I would like you to meet Leif Renwall (Le-Re pickups revisited)

Maybe some of you have read the epic saga of how I was asked to rebuild two very strange 1950's lap steel pickups for a guy named Kari "Max" Laine in Finland. The guitar was made in Finland by a company called Malmström. The pickups were made for Malmström by an other Finnish company called Le-Re. Le-Re is short for Leif Renwall. Well, Max has been busy tracking down as much information on these remarkable instruments as he can. He has found them as far away as Australia. Every once in a while Searcy String Works gets up dates from him. His latest fine is nothing short of amazing! But don't take my word for it...

Hi Clint, I visited Mr. Leif Renwall, the maker of those Le-Re pickups, yesterday at his home in Helsinki. He is 82, and still doing fine. He told me he actually used to buy earphone sets (he thinks the brand was "Olympia") and dismantle them to get the coils/magnets. So we were right about the source. He thinks he made around 30 of such pickups, so that would probably be the total production of those guitars. I know the whereabouts of six, I wonder where the rest are... He has long lost his own guitar, but was delighted to see mine with the restored pickup. See attached picture! The both pickups are still working fine, so thanks again!

Regards, kari

How cool is that? I am very happy to know that my rebuild met with the approval of Mr. Renwall. And remember, if you have one of these fine historic guitars be sure to drop me a line. Max and I would really like to hear from you.

Wax Potting (did you just double dip?)

Wax potted pickups, vacuum potted pickups, double wax vacuum potted pickups, potting wax, bees wax, paraffin wax, pickups potted with magic beans... What does all this mean?

Pickup makers are always looking for technical explanations of their product that makes it sound fancier then the next guy. Take the simple act of wax potting a pickup for example.

Potting a Pickup is the process of solidifying a coil against microphonic vibration by submerging it in a 130-F (54-C) to 140-F (60-C) degree bath of wax comprised of 80% paraffin and 20% bees wax. This ratio is something of an industry standard. It’s a good mix that insures the wax will saturate the coil well and will harden yet won’t become brittle.

Double Potting a Pickup is the same thing as above accept that the pickup is potted a second time after it's had metal parts added like the chrome covers of a PAF or the steel base plate that's on a Tele bridge pickup. This insures that the metal parts can't vibrate and cause microphonic feed back which has been known to happen. Teles bridge pickups are bad about this and some folks like to have the entire bridge potted with the pickup to prevent rattling springs or screws.

Vacuum potting is potting the pickup in hot wax in a vacuum chamber . This can speed up the potting process and some believe it allows for better saturation of the coils because the vacuum forces the air out of the coil and wax into it.

While there are some rules to fallow it isn't rocket science.

Now... what to use to melt the wax. I have seen many people over the years claim that this is a simple matter and you can just heat the wax up on your stove....


WRONG!


Hot wax is very combustible and heating it on a stove is a good way to burn your house down. Using a stove burner to heat wax also allows no good way to control the temp of the wax and over heating your pickups can destroy them. Wax should only be heated in a device specifically designed to melt wax like the one in the picture here. I have about 8 of these wax pots of different sizes and types. The best ones have built in temp controls that prevent the wax from over heating. If your not willing to use one of these pots to do the job then send your pickup to a pickup maker that can do it right. Even if you don't burn your house down you could ruin your pickup by potting it incorrectly. I charge $19.99 to pot a pickup including shipping. A pound of bees wax is about $12... Paraffin wax is about $6 a pound. Then you need to get the wax pot. How many of these are you going to do? It's probably cheaper to just let me do it. Drop me an email if you think your pickup needs to be potted. I will help you decide and let you know if Searcy String Works can pot your pickup.

Ever Learning
Clint Searcy

Gretch FilterTron

The Gretch Filtetron. The Gretsch line of guitars were well received in the 1950's but was soon eclipsed by the likes of Gibson and Fender. Since then it has always been a bit of an obscure and rare bird despite enjoying the attention of the likes of Chet Atkins, Brian Setzer, and even the Beatels. Recently Fender bought the company and is trying to return it to it's 50's glory.



