Oil City Pickups: restoring a pair of Wilson pickups part 1

OilCityPickups · May 2023

I was recently sent a pair of Wilson semi acoustic pickups probably built at some point in the late sixties or early seventies. Though they were producing sound if tapped - they were open circuit ... and what we commonly call 'zombie' pickups: dead but they don't know it!
Made in the UK these are fascinating - and ridiculously over engineered! Here's the bridge one.

Off comes the cover ... and what do we find under the black plastic trim ...

Image: https://i.imgur.com/nJhVxWa.jpg?1

It even has locking wires on the poles ... er ....

Arggggghhhhh an air coil - as in one wound with no bobbin on a special former. This one has the distinction of sitting in an odd plastic trough. Funny, if they were going to get the trough moulded why not use a moulded bobbin? Good old British engineering!
Dont plan ... just do it ... and if it looks complicated so much the better :-)

Unfortunately the 'trough that takes the air coil has an advanced case of plastic breakdown ... and literally fell apart as I took the coil out.

The coil appears to be 44awg wire but I will cut a length from the junk coil before rewinding and diameter check it ...
So with nothing to cradle a replacement air coil in ... well apart from a gooey crumbling plastic jigsaw ... I decided to build a custom bobbin to substitute for the air coil. With the same dimensions and winding level it will sound the same as the original when wound - but save several days of fabrication in a winding jig just for two pickups! It will be very similar to an air coil as it will be made out of paper! Yep paper.

Thick cartridge paper turned into wafer thin 'fibreglass' by soaking in cyanoacrylate glue.

I am bound to need a replacement at the neck too - so a made two straight off. Yes its pink cartridge paper, get over it, I'm spreying them black anyway! :-)

Voila!

The magnets will be familiar to anyone who has looked inside a Burns Trisonic (which uses two of them instead of four). Clearly these were an easy find back in the day for British companies! Here the configuration is a bit like a P90 crossed with a Gold Foil crossed with a 1960s electric milk float!

Anyway that's all for part one ... winding next

Kittyfrisk · May 2023

Great to see such skill, experience & ingenuity being used in problem solving.
How do you support/separate the upper & lower surfaces of the paper replacement bobbins?

OilCityPickups · May 2023

I literally make a paper tube around the central steel blade - close the ends then stiffen the tube with cyanoacrylate - then attach it with the same glue to the upper and lower paper flatwork. For any who doubt how stiff and durable CA stiffened paper can be - you can easily support 1kg of weight on one of these paper bobbins

Neilybob · May 2023

Ah the master at work. Thank you for sharing, fascinating.

ElectricXII · May 2023

I'm loving this. Following!

OilCityPickups · May 2023

The fascinating thing is that it appears they were trying to make a kind of P90 ... and in the process made this wacky, overengineered Strat pickup kinda thing ... The sound is totally original (I've encountered these before).
I love the fact that by trying to copy they made something totally original :-)

TTony · May 2023

I get the feeling that you just *love* doing this stuff!

BillDL · May 2023

I'm curious about all the leftover copper wire that comes from pickups you decided to rewind from scratch. You must accrue a lot of weight in scrapped copper wire over a year. Is it recyclable, or does the insulation mean that it can't be recycled?

OilCityPickups · May 2023

BillDL said:

I'm curious about all the leftover copper wire that comes from pickups you decided to rewind from scratch. You must accrue a lot of weight in scrapped copper wire over a year. Is it recyclable, or does the insulation mean that it can't be recycled?

In answer: we do indeed get a lot of weight per year ... we send it to a local scrap recycler and get a modest payout for it :-)

OilCityPickups · May 2023

TTony said:

I get the feeling that you just *love* doing this stuff!

I love the more challenging pickups :-)

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Oil City Pickups: restoring a pair of Wilson pickups part 1

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