Changing A Humbucker Cover Question

Mickster

Mickster

Well-known member
Another dumb one from me. I'm changing the covers on a set of humbuckers from chrome to black. No big deal. De-soldered the covers and carefully removed them. The pups are, of course, completely wax filled on the sides all around and the wax is still intact and it will stay on when I put the new covers on. The wax that was on the top of the pups is in the old covers and of course cannot be used. I don't have any wax. I know (or I think anyway) the wax is there to keep the pups from being microphonic. Is there a suitable substitute I can use? Don't laugh.....but I was thinking of putting a strip of electrical tape on the pups....not on the visible poles. I assume that might help to isolate the covers a bit.

Suggestions?

2 cents worth of......more of what I don't know.

Mick
 
Paraffin wax is pretty cheap. At my local grocery store it is in the baking section or at Walmart it is in with cookware in the canning bottles section. Easy to melt in a tin can on the stove using low heat. When I was winding pickups, I used bees wax which is a lot more expensive that I got at the craft store. If going from metal to plastic, there will be some tonal difference as plastic doesn't induce eddy currents.
 
Thanks guys. Going from metal to metal. I'll ask the wife to pick up some paraffin wax the next time she goes grocery shopping. Sounds like it's easy enough to melt a little and poke / cut out the pole holes.

2 cents worth of......learned something new today

Mick
 
Folkcafe said:
Easy to melt in a tin can on the stove using low heat.
Click to expand...
Uhhh...preferably an electric stove. Paraffin plus open flame can equal explosive combustion.

Plastic covers themselves would not contribute to microphonic, but waxing the pickup into them might help stop the coil itself from moving so much anyway.
 
What Ashcat said is true. You won't get an explosion, but it certainly can go up in flames. Most paraffin waxes have melting points below the boiling point of water, somewhere between 100 and 150F is common. The safest way it to put the container with the wax in a bit of boiling water and let it melt.
 
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