Search results

The electronics. I found some circuits on www, and used variations (available components) on the guitar. This one seemed it would be good to match the coils to amp - a common base configuration. http://www3.telus.net/chemelec/Projects/Spkr-Mic/Spkr-mic.htm

Just another tonal option. Very bright and gritty.

I had some piezo discs, so I mounted them under the bridge.

I later smoothed the top of the bridge pup with some epoxy, and painted the tops dark brown to match the guitar colors.

Both pickups.

The neck pickup.

The bridge pickup.

I made a simple spool holding jig (the fret slotting jig, upside down :)), and wound the pickups by hand. One took about 900 turns, and the other 600.

I certainly don't rule, but thanks for the compliments. :) On to winding the pups. The copier had a number of solenoids. The resistances were in the 50 to 80 ohm range, and the wire gauge probably in the mid 30's, so obviously wouldn't match the input impedance of a guitar amp. I'd need active...

On the pickup. Worked fine after that.

After the guitar was together, levels from the separate strings of the bridge pickup were quite varied. Some research showed how the poles were arranged. I had to cut the magnets in half and rearrange them. http://www.reuk.co.uk/Hard-Disk-Drive-Magnets-For-Wind-Turbines.htm for explanation.

I used hard drive magnets for the bridge pu. (This pic after it was wound.)

Glued. The neck pu uses magnets from the door latches of the copier.

Drawn, cut, and drilled. The bridge pu pole pieces are more copier shaft.

On to the pickups. Forms were made from PC board in the copier. I picked the one with the fewest components, desoldered them and ground off the copper pads (belt sander, of course.)

Trial neck fitting.

Screws are from 3" coated deck screws - cut to appropriate length and heads rounded.

The neck plate is from the same steel as the bridge.

Sorry to disappoint, but I used a set of real strings I had around. In Africa, I've seen some musicians use unbraided bicycle brake cables on their tin can guitars.

Here's one: Direction/discussion in the link below. http://www.recordingmag.com/resources/resourceDetail/319.html There's a kit for about $25, or you can build it from scratch.