Pickups known to be wound with 43ga wire?

[gmm52]

I made a few pickups a long time ago, and I'm now interested in making more. Ages ago, I stumbled onto a few rolls of 43ga wire at a reasonable price, and since that's what I've got here, I'm inclined to use it. For this reason, I'm curious to learn about pickups that are known to be wound with 43ga. The only one that comes to mind is (of course) the venerable Tele neck pickup.

I would be grateful for any names of particular pickups (single coil or humbuckers) known to be wound with 43ga.

 

[Wallaby]

Inquiring minds want to know! I suspect Gold Foils, Filtertrons, Toasters, Lipstick and other weirdo/lesser-known varieties but don't actually know.

Watching this thread.

 

[Vibroluxer]

Same here.

 

[SPUDCASTER]

43AWG and A3 magnets were the staple of the Broadcaster, Esquire, Nocaster, Lap Steel and Telecaster through 1951/52
until the transition to 42AWG/A3 somewhere in that period.

I'm speaking of the bridge pickups.

 

[Wallaby]

The "Josefina" Broadcaster replicas are 43 on both pickups, I think.

 

[Masmus]

The Broadcasters for sure but they may have changed when they started making nocasters.

 

[gmm52]

Thanks for the replies. I'll do some research on these. I think I'm trying to determine if pickups made with 43ga differentiate themselves from pickups made with 42ga any definable way. I know there's a ton of other variables, and that there's probably little hope here, but I'll still make the effort.

 

[hopdybob]

maybe this helps, second posting

Has anyone tried the 5000 turn tele bridge option mentioned by Kenny Vaughan?

In the recent excellent interview of Kenny V by @Cody_J there was mention of a tele bridge pickup accidentally wound to 5000 turns. Kenny said there was interesting magic in the tone. Has anyone had any experience with this?

www.tdpri.com

 

[eclecticsynergy]

43 ga is also used in many of the overwound humbuckers, like the JB. I think just about any hum with a DCR above 10K is likely wound with 43 ga, until you get up to really high ones that use 44.

 

[Rob DiStefano]

43AWG coil over AlNiCo 5 rod magnets was the staple for Leo's 1950 thru 1965 initial guitar offering neck pickup. That combination seems to have continued 'til today at the least.

From all investigated records that I've seen, 43AWG coil wire was used for the bridge pickup of Leo's sole guitar offering from 1950 thru early 1951, when there was a "transitional" period about in the Spring of '51 when Randall coined the "Telecaster" name, and 42AWG was substituted for 43AWG, but the AlNiCu/copper 3 rod magnets were still used (42/A3). Somewhere between that date and perhaps early 1952 (? - personally, I don't think the transition period lasted more than some months of 1951) the A3 rod magnets were changed to AlNiCo/cobalt 5 rod magnets (42/A5) and continued on to today.

So, this means that all of these 1950 to early 1951 Leo Fender guitar names used a bridge pickup with the same components, only the 43AWG coil wire turn counts were vastly different. The guitar names in question are Spanish Electric Guitar, Esquire (1 and 2 pickups - his first offering of a neck pickup), Broadcaster, "Nocaster" (the colloquial name we've given to a Leo guitar with the Broadcaster headstock label removed). A Leo Telecaster guitar should not have used a pickup with 43/A3.

Current mass production and "boutique" pickup manufacturers have both "vintage correct" and "not so vintage correct" renditions of what Leo did from 1950-1965. It's all mostly about a pickup's footprint, components, and coil wire turn counts.

 

[yegbert]

What character to a pickup’s performance or tone, might the use of 43AWG contribute to a pickup, other factors being equal? Why should I want to use a pickup wound with it?

 

[AJBaker]

Like Rob said, the early Broadcaster/Telecaster bridge pickups had 43awg.

On the Baja Tele, the 'Broadcaster' bridge pickup is also like that.

Also, I think that Keith Richards' bridge pickup is rewound with a lot of 43 awg in order to have more output.