A little while back I was sent the neck pickup from a 1998 Gretsch. It had a dead coil and was only reading 4K Ohms. I rebuilt it to the vintage 1950s specs.



First thing we gotta do is pull the cover off. It's not so different that a Gibson PAF construction wise. But it's much smaller. This 1998 version also used a huge ceramic magnet. In the 50's this would have been an Alnico magnet.


Perhaps one of the most unusual aspects of Gretsch pickup construction is their use of these top plates. The top plate uses the pole screws to hold the bobbins together.



The original Filter trons were very low output pickups. Because of the small bobbins about 4K ohms was all they could reach with 42GA wire. In the 90's they started using 45GA wire and made pickups that read about 8K ohms.



When it comes to fixing a dead pickup there's nothing like a good set of dikes and an Exacto Blade.



Once it is loaded up with the 42ga wire and taped it's time to solder the connections back.



Ray Butts invented this thing. He and Chet Atkins worked together on the design for the Filter-Tron. It seems that Ray came up with his design without any prior information of Seth Lovers work at Gibson. His claim was that he knew about hum canceling coils because of his work making transformers for his line of amps. So it's possible the Ray invented the humbucker.




Once it's all back to normal it gets a test ride in "The Booger". My pickup tester guitar.



Then it goes back to Cali to the tech that sent it to me so it can be returned to the guitar it came from.

Willow Guitars

My buddy "Hurricane" Andy Barth at Willow Guitars way up there in Canada is a mad man. When looking at his art work you are captivated by his astounding ability to look into a hunk of wood and pull out sculptures that you didn't know where there. His masterful eye and skilled hands work to intertwine carved lines, natural imperfections, inlays and wood gains into works that are so at home in an art gallery that it's sometimes easy to forget that these are fully playable guitars. When most luthiers build a guitar thay call a trusted wood suppler and place an order for dried and properly dimensioned wood but not Andy. He is in the heart of Rock Maple territory so he picks, cuts, dries, and dimensions much of his own stock. His eye can pick a board that will render a neck that will sustain for days. His ears know the sound of a body blank that will have a singing soul. When it comes to hardware he uses only the best parts and in some cases custom orders the parts to his exact specs. That's how he and I came to work together. I sent him a big pile of humbuckers a little while back for some of his new guitars. He winds his own single coils so he knows what he's talking about when he places an order. I was only too proud to know that my pickups would be a parts of some of Andy's master creations.

If you are looking for a rare work or art or a tone monster get a hold of Hurricane Andreas Barth at Willow Guitars

We get letters! (another brick in the Wal...)

I took most of this week off to be with family and enjoy Christmas. No web work other than this little bit I did over at Six String Bliss showing how to replace your pickups.

Wow! I'm behind on my Email!! I'll be sitting down today to write to folks who have had questions this week. I have a few letters about the "Wal" Music Man bass pickup I'm working on. I'll be answering those. I got a guy who wants to know about a 13 string bass pickup. Some Neo Jazz questions. A sad story about how one of my Piper Tele pickup was killed in a freak Christmas accident. One crazy luthier that is wanting to work with me on designing his own pickups for some very unique guitars.

I better get busy!

Scarab Single String Pickups ( Back where we started...)

As I mentioned in an earlier post I didn't start out trying to be a pickup maker. I just wanted to make guitars and basses. The first bass 100% original instrument I ever built was the 5 string DragonFly bass. A vitality part of this basses design was a pickup system that would allow me to switch each strings out put independently.

This meant that I needed a small pickup for each string but one one was selling them at the time. Determined to see the project through to the end I started looking for information on making my own pickups. Back then there wasn't a lot of information out there on how to design or make pickups. I didn't' know where to get parts or what parts would work best so I had to feel my way around in the dark.

