Tym FMF T-90 PII

Following on from FMF T-90 is the version I've been making for a while but haven't offered on my site before. 

These are my FMF PII pickups which are very similar to my standard T-90 but heavily influenced by vintage Japanese pickups used in Guyatones, Teiscos and Arias. 

As I'm a HUGE fan of P-90's it's not surprising that most of my hand made pickups are based on variations on this theme. My favourite pickups ever are of course Mosrite pickups which are closely related to the P-90 but with an unmistakable Semie flare.

Quite a few vintage Japanese pickups have the claw as explained in my previous blog (linked above) but the ones I really like the tone of usually have pole pieces and ceramic magnets. 

These are of course the pickups used in the Guyatone LG150's, some 127s and of course the LG350s. They were also used in the Aria 1702/Univox Hi-Flier Phase II which is where this pickup gets its name. These all used a typical plastic bobbin wound generally with AWG43 with a metal claw that ran up both sides of the bobbin inside the over and they all used ceramic magnets with pole pieces. Some had a threaded metal bar for the pole to screw into, and some didn't. Most of these pickups also used AWG42 or 43 wire depending on brand and type of guitar.

These PIIs are made the same way as my standard FMF T-90 but it uses A5 slug magnets (which I love in the P-90 format) whereas these have two ceramic bar magnets running along each side of the pole pieces which are all encased inside the metal claw, which slides in under the cover.

This gives a very similar tone to these vintage Japanese pickups while still being able to be fitted straight into an existing P-90 body rout. These are "slightly" deeper than standard P-90s, but I've not come across a rout yet that they won't fit into as there's usually room at the bottom with foam to support the pickup. 

Apart from being pole piece and ceramic magnets I wind these with AWG43 wire and keep them close to the original spec. The bridge pickup is about 10.3K and the neck about 9K and they are reverse wound, reverse polarity to give humbucking in the middle position, which none of the original vintage Japanese ones did.

These came about from my obsession with old Japanese guitars and having rewound many vintage Japanese pickups it became obvious that some of those tones I loved was due to certain features that these pickups had that the "big brands" never used. For reference here's a Phase II 1702 pickup rewind I did many years ago that shows the insides very well.

I've used these in my TMI guitars but now I'm making them for my site other people can try them out and hopefully enjoy some of that vintage Japanese tone without modifying their guitars.