 

[Rob DiStefano]

While it's possible that a Telecaster (the name coined in early '51) could have been a December/January inventory "Nocaster" that got upgraded to a Telecaster, thus that guitar would have had a 43/A3 bridge pickup, I doubt we'll ever know. I consider the Leo '51 Telecaster as probably going out the door with 42/A3 and then before or by the end of 1951 the Tele we know was standardized as 42/A5.

 

[Rob DiStefano]

If two Tele/Esquire bridge bobbins were identical in build and both had A3 rod magnets, and both were wound with 10,000 turns of coil wire, where one bobbin got 43 coil wire and the other wrapped with 42, and the coil wire winding tension was the same, the resulting DCR would be about 10.5k for the 43 and 8.0k for the 42.

Now in terms of output and tone, ah, there's the question!

 

[monkeybanana]

If two Tele/Esquire bridge bobbins were identical in build and both had A3 rod magnets, and both were wound with 10,000 turns of coil wire, where one bobbin got 43 coil wire and the other wrapped with 42, and the coil wire winding tension was the same, the resulting DCR would be about 10.5k for the 43 and 8.0k for the 42.

Now in terms of output and tone, ah, there's the question!

What a cliff hanger!

 

[telemnemonics]

Really you can just wind what you please but be sure to use turn count for the recipe and not visually full or measured dcr.
Tonally you can assume the coil will be shaped more tall and narrow, assuming the same bobbin, which has a bit of an influence, like the difference between Strat and JM pickups with otherwise same specs, not much really but you can move the coil into a flatter wider shape by using shorter magnets and closer spaced flatwork, which theoretically sounds warmer as it reads more string length and less of the coil is far from the moving magnetized string.
Or if you make a low wind (like 8000 turns) Strat pickup the coil is very very tall and narrow. So it reads a tiny portion of the string and most of the coil is farther from the moving magnet string.

 

[Masmus]

Like Rob said, the early Broadcaster/Telecaster bridge pickups had 43awg.

On the Baja Tele, the 'Broadcaster' bridge pickup is also like that.

Also, I think that Keith Richards' bridge pickup is rewound with a lot of 43 awg in order to have more output.

I had heard that his bridge pu was replaced with one from a early lapsteel which are what was going in the early Broadcasters and Esquires.

They changed the pickups early on the nocasters so most are 42. They only changed the name to the Tele when they ran out of labels.

Hot pickups don’t necessarily mean more power. The bridge pu in mine is between 6.5 and 7.5k and it sounds just like Mike Campbell’s.

 

[gmm52]

Thanks for the additional replies. All have been helpful.

 

[AJBaker]

If two Tele/Esquire bridge bobbins were identical in build and both had A3 rod magnets, and both were wound with 10,000 turns of coil wire, where one bobbin got 43 coil wire and the other wrapped with 42, and the coil wire winding tension was the same, the resulting DCR would be about 10.5k for the 43 and 8.0k for the 42.

Now in terms of output and tone, ah, there's the question!

What would be the answer to the question?
I've wondered what the difference is with identical bobbins and mags, with an equal number of turns, but just changing the AWG.
And what about 10'000 turns of 44AWG? Or 10'000 turns 41AWG (if that could even fit on the bobbin)?

What kind of difference is there, if any?
Since the size and shape of the coil are different, and more of it is closer to the rods, I imagine there must be some difference, but I wouldn't know what.

 

[gmm52]

AJBaker, Telemneonics description seemed as reasonable an answer to this question as I can imagine. One only needs to infer that the broader coil of the 41ga wound coil will read a larger portion of the vibrating string.

Really you can just wind what you please but be sure to use turn count for the recipe and not visually full or measured dcr.
Tonally you can assume the coil will be shaped more tall and narrow, assuming the same bobbin, which has a bit of an influence, like the difference between Strat and JM pickups with otherwise same specs, not much really but you can move the coil into a flatter wider shape by using shorter magnets and closer spaced flatwork, which theoretically sounds warmer as it reads more string length and less of the coil is far from the moving magnetized string.
Or if you make a low wind (like 8000 turns) Strat pickup the coil is very very tall and narrow. So it reads a tiny portion of the string and most of the coil is farther from the moving magnet string.