Please Help!! Building My Own Thunderbird Pickups

[XsoGol]

Hi All,

I will soon be embarking on a project bass and I would like to craft my own pickups for it. Here's the config, a Peavey Fury neck (jazz-like) on a walnut P-bass body with a Music Man style pickup in the traditional P neck position and a Thunderbird humbucker near the bridge (roughly in the Fender 70s Jazz bridge position).

Here's my dilemma...I've found plenty of info on Music Man pickups, however, I've searched all over for info on the 60s T-Bird pickups and have come up with very little except general knowledge of Gibson bass pickups and this picture:

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It looks to me like the guts of this pickup are like a traditional Gibson-style PAF guitar humbucker with alnico magnets under each coil, a fiber spacer between the magnets, all wax potted. Am I correct or incorrect in my assessment and does anyone have any light to shed on this topic? Thanks!

 

[amistybleu]

You should try this thread in the Luthiers corner as you might find people who are more knowlegable about this , please don't take this personally as it is just a suggestion.

 

[XsoGol]

You should try this thread in the Luthiers corner as you might find people who are more knowlegable about this , please don't take this personally as it is just a suggestion.

That is not a bad suggestion. Would a moderator mind moving this thread to the Luthier's Corner for me? Thanks!!!

 

[Phil Mailloux]

It does look like a traditional Gibson guitar pickup by the looks of that one picture. The problem though is if you want to reproduce the sound as it should be you should know the width, lenght and thickness of each coil. Is this thing incrusted in the cover or can you take it out?

For that matter do you own this pickup or is it just a pic from the web? If its a pic from the web, your chances are very slim that you'll make something like the original. Appart from knowing the size of the bobbin you need to know the size of the wire and the type of magnet. (ceramic or alnico II or 5?)

Unfortunately, it'll be next to impossible to find all the specs of this pickup on the net. Specs of guitar pickups are all over the place but anything else than a P or J bass pickup is very hard to find. It took me three years to find the specs of a pre-EB MM pickup
Good luck with this.

 

[XsoGol]

It does look like a traditional Gibson guitar pickup by the looks of that one picture. The problem though is if you want to reproduce the sound as it should be you should know the width, lenght and thickness of each coil. Is this thing incrusted in the cover or can you take it out?

Unfortunately you are right...this is just a pic on the web and I don't have access to one at all I don't know any of the measurements or anything...I've found a couple of bits of info about other Gibson pickups, but I'm not sure how analogous different Gibson pickups are to each other (most likely not very much at all).

For that matter do you own this pickup or is it just a pic from the web? If its a pic from the web, your chances are very slim that you'll make something like the original. Appart from knowing the size of the bobbin you need to know the size of the wire and the type of magnet. (ceramic or alnico II or 5?)

Agreed. I know none of this and have come up empty on all these bits of info (hence why I'm asking...I really haven't been able to glean much on the web after extensive searching )

Unfortunately, it'll be next to impossible to find all the specs of this pickup on the net. Specs of guitar pickups are all over the place but anything else than a P or J bass pickup is very hard to find. It took me three years to find the specs of a pre-EB MM pickup
Good luck with this.

Thanks Phil! I do appreciate it...it seems that other than Fender pickups, there isn't a lot of info out really anything else...I haven't been able to pull any patent info on these suckers or anything You have specs for pre-EB MM pickups? Can you share?

 

[Searcy]

The last Gibson Thunderbird pickup I worked on didn't look like like that at all. It looked like this.

This style is often called a side winder. The one in the other picture just looks like a rail style humbucker.

 

[Phil Mailloux]

Interesting pickup. Never knew they made sideways pickups in those days. Thanks for posting that.

 

[XsoGol]

The last Gibson Thunderbird pickup I worked on didn't look like like that at all. It looked like this.

This style is often called a side winder. The one in the other picture just looks like a rail style humbucker.

