Main Description

This is a full kit to make one single coil pickup for a Telecaster® neck position, containing everything you'll need except the coil wire, hookup wire and the string to wrap around the outside..

We're offering this kit with a range of different magnet grades and diameters, with a choice of board colours and base materials so you can really customise your pickup.

Whats Included?

1 x Fiber Board Bridge pickup set (Base and top)
1 x Metal Cover(either Brass or German / Nickel Silver, In the finish and style selected)
6 x Alnico pole pieces (Unmagnetised, Alnico 2, 3, 4 or 5, either 5mm, 3/16" or 1/4")
2 x Mounting Screws and springs
2 x Nickel Plated Eyelets (Supplied, not fitted)

A guide to winding Neck pickups for the Telecaster®

I wanted to write a guide to this type of pickup for a while, a sort of, “This is what the parts do, use them in your designs as you see fit, these are the variables”

And that might seem a little “cruel” in a way, because, I know if you’re just starting out winding, you want someone to sit and explain the very basics of pickup winding – but that’s a little beyond the scope of this– so, for the sake of keeping it as simple as possible, I’ll stick to what we’re looking at here, and I’m going to assume everyone reading has a basic understanding of “winding” and a little bit of understanding about the electrical theory behind pickups (otherwise, I’m writing my a book trying to explain inductance and resonant peak!) – I’ll touch on the basics, but I won’t get bogged down in the “why”.

Lets get into it!

What is a pickup for a Tele® Neck?

So, in short, pickups for the Telecaster® bridge slot are, basically, single coils – there’s a few weird considerations with them , but on the whole, it’s a coil of wire wrapped around a frame made from alnico poles pressed into fiber boards – not really all that different to the single coils you’ll find on a Stratocaster®

But, just like a Strat® pickup, the details are all in the minutia – so, the purpose of this write up is to explain what all those little variables actually “do”

Now, as a VERY rough and ready guide, neck pickups on the Tele® are differ in a couple of ways!

Phase & Polarity

Firstly, they’re “usually”, NOT Reverse would, reverse polarity (Counter clockwise winds, North top) – the same as a Strat® Necka and Bridge pickup. That’s one we see people get wrong more often than not – the assume the neck is the reversed pickup in the circuit – it’s not! It’s almost always the bridge. Now, this doesn’t really matter if you’re winding for yourself, but it’s a good rule to “stick to the standards” because if you do end up selling your pickups, or you try mixing and matching them with other manufacturers models, you’ll run into issues with phase and polarity.

Be aware too, that not all “big” manufacturers follow this rule either! Fender® themselves make Telecaster® pickups that are “wrong” on occasion – usually it’s for historic reasons (early models didn’t always follow modern standards), so keep “the standard” in mind, but take pickups on a case-by-case basis. The oddities are out there, just waiting to trip you up!

Fender®, Squier®, Stratocaster®, Strat®, Telecaster® and Tele® are registered trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and Axesrus ® has no affiliation with FMIC

Pole Setup/Staggering

Flush poles

Telecaster® pickups usually turn up with “flush poles” – where the alnico rods pressed into the fiber boards sit flush to the top face (and bottom face) of the fiber boards – this is was done to maximise the amount of “coil space” you’re working with, and, as time goes by, flush topped pickups have become very fashionable because “that’s how Fender® did it”

And, yes, it does have its advantages – you can normally max out a pickup for a Tele® with about 10K of 43 AWG, however, it’s not without its problems!

Single coil frames built up with flush mounted poles don’t hold up all that well to winding. There’s always a certain amount of “board warp” when winding a pickup – there’s so much copper being piled on there, under tension, that the poles come under compression, and the copper is literally pushing against the boards as the coils build up.

The bottom board accounts for this, by, traditionally, being thicker, to limit the warping(at 2.4mm) but top boards are, inexplicably, 1.6mm – I assume, the idea of a “flush pole” came after the boards were designed (or thinner boards have crept into being later because most other pickups DON’T have flush pole) – either way, that thin top board has very limited “grip” against the poles, and its not uncommon to see pickups with flush poles where the top board have warped to such an extent that they have lifted away from the poles.

It sounds a terrible design flaw, but, really, it’s quite easy to fix. When you’re assembling the frames, after you’ve pressed the poles into place, a quick blob of super glue up against the pole where it meets the fiber board will eliminate any problems. (or, you can dip the assembled “frame” in lacquer and allow it to set solid – not something I like personally, but, its been done!)

