I've written about my FMF pickups before and used them in builds of my TMI guitars, but I made these for something a little special, which I will cover in another blog soon. I thought I'd mention these as they're a "little" different to the ones in that last blog, but only a little.
These are my idea of making a sort of P-90, in my T-90 version using alnico slug magnets but with an internal magnetic claw much like Leo's idea used for the Fender Jaguar and many vintage Japanese guitars from the 60's.
The idea is the metal claw directs the magnetic flux through the pole pieces and "captures" that flux within the cover giving a more focused field which in turn gives a "tighter' sound.
As my original blog mentions I went through a few designs and ideas before settling on this version but unlike my original post I used wider bobbins on both bridge and neck pickups for this guitar.
It took a little fine tuning with windings but this produces a very round and clean neck pickup with a little more ... girth than the narrower bobbin I used in the previous versions.
I like both versions a lot and although I'm not usually much of a neck pickup guy, I really like both of these especially when combined with the bridge.
Sometimes I fit these with 2 screws through the entire assembly, like a standard P-90 and sometimes I attach a bottom plate for height adjustment screws and a surround. It depends on the guitar and what I'm trying to achieve but in this case I kinda did both.
I fitted these with screws through the assembly but because I was retro fitting these to a guitar that was already routed for other pickups, I fitted handmade aluminium surrounds to cover the existing routs.
So, what are these attached to? You'll see soon, I promise.
