| Author |
Topic: Dickerson Pickup Redo |
Rick Aiello
From:
Berryville, VA USA
|
Posted 28 Dec 2023 5:09 pm |
|
My kids got me a "Tulip" prewar Dickerson for Christmas. Its pickup had been redone, and the MOTS was hacked up pretty badly from digging out the original unit.
I removed the replacement pickup, which was a plastic bobbin cut to fit the little cavity . It was just set on top of the big, single horseshoe ...
It was originally magnetized so that the "faces" were opposite poles ... which left a dead spot in the center ... affecting strings 3 and 4 ... so I put it on the electromagnet and changed the orientation so that the faces were both South and the curve was North ... the output is now even across all strings.
Unlike the post wars ... this alnico horseshoe takes up the entire cavity except for about a 1/4" above the faces.
The original unit was an aircoil ... so I made a jig , wound an air coil and dropped it over a 1008 blade ...
The jack was changed from an amphenol to a standard 1/4" and placed where the volume pot was. No biggie , no real need for a volume control ... such a tiny pickup wound to 3.5 kOhm doesn't produce much output (but it is sweet sounding). I wound it with 43 AWG magnet wire.
Laid the blade and aircoil on the magnet and filled the entire cavity with wax ...
Put a little ground wire on ... put the hand-rest (which had a thick piece of sheet steel silver soldered on - to help bring up the field ) back on ... strung it up ... nice little steel guitar ... it's so very small (although it is a full 22.5")
Last edited by Rick Aiello on 31 Dec 2023 2:41 pm; edited 2 times in total |
|
|
 |
Tony Oresteen
From:
Georgia, USA
|
Posted 28 Dec 2023 5:15 pm
|
|
Great story! So how do you have it tuned?
_________________
Tony
Newnan, GA
Too many guitars, not enough time to play
'72 Sho-Bud 6139, '71 Marlen 210
'78 Fender Stringmaster Quad black
PedalMaster D8 |
|
|
|
Rick Aiello
From:
Berryville, VA USA
|
Posted 28 Dec 2023 5:24 pm
|
|
| E9 (hi to lo) E B G# F# E D 🎅🏻 |
|
|
|
HowardR
From:
N.Y.C.-Fire Island-Asheville
|
Posted 28 Dec 2023 5:38 pm
|
|
| I love these little MOT guitars......easy to tote & play.....and they can wail!..... |
|
|
|
Frank James Pracher
From:
Michigan, USA
|
Posted 29 Dec 2023 1:22 pm
|
|
I wound a pickup for one of my Magnatones. I opted to not use the horseshoe magnet and went with one from a lipstick tube pickup.. I made a carrier board out of a piece of veroboard and wax potted the whole assembly. I think I wound it somewhere between 3.5 and 4k. It sounds just like my other Maggies so I'll say mission accomplished.
_________________
"Don't be mad honey, but I bought another one" |
|
|
|
Rick Aiello
From:
Berryville, VA USA
|
Posted 31 Dec 2023 5:10 am
|
|
Good job on the aircoil .... a lost art 😄
I have an older Magnetone "pre-Lyric" D8 that utilizes aircoils around alnico pole pieces that are set into a wooden tray ... north seeking poles up inside the coil and south seeking poles up just outside the coil - in line with the magnets in the coil. A very interesting magnetic circuit 🧐 |
|
|
|
Jeff Highland
From:
New South Wales, Australia
|
Posted 31 Dec 2023 12:05 pm
|
|
What is an aircoil?
_________________
Duesenberg Fairytale
1949 Supro Supreme
1950 National New Yorker
2008 Highland Baritone Weissenborn
2020 Highland New Yorker.
2020 Highland Mohan Veena
2021 Highland Weissencone |
|
|
|
Rick Aiello
From:
Berryville, VA USA
|
Posted 31 Dec 2023 2:18 pm
|
|
By definition ... it's a coil of wire without a ferromagnetic core.
Once you slip it over a blade or pole pieces ... it's no longer an aircoil, technically.
They are found most often in electronics ... most all pickups these days are coils wound on bobbins containing some ferromagnetic material ... but in the early days Epiphone, Magnetone and a few others wound aircoils and then fit them with some sort of magnetic material ... Epiphone used Ricky style horseshoes (very strong magnets) and an aircoil with two blades that double as a mount (two tiny threaded holes in the bottom of the blades.)
Hope that helped ... 🎅🏻 |
|
|
|
Jeff Highland
From:
New South Wales, Australia
|
Posted 31 Dec 2023 2:26 pm
|
|
thanks
_________________
Duesenberg Fairytale
1949 Supro Supreme
1950 National New Yorker
2008 Highland Baritone Weissenborn
2020 Highland New Yorker.
2020 Highland Mohan Veena
2021 Highland Weissencone |
|
|
|
Rick Aiello
From:
Berryville, VA USA
|
|
|
|
Pete McAvity
From:
St. Louis, Missouri USA
|
Posted 1 Jan 2024 9:26 am
|
|
Sounds great, Rick! Do you know if all of these little Dickerson/Magnatones w/ the hidden pickup are horseshoes? I picked one up about 10 years ago which was dead. Lucked out as someone had just futzed w/ the pots & wiring. Once corrected it sang, so I didn’t have to dig at the pickup. Pots were replacements, so I can’t place a birth year, but figure 60’s or older. It’s a “Santa Ana Music” badged little guy, so it was ordered as a teaching studio instrument from Valco.
_________________
Excel Superb D10, Sarno Black Box or Freeloader, Goodrich L120, Boss DD5, Baby Bloomer, 1965 Super Reverb chopped to a head, feeding a mystery PA cab w/ a K130.
They say "thats how it goes". I say "that ain't the way it stays!" |
|
|
|
Rick Aiello
From:
Berryville, VA USA
|
Posted 1 Jan 2024 11:37 am
|
|
That's a good question ... I don't know if they all had a horseshoe magnet providing the juice ...
Here's a 1957 unit (photo courtesy of Denny Turner)
 |
|
|
|
Pete McAvity
From:
St. Louis, Missouri USA
|
Posted 1 Jan 2024 12:41 pm
|
|
Well, I guess I’m just gonna have to look into getting mine X-rayed (or forget about it & just enjoy the tone).
_________________
Excel Superb D10, Sarno Black Box or Freeloader, Goodrich L120, Boss DD5, Baby Bloomer, 1965 Super Reverb chopped to a head, feeding a mystery PA cab w/ a K130.
They say "thats how it goes". I say "that ain't the way it stays!" |
|
|
|
