Why Vintage Telecaster Pickups Die - Ask Zac 130

well hello friends and welcome to Ask
1:37
Zac today we're going to talk about how
1:40
telecaster pickups die or why pill
1:42
telecaster pickups die
1:44
so uh and the reason we're doing this is
1:46
that uh
1:48
this 57 esquire that I'm playing today
1:51
uh that's my favorite guitar and if you
1:54
want to learn more about it there's a
1:55
whole episode about how i purchased it
1:57
and also the restoration of it
1:59
uh this guitar the bridge pickup
2:02
was almost dead when i got it had never
2:04
rewound and then i got a vintage neck
2:07
pickup for it and it just died a couple
2:10
days ago and so luckily it wasn't on a
2:12
gig
2:13
so i played the weekend before down in
2:15
Oklahoma
2:17
and then the uh the neck pickup died i
2:19
was i was
2:20
here in my office uh just
2:23
you know playing on the on the back
2:24
pickup went to the front nothing
2:27
so uh we're going to tell that story
2:30
we're going to tell why telecaster
2:32
pickups die how they die
2:34
and just things you can do and then talk
2:37
about rewinding and a little bit of the
2:39
basics of uh
2:42
of how pickups are made and again if you
2:43
want to learn more about that you can
2:44
watch my Ron Ellis you know kind of tour
2:47
thing but uh yeah so but we're going to
2:49
talk about
2:50
why
2:51
telecaster pickups die how they die and
2:53
the kind of telltale signs and maybe
2:55
some things you can do to help prolong
2:58
the life of your pickup so all right so
3:01
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3:04
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3:05
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3:08
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3:20
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3:27
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3:29
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3:31
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3:34
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3:36
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3:38
description or at askzak.com
3:42
all right
3:42
let's dive in i feel like
3:46
the best place to start is just a primer
3:49
on how telecaster pickups are made
3:52
just so you can understand how
3:55
delicate the whole construction of these
3:57
things you know
3:59
how delicate they are so here I've got
4:02
an old uh
4:04
this is an old Seymour Duncan
4:06
broadcaster pickup from from the 80s i
4:09
believe and this was a gift from a
4:11
friend of mine who used this pickup on
4:14
tons of recording sessions and tv
4:16
appearances and club dates and
4:18
everything in between
4:20
and
4:21
so
4:22
this is this is our our model for today
4:24
so
4:25
in constructing a pickup of course you
4:28
have the the vulcanized fiber boards
4:31
that are on the top and bottom okay
4:34
then you also of course on a on a tele
4:36
bridge pickup you also have this br you
4:38
know some type of plate on the bottom on
4:40
most telecaster pickups
4:42
you also have the the six
4:45
magnets
4:47
and so
4:48
when the tube you know when the bobbin
4:50
is made you have the the upper piece the
4:52
bottom piece the magnets are pressed in
4:55
and then it's dipped in lacquer okay
4:59
and that's because
5:01
you can't have the magnets short out on
5:04
the wire
5:05
and that's why wire has insulation on it
5:08
and that's why we get terms like we talk
5:10
about enamel wire formvar
5:13
poly
5:14
those are the insulation on the wire to
5:16
keep it from shorting out okay so also
5:19
to help things not short out the pickup
5:21
before the windings are even put on it's
5:24
dipped in lacquer
5:26
okay
5:27
so then
5:28
the windings are put on
5:30
then we get this uh this yarn that's
5:32
from like your mom's uh you know
5:35
knitting basket and we put it on there
5:38
and then
5:39
we
5:40
dip it
5:41
in
5:42
in hot wax and that's wax potting
5:46
all right
5:47
so
5:48
now on a telecaster neck pickup
5:50
the difference is of course you don't
5:52
have a bottom plate and then most of the
5:54
time the pickup is only lacquer potted
5:57
and it's light and it's lacquer potted
5:59
twice once just
6:00
the raw bobbin and then after the the
6:04
coils are put on
6:05
sometimes it's it's lacquer potted again
6:07
sometimes they'll wax pot it
6:09
and then of course the cover is put on
6:12
okay
6:13
so now that we kind of have an
6:14
understanding and i again I'm going to
6:16
repeat this just so you understand
6:19
the the wire
6:21