Do you happen to know what year that pickup is from? Do you know any of the measurements of the bobbins or how heavily wound the coils were? Any info would be awesome!! Thanks!!!

 

[Ívar Þórólfsson]

That is not a bad suggestion. Would a moderator mind moving this thread to the Luthier's Corner for me? Thanks!!!

Done.

 

[XsoGol]

Done.

Thanks!

 

[bassvirtuoso]

The sidewinders are 70's pups. I don't remember what the 60's look like exactly, but I do have a pair of 90's Gibson USA/Orville Chrome Tbird pups and they look like the first picture posted, the the dual rail humbucker set up in a chrome cover.

 

[XsoGol]

The sidewinders are 70's pups. I don't remember what the 60's look like exactly, but I do have a pair of 90's Gibson USA/Orville Chrome Tbird pups and they look like the first picture posted, the the dual rail humbucker set up in a chrome cover.

You don't happen to know the length and width of bobbins do you?

 

[XsoGol]

Bump...any help on these sidewinders would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[XsoGol]

1.5 year later bump. Anyone have any info on Thunderbird pickups?

 

[XsoGol]

The sidewinders are 70's pups. I don't remember what the 60's look like exactly, but I do have a pair of 90's Gibson USA/Orville Chrome Tbird pups and they look like the first picture posted, the the dual rail humbucker set up in a chrome cover.

Hi bassvirtuoso,

Can you tell what type of magnet(s) is/are being used (bar shaped)? Type?

 

[XsoGol]

I put in a call to Bill Lawrence this morning and talked to Becky (she is very nice and very knowledgeable as well). I should be hearing back from Bill in a bit. I will keep you all posted if you are still interested.

 

[Barkless Dog]

Do you happen to know what year that pickup is from? Do you know any of the measurements of the bobbins or how heavily wound the coils were? Any info would be awesome!! Thanks!!!

Thats a 70's Tbird pickup, which is a tamer sounding pickup. The 60's ones were regular blade pickups, supposedly from Lap steel guitars.

Seymore Duncan, Mike Lull & Lindy Fralin make sound like 60's tbird replicas, but you have to ask for them. Duncan does not list them
Lindy's-
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I bet one of them could help you in your quest to make your own.

For the covers you can get real 70's ones here-

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Gibson-...5|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318|301:1|293:1|294:50

People have been buying these cover and mounting the Duncan's in them with good results.

 

[XsoGol]

Thats a 70's Tbird pickup, which is a tamer sounding pickup. The 60's ones were regular blade pickups, supposedly from Lap steel guitars.

Seymore Duncan & Lindy Fralin make sound like 60's tbird replicas, but you have to ask for them. They do not list them

For the covers you can get real 70's ones here-

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Gibson-...5|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318|301:1|293:1|294:50

People have been buying these cover and mounting the Duncan's in them with good results.

Agreed, and I was planning on going this route at first. I actually bought one of those covers and spoke with Maricela Juarez from Seymour Duncan about building one, but I don't feel very good about reverse engineering a $200 custom pickup for my purposes (for some reason, I would have had less of a problem ripping apart a 64 T-Bird pup if I could find one...I know, I'm weird).

I read an article somewhere a while ago where, according to Bill Lawrence, the original Thunderbird pickup was a conventional upright-coil humbucker with two alnico bar magnets as "polepieces". They were contained in bobbins, with the coil wire wound around the bobbin (not directly around the magnets like Fender). He said that the design was like a dual-coil humbucking version of a Melody Maker guitar pickup. Neither he nor Seth Lover designed it, but it was based on a pickup he designed in 1948.

I figured I'd try to get info straight from the horse's mouth as it were. I must say, Becky/Bill, Maricela, and Paul from Chandler guitars have all been very helpful in searching for this info.

 

[Barkless Dog]

Fralin built me one using two melody maker pickups he had laying around for my Fenderbird.

 

[XsoGol]

@Matt Kustom builds AMAZING pickups. I can vouch and own several sets.