Why the metal cap? Aesthetics? Have you done any with/without comparisons to see how/if it affects the tone?
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More Fun with the Modelo Uno: Forward and Lateral Motion
- Thread starter Freekmagnet
- Start date
Aesthetics, yes - I am on a mission to do away with boring pickups. The featureless soapbar is my kryptonite. But the cap will provide some shielding. If it does affect the tone, it will be minimal. It might take away a little bit of the highs, but this pickup has brightness to spare.
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Just for the heck of it, I dropped that pickup I made into the test bass.
The good news is that it works and sounds great. I now know that I can build, assemble and encapsulate this pickup and I don’t have to worry too much about it.
The bad news is that I decided that while I could make this shell design work, I’m going to do another one. So, I gotta go back to the drawing board. Last night, I stayed up late carving a new shape.
The old shape is on the top/background and the new shape is on the bottom/foreground. The idea is that I can more easily put a cap on top or shielding on the sides and then just grind it smooth on the ROSS. I made the little ends flare up to give some extra thumb planting space. We’ll see how it goes - I liked the retro dog-ear style of the old shape, but when my casting went south, I realized that because of the square edge, there wasn’t too much I could do about it.
The new shape is growing on me. I think it’ll work with the “vintage modern” vibe I’m striving for with this new bass.
The good news is that it works and sounds great. I now know that I can build, assemble and encapsulate this pickup and I don’t have to worry too much about it.
The bad news is that I decided that while I could make this shell design work, I’m going to do another one. So, I gotta go back to the drawing board. Last night, I stayed up late carving a new shape.
The old shape is on the top/background and the new shape is on the bottom/foreground. The idea is that I can more easily put a cap on top or shielding on the sides and then just grind it smooth on the ROSS. I made the little ends flare up to give some extra thumb planting space. We’ll see how it goes - I liked the retro dog-ear style of the old shape, but when my casting went south, I realized that because of the square edge, there wasn’t too much I could do about it.
The new shape is growing on me. I think it’ll work with the “vintage modern” vibe I’m striving for with this new bass.
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The was not my original plan...
I wanted to just cast the coil assembly in a block of white polyurethane and glue a nice, nickel silver cap on it and call it a day. But no, that didn’t happen.
I initially tried the method that @dwizum suggested, and that helped with the pitting somewhat. I got better results this time, but I think the resin cured too fast, and whatever bubbles were in there formed and just weren’t going to float up to the top because the resin was already beginning to harden.
The next obstacle was that whatever tooling had to be done, would leave its mark in the white plastic. In conclusion, I’m not sure if casting the whole pickup in white is the best approach. Perhaps it would be better to use a 3D printed white shell and pour the resin into that.
So, I bound and capped it in nickel silver. I had better luck with the softer adhesives like E6000 or Gorilla Glue. For some reason, CA or epoxy wouldn’t hold the metal down. I’ve never had that problem - usually epoxy will do it.
After gluing, I soldered the cap to the binding with my soldering iron. In another life, I used to solder little structures like this all day long. Back then, I used a propane or oxy-acetylene torch. This was the first time I’ve done it with a soldering iron. It wasn’t too bad. The nickel-silver is really forgiving; I had a sand-through that I patched with a blob of solder (it’s really thin metal). Once you sand it, the patch is barely perceptible. At the very least, my cap and binding job will provide some shielding.
The wood skirt is cosmetic. The white polyurethane was stained and it just looked terrible. I know that part won’t be visible but it would of driven me crazy looking at the picture.
For now, I’m going to leave it sanded to 600. I may change my mind later.
Ultimately, I will not be taking this approach with this pickup again. I just did this because I was out of magnets, and I had these materials on hand. I want to get this pickup into a bass and start testing it in the field. I’m going to have to come up with another way to attack this. I’m not ruling out the possibility that I will have to come up with a way to make the poles adjustable. I’m not sure how I’ll do that because much of the assembly process up until this point has been an effort to keep the pickup itself from imploding. (It actually does implode.)
I really do want to make a white pickup.
I wanted to just cast the coil assembly in a block of white polyurethane and glue a nice, nickel silver cap on it and call it a day. But no, that didn’t happen.
I initially tried the method that @dwizum suggested, and that helped with the pitting somewhat. I got better results this time, but I think the resin cured too fast, and whatever bubbles were in there formed and just weren’t going to float up to the top because the resin was already beginning to harden.
The next obstacle was that whatever tooling had to be done, would leave its mark in the white plastic. In conclusion, I’m not sure if casting the whole pickup in white is the best approach. Perhaps it would be better to use a 3D printed white shell and pour the resin into that.
So, I bound and capped it in nickel silver. I had better luck with the softer adhesives like E6000 or Gorilla Glue. For some reason, CA or epoxy wouldn’t hold the metal down. I’ve never had that problem - usually epoxy will do it.