My first attempt (1) was a bobbin made out of a yellow Bic pen. I melted the ends and mashed them into flanges to hold the wire and ran a set screw through it to act as a pole. Then I needed some magnet wire. I found some at my local Radio Shack. I think it was 32GA wire or something huge like that. To wind the wire onto the bobbin I used an old cassette tape recorder and just glued the bobbin to the little spinning hub and away we went. I might have gotten 200 turns on that first bobbin. When it was done I wrapped the whole thing in Scotch Tape to keep it from coming apart Then I soldered a lead to it and stuck a ceramic button magnet on the bottom. Finally I went into my studio and plugged the thing into my amp and turned it on. It buzzed like a bee hive. I plucked the E string on my Fender P bass and held the mutant pickup up to it.... it was there.... if you listened through the buzz and the hum there was a sound that was an E note. I was stoked!!! I had made a pickup!! The thing was crap and would need to be developed but I was on the right track. Over the next 6 months or so I spent ever second I could refining the design and hunting better parts. My second (2) try at making a pickup was closer to the mark I was looking for sound wise. It used 44ga wire and a small Neodymium magnet at the center of the phenolic bobbin. I potted my windings with blue nail polish as I went to kill any microphonic feedback. It sounded good but I still wanted more low end for the bass that I was getting from it and it looked bad. This led to design #3. This time I used a cover from a CD case to make the flanges for the shorter and fatter bobbin. The pole was a bigger steel screw with a wide head on it. The Neo magnet was attached to the screw under the bobbin much like a P-90 does. The new bobbin design allowed more wire to be used. This was it!! This was the sound I was looking for. Now all I had to do was make it look like something... But how? I would cast it in plastic that's how. The next few months were spent mocking up dummy pickups to get the look right . Then I started learning to make rubber molds and experimenting with casting agents. Finally I decided on black Epoxy as my casting agent and I was on my way to realizing my idea.My wife decided the new pickups looked like little bugs... like Scarabs. And thats how the(4) Scarab Single Sting pickups were born. The bass came out fine. I showed it to some people and was having fun playing it and recording with it and planning the next one....

Then the orders started coming in....



There is an MP3 called Scarabs on the sound files page of Searcy String Works of me playing this bass in a touch guitar style, something I'm not very good at, to show the string separation and clarity. It's just a sloppy demo of the G and D string running through one effects chain and the other strings running dry through an amp to show what could be done with such a rig.

Sometimes I build guitars... (part 1.... Black Sunshine)

I didn't start out trying to make pickups. Originally I wanted to build the worlds greatest basses and guitars but somewhere along the way the obsession to make great pickup took over. Most of my time is spent making and designing pickups now but every once in a while I build a guitar or bass.

Here's one I just a few weeks ago. The body style is one I call the DragonFly. This one is almost totally hollow. It's made from Poplar and red oak. It's very light. This one I call Black Sunshine.

The Knucklehead pickups are the last of a run of epoxy cast neodymium magnet humbuckers I made a while back. They have a very bright top end compared to an Alnico pickup. They are running through a booster preamp made by my friend and master luthier Mark Swanson. Mark builds some of the most interesting acoustic and electric guitars you are likely to see. His work has been featured in several publication and his client list includes some rather big names. If that wasn't enough it also has a Bid D Varitone switch in it. I love the Veritone that Dennis makes and this combined with the preamp gives this guitar an unbelievable amount of sounds to work with.

"Gripping the wheel his knuckles went white with desire
The wheels of his mustang exploding on the highway like a slug from a .45
True death: 400 horsepower of maximum performance piercing the night
This is black sunshine.

Finally nothing moves.
High noon.
Black top rolling below the asphalt drive
A concrete fascination scraping the edge of nothing
This is black sunshine."


Read more about this guitar and see some more pictures over at Six String Bliss.