Potting Electric Guitar Pickups Part 3

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/patryk4
If your old axe gets a lot of squeaky, shrieking, and just plain unwanted howling and feedback when cranked up, this is your ticket, fellow shredders.

Potting a guitar pickup is a process to re-seal the INTERNAL unit (winding) properly in wax. If your pickup has a cover, REMOVE it, for God's sake. Most guitars lose the factory coating after several years. This will restore the sonic properties that it may have suffered due to space between the pickup windings.

DO NOT do this to a new pickup. The factory has prepared the device already! This is for an older (I'm talking many YEARS old) pickup that makes dreadful feedback-type noise. If your NEW pickup makes noise, you likely have other issues, like just too much distortion (try a noise gate), or just a severely crappy pup/rig setup. Only a merciful God can save your sorry ass at this point. A worthy pickup won't give you noise out of the box.

Be smart with the stove and the soldering iron. Burning the house down will impair your ability to plug the guitar in later....no walls=no electrical outlet. DO be careful.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• guitar
• electric
• unwanted
• feedback
• howling
• noise
• pickups
• potting
• Patryk
• deRosa
• PDR
• music
• instrumental
• shredder
• metal
• rock

[Steven04578]

Wow, I have never heard of or thought of boiling your strings before. I have a question though before I try it. Does boiling them affect the strength of the string? Will the strings break easy when they are reinstalled. I have Ibanez guitars with the floyd rose tremlos, and every so often the high E or B string breaks. So I am wondering if this would cause the strings to break more or not. Thanks for the info and video!

[PatrykdeRosa]

@Steven04578 doesn't seem to significantly weaken them. that would take much higher temps for steel. now, metal fatigue occurs with any repeated kink or bend, such as the one at the Floyd clamp. don't straighten that bend when you remove the string. use the same bend when reinstalling. if the strings have "bumps" (bends from fretting) they are just too old. discard them. but for unbent, unwound strings, boiling will only bring back the "sparkle". it basically removes deposits, dirt, crud, etc.

[mymymycatalina]

when soldering the two pronged wire is it a problem if some of the copper threads are broken in the striping process and are not soldered? will that be a problem with the sound?



[PatrykdeRosa]

@mymymycatalina no, but the more wire present, the better the signal. should be fine. put an extra thick solder coat over it :)

[stevejamsmusic]

rock on brah,whats your amp?

[PatrykdeRosa]

@stevejamsmusic thank you, man. my main amp is a 1988 Randall RG100ES. just keep going back to it.

[mymymycatalina]

thanks man

[playguitarlars]

Cool way to promote your album... I need to do this. Thanks for the entertaining presentation man.

[heber810]

thanks for your videos, I was scared of doing this but watching the videos made me much more comfortable with the whole procedure!

my prs custom 24 is born again :D

[PatrykdeRosa]

@ChillpointNews parafin or parowax. can be obtained at the grocery store. if you can find some beeswax, mix that in with it. it adds some maleability or elasticity to it so it won't crack as easily.