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The Guts of the Thing
Strat Pickup, Top View
Strat Pickup, Cover Removed
Last month we decided to focus in-depth
on pickups, so I thought we’d start with the
Stratocaster, since it’s the best. Yes it is. Oh
yes it is. Oh yes it IS.
Have a look at these illustrations of a Strat
pickup with and without its cover. The
cover just slips on and off, in case you were
wondering. The original design called for
an exposed coil, wound directly on the
magnets. The plastic cover slipped over
the coil to protect it before the pickup was
mounted into the pickguard.
Perhaps it didn’t occur to Fender that
people would disassemble their guitars to
modify or replace their pickups and wiring
schemes. Surely in 1953 Leo wouldn’t have
foreseen the massive aftermarket pickup
industry that would spring up in later
decades, and he probably couldn’t have
anticipated the huge DIY movement that
we see today. Still, there are some people
in the pickup community who feel that
this removable cover was a major design
flaw, since the coil is completely exposed
and really vulnerable to damage when the
cover is removed.
GEORGE ELLISON
Strat Pickup, Side View
Strat Pickup, Cover Removed
there are only a few parts to the pickup; it’s
a very simple design.
There are two flat plates made out of vulcanized fibre, six magnets, and a coil of wire.
So there you have it, the innards shown,
er, outwardly.
Strat Pickup, Exploded View
Cover
Top Plate
Coil
Magnets Bottom Plate
Strat Pickup, Cutaway View
The magnets used by Fender were alnico
5. Alnico describes the magnet’s content,
which is ALuminum, NIckel, and CObalt
(with a few other metals thrown in for good
measure). There are a number of different alnico alloys; the ones commonly used
in pickup making are 2, 3, 4, and 5. But
because the aluminum, nickel, and cobalt
percentages can vary pretty widely, there
are thousands of possible variants. Much
has been made about the importance of
this component in reproducing those great
Strat tones of the fifties and sixties, but I
think you could argue that we don’t know
the exact makeup of the alloys Fender
used back in the day—though this could
probably be ascertained, if anyone cares to
donate their old pickups for lab analysis.
Of course you could also argue that the
magnet alloys used in Fender guitars may
have changed over the years, since it’s
probable that like most manufacturers with
a production schedule to meet, Fender
bought from more than one supplier.
The coil wire used was 42 AWG (American
wire gauge) copper, insulated with Formvar
(polyvinyl formal). The ends of this wire
were wrapped through eyelets attached
to the bottom plate, and then heavier,
human-friendly 22 AWG leads took over
from there.
Fender used 1800 turns of wire on the coil,
yielding a total DC resistance of between
5800 and 6200 ohms, per Forrest White
(Plant Manager, then VP and General
Manager of Fender from 1954 through the
beginning of 1965).
Next up: Telecasters!
George Ellison
Founder, Acme Guitar Works
acmeguitarworks.com
george@acmeguitarworks.com
772-770-1919