Its worth, after doing this, wrapping the poles with a layer of paper tape though, because the CA/super glue can end up being a little rough and increases the risk of snapping the coil wire.

Staggered Poles

Staggered poles are simply “poles that sit above the fiber board at different heights to “match” the strings”. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed any difference in tone myself, but it was originally designed to account for wound G strings and volume discrepancies between strings apparently. It’s been the norm on Strat® single coils since day one, but never really caught on with the Telecaster® to the same degree.

Whilst much less common, they do exist (we use them on our Yorkshire Jack uses Stagger #1, and it’s a fantastic little pickup!) – they’re simpler to assemble, because they don’t require gluing (and board warp doesn’t cause the boards to pop off the poles), but, as you can imagine, they reduce the amount of space available for your coils.

Now, one of the temptations when winding a bridge pickup for a Tele® is to try and make a “Strat®” pickup – 6K of 42 AWG, shorter internal height, staggered poles! It’s a lovely idea! However, it doesn’t really work believe it or not. For whatever reason (and I can’t say I’ve explored the idea beyond the initial “suck it and see” test!) – what works in a Stratocaster® doesn’t work when mounted into the Telecasters bridge plate – its lacking in power and sustain. I imagine it’s something to do with the actual bridge being made from metal, and the magnet field being dissipated.

So, go in eyes open – staggered poles aren’t a short cut to the ultimate hybrid pickup, and, I doubt pole staggering in itself actually changes the tone of a pickup all that much, BUT, it’s a neat way of making the internal of the frame smaller, and as such, changing the tone of the pickup.

As a very rough and ready rule, the smaller the pickups internal space, the higher the inductance (the “hotter” the pickup becomes, the lower the frequency of the resonant peak/wider the Q factor) – basically, short coils make more aggressive pickups, and because your limited on space, you’re likely winding using 43 AWG or 46 SWG, and that plays right into your wheel house, because those wire gauges are generally used to make more aggressive pickups! As a nice ball park to play with, aim for a 10K coil fo 43 AWG with a staggered pole setup – it’s a fantastic “modern” Tele® tone!

Board Colour

This is a nice easy one thankfully – it’s purely a “historic” thing (or a cosmetic thing, depending on how you think about it!). Purely the colour of the fiber boards you’ll be pressing your poles into.

Originally, it’s very likely that the Telecaster® (then, the Broadcaster and the Esquire®!) was initially intended to be wound with 43 AWG Plain enamel (matching the Champion® lapsteel which predates it) – however, early Fender production was patchy at best (with the Champion® suffering similar “loose standarisation” on its coil wire) and because the neck pickup on the Telecaster, wouldn’t really function with 42 AWG) – early models used 43 AWG Plain enamel “Single build” (they would, eventually, switch to 42 AWG Plain enamel on the bridge but early Tele® pickups? 7-10K of 43 AWG, flush poles! Very distinctive tone!)

Either way, whatever the reasons, we see these pickups turning up with dark brown or purple insulation on the copper, and, frankly, it’s an absolute pig to work with on black boards. You can’t really see the start and finish of the coil wire all that clearly (but you CAN, if it’s the bright orange Formvar!) – so, as a quick guide – very early pickups committed “The Cardinal Sin” because you cant see the coil wire to terminate it.

No ones really sure if Fender® switched to Formvar (1954,on the Strat) as a response to this, so for another reason, but it does make sense.

So, from 1950 until about 1963 the Telecaster used Black boards top and bottom on both bridge (at some point in the 50s, the bridges DID switch to 42 AWG Plain enamel) and neck pickups. After that, we see a switch to grey bottoms and black tops (this is true for the Strat® too, because at that point, they switched over to Plain enamel too). Simply because you can actually see the coil wire, and your less prone to snagging it during termination.

There has never, officially, existed a Grey/Grey or Grey Top/Black base – but, we’re talking winding your own pickups here. Do whatever you want! The weirder the better in my book!

Magnets

Now, this is about as big a topic as you’re going to get when it comes to pickups! Be they Single Coils, Pickups for the Tele®, Bar Magnets in Humbuckers and P90s? A huge amount of nonsense is written about “what magnets actually do” and, in fairness, I’m prone to writing most of it off as gibberish, a lot of what’s written actually is based in fact! The problem is, its based in “facts” based on “all guitars” – when you get into specifics (let’s say, just “Tele® Necks!) – what magnets are doing is pretty easy to pin down.