After gluing, I soldered the cap to the binding with my soldering iron. In another life, I used to solder little structures like this all day long. Back then, I used a propane or oxy-acetylene torch. This was the first time I’ve done it with a soldering iron. It wasn’t too bad. The nickel-silver is really forgiving; I had a sand-through that I patched with a blob of solder (it’s really thin metal). Once you sand it, the patch is barely perceptible. At the very least, my cap and binding job will provide some shielding.
The wood skirt is cosmetic. The white polyurethane was stained and it just looked terrible. I know that part won’t be visible but it would of driven me crazy looking at the picture.
For now, I’m going to leave it sanded to 600. I may change my mind later.
Ultimately, I will not be taking this approach with this pickup again. I just did this because I was out of magnets, and I had these materials on hand. I want to get this pickup into a bass and start testing it in the field. I’m going to have to come up with another way to attack this. I’m not ruling out the possibility that I will have to come up with a way to make the poles adjustable. I’m not sure how I’ll do that because much of the assembly process up until this point has been an effort to keep the pickup itself from imploding. (It actually does implode.)
I really do want to make a white pickup.
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Well, I decided to polish it.
I have a few scratches I gotta go back and hit with 220, but there ain’t nuthin’ like the look of polished nickel. I’ll prolly do it before I install it in the bass - it’ll get scratched just laying around my shop.
I have a few scratches I gotta go back and hit with 220, but there ain’t nuthin’ like the look of polished nickel. I’ll prolly do it before I install it in the bass - it’ll get scratched just laying around my shop.
As amazing as that full nickel pickup looks, I like the nickel cap on white even better. Can't wait to see where you end up with this. I agree with you that the boring black soapbar is a curse. I think the next challenge you're going to have is finding tuning machines and bridges that stand up to your cool pickups, visually.
How quick is your resin curing that you don't have time to get the bubbles out? And how warm is your shop? I used to go cast in my garage in winter some times, it would give me effectively unlimited pot time.
How quick is your resin curing that you don't have time to get the bubbles out? And how warm is your shop? I used to go cast in my garage in winter some times, it would give me effectively unlimited pot time.
I'm not an expert, but maybe you could apply white gel coat in the mould before casting with epoxy?
Thanks! But yeah, white with the silver cap would have been way better. Haha - don’t get me started on bridges - I can only climb down one rabbit hole at a time!
The resin has a seven minute pot life and cures fully in half an hour. That process accelerates as the piece gets larger, and this piece seems fairly large. I thought I was buying the slow cure when I ordered it, but apparently I ordered the medium cure instead.
I poured the resin through one of two 3/8” holes I drilled in the base. When I applied the palm sander to the side of the piece, one huge semi-gelatinous bubble belched forth from one of the holes and hardened up as it burst open. It left a pretty interesting wart of polyurethane to file off, but it was clear that the technique worked to some degree.
I’ve never worked with gel coat. Isn’t that what they use with fiberglass casting?
The big problem the white is that any further work you do on the piece stains the plastic. So, I gotta come up with a process where all the tooling and polishing is done by time I assemble the piece.
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One trick for working with white plastic is: Don't sand it. Sanding embeds little particles in the surface, which makes it look dirty greyish.
The trick is to file the plastic, then scrape it. Files and scrapers don't shed little particles. That's how you clean up the edges of white pickguards. Scrape them and they are bright white.
That was exactly the problem I was having. That’ll in addition, filing the metal piece glued to the plastic - the metal filings would get embedded in there as well.
I suppose I could make the metal cap slightly smaller than the pickup.
Sometimes you can get away with doing your "dirty" sanding/filing, and then as a last step scrape the whole surface of the white plastic to remove the contamination.
Yes, that's it. File the edge of the metal cap to be flush with the white plastic sides, then lightly drag a scraper down the plastic to clean off the metal particles and make it bright white.
I've been keeping a blog about pickups and bass building. It ain't much, but this last post is pretty good. A big part of my job is web design. You know that saying about mechanics that don't fix their cars? Same thing.
Adventures in Exotica: My Neodymium Multi-Coil Sidewinder Project
Adventures in Exotica: My Neodymium Multi-Coil Sidewinder Project
That's a nice website/blog! Simple and clean looking, enough technical info to draw you in, but not so much that you bog down. I like it, and I hope it grows and prospers. I really, really need to get one of those going myself.
Well done on picking a font that is unique, but also - not annoying to read. A magical combination.
I can give you some direction with that. As a matter of fact, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about fixing your current site - a lot of your links are broken.
Thanks! I was looking for a font combo that said “dorky and high-tech” without being dorky and high-tech. I guess I chose well!
@Bruce Johnson - I was thinking about it today, and you’re actually a pretty prime blogging candidate. I’m picturing you going nuts on a data-driven website, cataloging all of your antique machine tools. Imagine: a whole online archive dedicated to 19th century vernier calipers!
Wishing everyone here in LC a very funky Thanksgiving!
