potting pickups - the easy way

[jbourke]

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

 

[walterw]

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.

 

[khutch]

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

 

[SGD Lutherie]

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.

 

[FunkMetalBass]

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.

 

[jbourke]

Apologies for the mistake, "thee" is "tea" in my native language (Dutch) ... Thanks for the correction!

 

[staccatogrowl]

. . . I used the melted wax to recreate the theelights afterwards . . .

You saved the tea lights . . . How did your pickups fare?

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Apologies for the mistake, "thee" is "tea" in my native language (Dutch) ... Thanks for the correction!

Ah!

 

[jbourke]

You saved the tea lights . . . How did your pickups fare?

Great; I had one pickup being quite microphonic, this is now completely gone.

 

[synaesthesia]

Anyone here use resin for potting?

 

[SGD Lutherie]

Anyone here use resin for potting?

I epoxy encapsulate my pickups, but I wax pot the coils first.

 

[synaesthesia]

What's the difference in wax first and then epoxy, if I may ask?
Would not epoxy work on its own?

 

[SGD Lutherie]

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.

 

[synaesthesia]

Ok thanks.... makes sense