. It's typically the outer most coils that are most microphonic since they lack the dampening provided from subsequent winds.  I feel the affect on tone here is minimal and makes the pickup useable for most applications.  Again, there can be extreme situations regarding room type, gain, levels and volume and I again recommend standard potting for those use cases. (3) standard potting would be my default/safe recommendation to anyone who doesn't have experience with unpotted pickups.  I have a specific formula and method and feel that it offers the best balance of tone and usability in all situations. (4) Vacuum wax potting is something I do not currently offer. While vacuum potting offers the most wax penetration into the entire coil, I feel it subdues too much high end clarity.  Alot of the higher production volume and commercial pickup companies use wax potting because its a much quicker process.  I am not saying it's bad.  I'm simply stating that I do not prefer this method.  Overall, I feel that the potting method is as important as the parts and winding technique. 

Parts selections:

1. The metal composition and carbon content do affect the tone.  The parts I use for the PAF types are different than what i use on some of the modern voiced pickups. I wont go into alot of detail here, as there is a rabbit holes worth of reading on this via the web.
2. Bobbin material, at least for the vintage voiced pickups will depend on the wax potting selected. For unpotted, I use butyrate bobbins just like the original PAFs.  The cons of butyrate bobbins is that they have a low melting point. This make wax potting very difficult since there is a vary narrow window between the melting point of wax and the point where the bobbins will warp ~140 degrees..  Some winders offer lower melting point wax, but I have simply chose to not offer butyrate if you want wax potting.  I live in Texas and if an instrument is left in a trunk or cargo trailer, It will easily get up to the 125 degree range.  I feel at this point, you risk the melting and potential for the lower melting point wax to start working its way out. All other pickups use standard plastic bobbins.
3. Poly vs. Plain Enamel.  Anyone who claims that plain enamel vs poly sounding the same, I wont completely agree with them.  Simply put, the coating of the various wires affects the diameter of the wire and the finished dimension of the coil as well as the "skin affect" altering the high frequency of the pickups.  It is not better or worse, just different.  This may account for slight variances in the overall capacitance of the pickup. It's the capacitance along with the inductance and DC resistance that determines the resonant peak and Q factor (intensity of the resonant frequent), Thus, an experiences winder can adjust the wind pattern to account for any differences in the wire coating.

About Me

As an engineer by trade and guitar player for almost 40 years, I have never been one to follow status quo. I have always spent more time figuring out how things work and how to tweak them than actually playing guitar. I've always taken everything apart, done my own repairs, and studied the "hows" and "whys". I've built, modified, and repaired amplifiers for almost 2 decades, built more pedals than I can count and have very few instruments that were not built by myself to varying degrees. I am of the camp the believes that everything is the sum of the parts, I do not cut corners and look for the cheapest way to do things. I also don't go crazy will alot of the snake-oil claims and think that a part at 10 times the price will sound 10 times better.  I simply believe in the use of quality parts and transparency with the customer. I also have no intent to make a pickup to suit everyone.  The pickups I make are pickups that I feel I can relate with the customer and have familiarity with their tastes and gear. I do not play heavily detuned music or 7 and 8 string guitars. Thus, I do not feel that I know what a customer wants for those genres and gear.

I made the transition from amps and pedals to pickups for probably alot of the same reasons as other winders, but I feel that I benefit from a holistic approach since I have significant technical experience for the entire signal chain.  Amplifiers are very expensive to make without compromise.  If you spend $1300 just for parts, add the time it takes to source those parts as well as the follow up, inventory, etc, plus weeks to build, it is very hard to sell those amps and you have to a very niche market at a price that is not sustainable.. Pickups on the other hand offer more instant gratification. You are putting out a product that the masses can afford, but offer them the ability to get a custom piece of gear at an affordable price.  I feel that pickups have one of the best cost to tone ratios. 

​Ultimately, I don't want to sell you something that you aren't going to like, so instead of listing products on a page with checkout buttons, I prefer to interact with each customer to get an idea what they are looking for, what gear they have, and what type of music. I have documented every pickup I have wound to date down to model, wire type, number of winds per side, tension, TPL, as well as slug screw compositions and magnet type.  This allows me not only the ability to recreate any custom winds, but the ability to tweak any specs should a customer want to tweak a characteristic of a pickup.

email: tonenerdpickups@gmai;l.com