is i'm not repeating this part the wire
6:23
that goes on these pickups is thinner
6:25
than your hair
6:28
and that's with a coating on it that's
6:30
with either enamel
6:33
poly or or formvar on there okay
6:37
so let's let's understand that and you
6:40
can't have
6:41
the
6:42
wire ground out on the magnet it'll
6:45
short out
6:46
okay
6:48
so
6:49
now we have this pickup
6:51
it goes out into the wild
6:53
and what happens
6:54
well
6:56
this bridge pickup
6:58
is sitting here
7:00
and you're playing in clubs and you're
7:03
or playing at a church or recording
7:05
session all sorts of things
7:07
but especially when you're playing
7:08
outdoors or you're sweating a lot in a
7:10
hot club what happens well your hand
7:13
sweats your body sweats and you get
7:15
sweat on your instrument and sweat also
7:18
goes down onto the pickup
7:20
okay now you think oh well it's wax
7:23
potted it's been dipped in wax well
7:26
guess what happens to wax when it gets
7:28
hot
7:29
it melts
7:30
so those times you left your guitar out
7:33
in the heat or you just played a hot gig
7:36
or what have you
7:37
the wax potting starts to melt off
7:40
okay well let's say you have lacquer
7:42
potting
7:43
so
7:44
with lacquer potting they literally take
7:46
the pickup and they dip it in lacquer
7:49
and pull it out well guess what happens
7:50
with lacquer when it gets old
7:52
it starts to flake off
7:55
and that that lacquer once it flakes off
7:57
well guess what there's no protection
7:59
so then
8:00
whether it's wax or lacquer potting it
8:03
starts to go away it gets worn away it
8:05
gets you know heat whatever the
8:08
the
8:10
naturally occurring thing that happens
8:12
it starts wearing this away well then
8:14
all of a sudden you have the raw metal
8:16
well then your sweat starts going your
8:18
salty sweat starts going into the raw
8:20
metal and it starts creating corrosion
8:23
and
8:24
you can't see this but there is heavy
8:26
corrosion on the high e and low e
8:30
and what that means is this pickup
8:32
though it still meters out at 8.1 k
8:37
it probably is in the beginning stages
8:40
of you know it's it's death
8:42
so what happens is is that that rust and
8:45
the moisture starts wicking down
8:48
into the you know down into the magnet
8:50
down into the coils
8:52
and it starts eating away at the magnet
8:54
and it also starts eating away at the
8:56
coating
8:57
on the wire so whether again whether
9:00
it's enamel polysol
9:02
formvar starts eating away at it
9:06
then it starts to short out
9:08
and so what will happen at first
9:10
is
9:12
the pickup will eventually in this
9:15
process
9:16
it will start to sound different
9:19
and
9:20
it really as as it gets more and more
9:22
shorted out what happens is you start
9:24
losing output and you start losing bass
9:27
and the pickup starts getting really
9:29
thin and nasty sounding
9:31
and that's what when when i got my this
9:34
57 esquire when i bought it down in
9:37
Tuscaloosa Alabama from the good folks
9:39
at guitar gallery
9:41
the pickup was almost dead and so it had
9:45
output
9:46
but
9:47
it had no base and when you try to meter
9:49
it it would not meter at all and that's
9:51
because it was shorted out
9:54
all right
9:55
so that's
9:57
that's what that's what happens and so
9:58
eventually so it goes to having no base
10:03
to eventually just dies and there's no
10:05
output at all and at that point and
10:07
again one of the telltale signs
10:09
especially for a telecaster bridge
10:11
pickup
10:12
when it is
10:14
you know
10:14
dead or on its way to death is corrosion
10:18
especially on the low e string you know
10:20
pole because that's where you're going
10:22
to get the most sweat and such going
10:25
down into the pickup and that's usually
10:27
what happens now here I'm going to have
10:28
a brief
10:31
um
10:32
just it's not really a rant uh it's just
10:35
a it's a little bit of a pet peeve and
10:37
so i will i take issue with guys that
10:40
age pickups not in not aging itself
10:43
but when guys start putting rust on
10:46
pickups to age them
10:48
ugh
10:49
now if you just want to get a little of
10:51
a worn look
10:52
uh that's one thing but actually
10:55
you know putting rust on a pickup that's
10:58
that's like you know greatly shortening
11:00
the lifespan of a pickup so i really
11:03
don't recommend that um
11:06
yeah all right
11:08
so
11:09
let's go to the neck pickup and let's
11:10
talk about what happens with the neck
11:12
pickup well
11:14
the neck pickup
11:16
you would think
11:17
well