Grade

When we speak about rod magnets, like with this kit, we’re talking about Alnico (other magnets do exist as rods, they’re either very rare, or are too strong to be used in a guitar! Samarium and Neodymium being the main “Please, don’t do that!” alternatives) and Alnico comes in different “grades” – technically, that relates to the “composition” of the alnico (which is an alloy of Aluminum, Nickel, Cobalt, Iron and Titanium) – basically, different percentages of each element within the alloy change the grade, and, as you can imagine, there are hundreds of different grades as a result.

This, however, is utterly meaningless to us as guitarists/pickup builders, so we break down the “grades” based on the “magnetic strength” – how “strong” the magnet is when fully charged. This is a measurement called “Gauss” – the higher the gauss, the strong the magnet.

With that in mind, we break down the grades, weakest to strongest, Alnico 3, Alnico 2, Alnico 4, Alnico 5, Alnico 6, Alnico 8.

This is slightly murky however, because magnets get “stronger” the bigger they are – so its difficult for me to sit here and say “alnico 2, that’s 7500 gauss!” – but, in reality, a 5mm pole isn’t going to be reading that on a gauss meter. I can’t say I know how the “stated gauss” measurement is actually taken –but I imagine it’s a certain mass/area of magnet to keep the readings uniform.

So, this brings up a strange situation that the following rules are only true when the magnets remain the same size/mass – as soon as you bring in a larger or smaller magnet, the gauss increases/decreases, and changes the characteristic of the “tone” being produced (so, potentially, a ¼” Alnico 5 will be “stronger” then a 3/16” Alnico 8!)

Either way – assuming we’re keeping all things equal – change magnet grade within a pickup, the higher the gauss/the stronger the magnet, the stronger the pickups resonant peak (with single coils!) the peak frequency doesn’t actually change, but the voltage produced at that peak does (essentially the pickup becomes more defined, crisper, or snappier), increases with strength. However, it isn’t a drastic alteration! It’s a fairly subtle change. You’ll struggle to hear it on a recording, but you WILL feel it as a player.

The only exception that I’ve seen, are alnico 4 (which is, in itself, a weird magnet, because it doesn’t, technically, exist (it would be considered a “flawed” alnico 5). For whatever reason, Alnico 4 DOES alter the frequency when compared to Alnico 5, but DOESN’T reduce the voltage.

So, as a rough and ready guide? The weaker the magnet, the smoother and more rounded the pickup will sound, the stronger the magnet, the more “snap”, definition and “bite”. That’s true for the “common” pole choices of 3, 2 and 5!

4 will make a pickup similar to Alnico 5, with that definition, but it will be slightly darker, slightly “throatier”. Not a common choice for single coils truth be told, but not without its charms!

(I’ve tried to avoid using emotive language here, which is difficult to do when we’re talking about pickups – but electrically and perceptively, that’s what’s happening! Taste plays a big part in this though. Your idea of snap and bite might be VERY different to mine, and how we perceive the resonant peak is dependent on where in the frequency spectrum it is! A 20K single coil with Alnico 5 magnets isn’t going to be snappy or bright… that’s what the signals doing, but the resonant peak is so low, and the Q factor so wide, that its not what you’ll hear… all we can say, is that it will be “more defined” with a stronger magnet then it would have been with a weaker magnet!)

Diameter

This sort of plays into what I’ve mentioned above, but I’ll go into a little more of the practical aspect here. Its an absolute quagmire though, so be warned!

As I’ve said, the “bigger” the magnet, the stronger it is, so a ¼” pole is “stronger” than the same grades equivalent 5mm, and the 3/16” is weaker.

Historically, this type of pickup is actually wound with 3/16” poles too, but, honestly? I like a 5mm pole, so that’s what we use for most of our builds, because its available in the widest range of grades, however, for historic jobs, the 3/16” poles are part and parcel of “the tone” too (thankfully, very early Telecaster® aside, they’re always alnico 5!)

Now, here’s where we end up in a really confusion situation I’m afraid.

Whilst its very simple for me to say “bigger magnets are stronger” and imply that “if you want a snappy, bright, biting pickup, go for a ¼” pole!” – that actually not true!

