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10-31-2011, 06:06 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Wellington, New Zealand | | | potting pickups - the easy way
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Hi all,
After reading up on the subject, and especially the warnings about heating wax on the stove, I came up with a safe and simple solution. Use a metal pan inside a larger metal plan, clamp the 2 together and keep filling the space between them with boiling water. A regular top-up will keep the wax melted. I used thee lights as a source for wax. As I felt particularly artistic I used the melted wax to recreate the theelights afterwards, how's that for cheap :-) I included a couple of photo's for illustration.
Cheers,
John |
10-31-2011, 07:21 PM
| | | | nice.
i just use a little potpourri pot i found at the thrift store for $5. takes a while to melt, but does the job.
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Alpha Music, VA Beach
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11-01-2011, 07:27 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: suburban Chicago | | | You have made your own double boiler pan. You can buy them ready made but using two pans you already own and don't mind getting waxy is cheaper, of course. If you were to just heat the whole thing directly on the stove only the larger, outer pan is exposed to the flame temperature, the wax pan only sees the heat of the boiling water. So it should be quite safe to heat wax directly on the stove with a double boiler and if the wax should catch fire do what cooks do and keep a metal lid handy to put over the whole thing and snuff out the fire by depriving it of oxygen.
Ken |
11-01-2011, 09:34 AM
|  | David Schwab
Owner, SGD Music Products | | Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Bloomfield, NJ | | You should use a double boiler if you are going to do it on a stove.
If you are going to pot pickups on a regular basis, get a paraffin warmer. You can leave them on all day with no risk of fire.
Oh and it's "tea lights", not "theelights". They are used for warming tea pots. 
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11-01-2011, 10:03 AM
| | Registered User
Endorsing Artist: J.C. Basses | | Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Phoenix, Arizona 85029 | | Quote:
Originally Posted by SGD Lutherie  Oh and it's "tea lights", not "theelights". They are used for warming tea pots. | I was totally about to go research this, thinking that maybe they had a sweet spelling of which I was unaware. Thanks for that.
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Last edited by FunkMetalBass : 11-01-2011 at 10:13 AM.
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11-02-2011, 01:54 AM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Wellington, New Zealand | | | Apologies for the mistake, "thee" is "tea" in my native language (Dutch) ... Thanks for the correction! |
11-03-2011, 04:24 AM
|  | EmotitionLogicianMusician | | Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Spinning aqueous sphere | | Quote:
Originally Posted by jbourke . . . I used the melted wax to recreate the theelights afterwards . . . | You saved the tea lights . . . How did your pickups fare? |
11-03-2011, 11:54 AM
| | David Schwab
Owner, SGD Music Products | | Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Bloomfield, NJ | | Quote:
Originally Posted by jbourke Apologies for the mistake, "thee" is "tea" in my native language (Dutch) ... Thanks for the correction! | Ah! 
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11-06-2011, 01:46 PM
| | Registered User | | Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Wellington, New Zealand | | Quote:
Originally Posted by staccatogrowl You saved the tea lights . . . How did your pickups fare? | Great; I had one pickup being quite microphonic, this is now completely gone. |
11-07-2011, 08:09 AM
|  | Registered User | | | | | resin?
Anyone here use resin for potting?
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11-07-2011, 12:57 PM
| | David Schwab
Owner, SGD Music Products | | Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Bloomfield, NJ | | Quote:
Originally Posted by synaesthesia Anyone here use resin for potting? | I epoxy encapsulate my pickups, but I wax pot the coils first.
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11-07-2011, 05:42 PM
| | Registered User | | | | | What's the difference in wax first and then epoxy, if I may ask?
Would not epoxy work on its own?
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11-07-2011, 07:22 PM
| | David Schwab
Owner, SGD Music Products | | Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Bloomfield, NJ | | Quote:
Originally Posted by synaesthesia What's the difference in wax first and then epoxy, if I may ask?
Would not epoxy work on its own? | I tried just epoxy, and they were too microphonic. Wax saturated the windings better.
EMG also wax pots their pickups.
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11-08-2011, 02:40 AM
| | Registered User | | | | | Ok thanks.... makes sense
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