11:18
it's it's got a cover to it what's
11:20
happening with that well again you have
11:23
this thin you know wire that's thinner
11:26
than your hair and you have this cover
11:29
and still
11:30
moisture and other things happen so
11:32
you're in humid environments you play
11:36
you know you play in the rain even
11:37
though you're in a covered stage and
11:40
moisture gets in there and also the
11:42
lacquer potting
11:44
flakes away
11:46
and so
11:47
the neck pickup on this guitar
11:49
it it just died
11:51
and it was it was sad because i really
11:54
love the sound of that pickup but
11:57
you know
11:57
it was completely dead and of course i
11:59
took it and metered it and it metered
12:01
really high
12:02
and that means it's you know shorting
12:04
out and so what that means is that
12:07
the the
12:09
the coating on the wire has flaked off
12:12
and now it is shorting out against the
12:14
magnet or the cover or and
12:17
and so it's it's dead um
12:21
and so what i did was just like the
12:23
bridge pickup on this guitar you know i
12:25
sent it off to Ron Ellis and so Ron you
12:29
know carefully on the bridge pickup
12:31
he uh he unwound it slowly
12:34
you know so that he could kind of
12:36
replicate the winding pattern because of
12:38
course there's you know there's scatter
12:40
wound there's you know regular there's
12:42
machine wound and there's kind of
12:43
there's the winding method of kind of
12:44
going straight across the bobbin and
12:47
straight across and there's like scatter
12:48
winding where you're kind of jumping
12:50
around think about spooling up
12:53
you know a water hose or something like
12:55
that you know when those cranks it's
12:57
like you know you could you could do it
12:59
across neatly or you could do it real
13:01
messy like and sometimes the messy like
13:03
is the is the best sound but uh
13:06
regardless
13:08
you know he looked at that and he
13:09
rewound it and the pickup sounds great
13:11
so
13:12
when i got the 55 or 54 neck pickup that
13:17
from from Dan strain
13:19
and it had the original wines on it and
13:20
these are you know 60 year old
13:24
you know wines on there
13:26
hair like wire
13:28
i knew that i was probably going to have
13:30
to get it rewound in my lifetime
13:32
but i i hoped it was gonna last a little
13:34
longer but it didn't and it's fine so
13:37
i've sent that pickup off to to Ron
13:41
and uh
13:42
so who knows i mean
13:43
you know i could have been you know
13:45
playing some place or there's you know
13:47
the lacquer you know potting probably
13:49
eventually just flaked off and then it
13:51
decided to uh you know short out and
13:54
it's just funny how you know it's
13:55
working fine and then all of a sudden
13:56
it's gone it's dead
13:58
so it's off with Ron and so the pickup
14:01
that's in here now is uh is a Ron Ellis
14:04
uh
14:05
new tall
14:07
and that's what was in the guitar uh
14:09
when i initially uh put you know
14:11
restored this and then of course i put
14:13
that 55 in there but anyway it's this
14:16
pickup sounds great it's much more
14:17
strategy sounding than than the 55 of
14:20
course so and that's what that's
14:22
supposed to sound like
14:24
so
14:25
what can you do
14:26
to prevent your pickup dying well
14:31
in some ways there's not much um
14:34
you know because there's just a certain
14:36
amount of wear and tear on a guitar that
14:38
you're actually playing and gigging with
14:40
the things that you can do
14:42
are
14:43
try not to leave your your guitar out in
14:46
a hot car
14:47
just like you wouldn't on an acoustic
14:49
guitar or something like that because
14:50
again
14:51
you just don't want to have your guitar
14:54
in you know 100 degree plus you know
14:56
weather or you just know that you're
14:58
you know you're putting some wear and
15:00
tear on your on your instrument whenever
15:02
you're in really hot environments where
15:04
where that wax potting is going to melt
15:06
um
15:08
also if you play
15:10
in a very humid area if your guitar gets
15:13
soaked with water or something like that
15:15
then i would definitely
15:16
leave the instrument out of its case and
15:20
try to let it dry out well including in
15:23
internally so
15:25
but there's really just this degree to
15:27
which uh if you have a telecaster for a
15:30
long period of time
15:32
the pickups are going to die if you use
15:34
it if you play it out and so
15:36
many of the guitars that you know old
15:40
telecasters especially ones that are
15:42
played a lot
15:44