Because of the way single coils are built, the “frames internal diameter” is set by the pole diameter – so a pickup with ¼” poles will have an internal width of 6.35mm and a length of (in this case) 60.35 – so lets assume each “wrap” of wire is 133.4mm. (that’s only true for the first layer, but you get the idea)

If we take a 5mm poled frame, the same measurement, would be 128mm.

Now, we’re bordering on the hypothetical here, but just to keep the numbers simple.

Lets pretend that this type of pickup has 10000 winds, each one the same length, and every 1mm of wire has a resistance of 0.001K

The 1/4” version has taken 13.34Km of wire, and the 5mm version has taken 12.8Km!

And the resistances end up being wildly different as a result! 13.34Kohm vs 12.8kohm.

So, whilst the rule regarding “Bigger magnets are strong, and as such, make the pickup more defined” is very true – its actually impossible to make 2 identical coils with different pole diameters! There will always be “more” copper on the ¼” version compared to the 5mm version (and the same for the 3/16” – 11.75kOhm) and as such, a different tone! As a VERY broad guide line, the more copper, the darker the pickup (specifically, the higher the inductance, the lower the resonant peak, and the wider the Q factor)

AND we’ve got to account for the inductance of the pickup too (if only if they were just a measurement of resistance, eh?) – inductance is the “strength” of the pickup, and is generated as a combination of the amount of copper in the coil and the amount of IRON within it.

So, with a ¼” pole, we known we’ve got considerably more iron within the coil too! (Because it’s part of the Alnico alloy) So not only is the length of the copper different, the mass of the copper is different as a result, but also the iron content is different!

So, really, its actually not really viable to make direct comparisons between one pole diameter and another, because by its nature, it changes too many of the other variables, and as such, the tone of the pickup.
Now, there is an elephant in the room after all that. Another reason why making direct comparisons between one wind and another, with different pole diameters is, really, pure fantasy!

Your “average” pickup for the Telecaster has 13mm of “width” for the coil (assuming 5mm poles) – that’s 6.5mm “all around” the poles to try and shoe horn as much copper as you can into. And that “external size” is set in stone – it got to fit into a Telecaster® bridge plate.

A 1/4” pole, being larger, will eat into that space (leaving you 5.8mm all around) – you’ve actually lost 0.7mm. Might not sound a lot, but we’re dealing with wire that’s 0.06mm or less – and each layer can contain over 200 winds – that’s 2200 “lost” (by the “fake math” from earlier, that’s as much as 2.2Kohm! (it’s actually much higher in real life, but let’s make believe the coil at the end of a pickup is the same length as the one at the start).

And, as a result, you really don’t have a lot of room to work with on a Tele® bridge pickup with ¼” poles, so, more often then not, we see them wound with 43 and 44 AWG rather than 42 AWG, and, honestly, that suits them pretty well – that extra definition and snap from the big, strong poles matched up with a higher wind/lower inductance/more compressed tone that comes from thinner wire? Its quite a nice tone for rock and metal work!

So, there you have it I suppose. Pole Diameter is doing an awful lot when it comes to how the pickups behaving, much more than the magnet grade ever can, but, because we’re ultimately limited by the outside shape of the pickup, we can’t always use the idea to its fullest potential, because bigger poles take up more space, and limit us on wire gauge.

Going the other way, smaller poles (3/16” vs 5mm) are a little more open to exploration and comparison, but because the difference is so small, its not exactly a rich vein to be exploring (less then 2 “layers” of space gained opposed to 5mm – 0.4kohm in fake math)

So, in closing on pole diameter? Bigger magnets make pickups brighter, but they also, potentially, increase the amount of copper, and definitely increase the inductance, so make the pickups darker, and, ultimately, its all a little academic, because you can’t really wind them with the same wire, you’d use on a 5mm pole anyway, it will be thinner (so the inductance drops)

I could, potentially, go round in circles for the rest of time with this! Easy recipe? Use ¼” poles and 43 AWG to make very hot sounding single coils. Heavy metal, rock, anything with a real focus on low end aggression. Anything else? Stick with 5mm, unless you’re chasing an ultra historically accurate setups, then 3/16”. Forget we ever spoke about comparing pole diameters and get back to laying down some copper wire!

Covers

After the pole diameter write up, I feel I’m on safer ground here! Pickups on the Telecaster® neck come with a metal Cover (usually!) – no ones really sure as to why they do, but its definitely the norm, for better or worse.

More Coming soon