well most the time they the pick has
15:46
been rewound and perhaps multiple times
15:48
and some guys are you know are
15:51
you know are open about it like jim
15:53
campolongo you know he has that 59 top
15:56
loader that he's played for years and he
15:58
open openly admits that he had seymour
16:00
duncan rewind the pickups because they
16:02
died
16:03
but some guys you know don't don't talk
16:05
about it and that's that's their
16:06
business but let's just say
16:08
those black guards and old 50s tellys
16:11
that you see you know out on the road
16:13
being played regularly and especially
16:16
ones that have been played regularly for
16:18
an artist's entire career
16:20
well then i would say absolutely those
16:22
pickups have probably been rewound and
16:25
perhaps multiple times and that's just
16:28
what happens when you have telecaster
16:29
pickups that are being played in in
16:32
concert and they're playing in different
16:33
environments
16:35
well guess what that lacquer potting
16:36
flakes away the wax potting melts the
16:39
the thin coating on the wire
16:42
shorts out and all of a sudden you have
16:44
a dead pickup now there are times of
16:46
course when uh it's it's actually just
16:49
like a bad solder joint or something on
16:51
you know on the on the pickup or maybe
16:53
you could have had a bad solder joint
16:55
onto the switch or something like that
16:57
and you know of course you you need to
16:58
check for that with with a meter you
17:00
know both at the ends of the pickup and
17:03
then also you know right on the pickup
17:05
itself but uh
17:07
yeah those uh unfortunately those those
17:10
are more rare so
17:13
so i hope uh
17:15
i hope this this is this is helpful
17:18
then if your pickup dies well
17:21
get it rewound it's not a big deal so
17:24
then it just depends on how old the
17:26
pickup is how vintage it is or whatever
17:28
that you know depending on how picky
17:30
you're to get with your rewinder so if
17:33
you have a 50s or 60s you know
17:35
telepickup that's died then you want to
17:37
be picky and you might want to get ron
17:40
ellis or jim ralph or lindy fralin or a
17:43
handful of guys basically anyone that is
17:45
good at winding pickups can do a rewind
17:48
now i will say that there is a certain
17:50
amount of of you know of work that's
17:52
involved that's kind of in a that's
17:56
different than just winding a pickup you
17:57
know a brand new pickup so when a pickup
18:00
has to be rewound
18:02
it basically has to be disassembled
18:05
and everything has to be cleaned all the
18:08
rust so they have to take a steel brush
18:10
and they really have to to clean it well
18:13
they have to get all the corrosion off
18:15
re-dip it in lacquer of course carefully
18:18
rewind it if it's a bridge pickup they
18:20
put your mama's you know yarn around it
18:23
and then they dip it in either clear wax
18:26
or black wax
18:28
depending on what era pickup you have
18:31
and of course they'll usually
18:33
put new new leads on it when when a
18:36
pickup is rewound so
18:38
but it's definitely worth doing and
18:41
and and don't think of this as some
18:43
reason of like oh i have to
18:45
uh not play my guitar because the bridge
18:47
pickup might die well guess what the
18:49
bridge pickup is going to die anyway at
18:50
some point unless you keep it in a you
18:52
know humidity controlled glass case so
18:55
enjoy your guitar and when your pickup
18:58
dies go get it rewound or if it's not an
19:01
expensive pickup you know buy another
19:03
one or if it's by you know the maker is
19:06
still around get him to rewind it you
19:08
know maybe there's a warranty on it or
19:10
something so
19:11
all right
19:13
well i hope you guys have enjoyed
19:14
today's episode and
19:16
and i hope you uh you know have learned
19:19
that uh you know especially and all
19:22
pickups kind of suffer from this to a
19:23
degree
19:24
but it just seems like telecaster
19:26
pickups are some of the worst for some
19:28
reason and i think it's just the fact
19:30
that uh
19:32
you know the even the strat has the the
19:34
plastic cover over the top and so you
19:36
still have some tilt some strap pickups
19:38
that die
19:39
but
19:40
something about telecaster bridge
19:42
pickups are really off and the neck
19:43
pickups too for some reason even though
19:45
they've got the metal cover
19:47
but yeah that applies to
19:49
all sorts of pickups so
19:52
alright guys i hope you've enjoyed
19:54
today's episode and i'll see you next
19:55
time bye