Vintage Tele pickup rewind/resto...Fralin? Novak? ****?

For guitars of the straight waisted variety (or reverse offset).
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nanamour
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Vintage Tele pickup rewind/resto...Fralin? Novak? ****?

Post by nanamour » Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:44 pm

I recently scored a Sooper Saver deal on a 1968 Telecaster bridge pickup in need of some love--the coil has at least one broken winding, though the seller says he was able to get a reading of 5.6k across two wires sticking out of the coil, so it sounds like it may be salvageable, and the black upper flatwork appears in the listing photos to be slightly warped upward toward the bass side. Everything else--flatwork, pole stagger, date stamp, PVC leads--looks like it checks out ok for a 1968 pup.

While I've fiddled around with a friend's pickup winder a bit on some Strat pickups and the like, I have nowhere near the comfort level to futz with rewinding a vintage pickup (especially when there's a sliver of a chance the original coil can be saved), so I'll be sending it off for restoration/rewinding in the near future.

Now, I know Curtis Novak has a reputation around these parts as thee Wizard of Winding, and from a quick search it seems several people have been very happy with his rewinds of vintage JM/Jag pickups. Another no-brainer option seems to be Lindy Fralin, who appears to enjoy a fair amount of buzz from the Telecaster community, and whose rates for a vintage rewind are comparable with Novak's. Jason Lollar and Don Mare seemed solid choices as well, but it appears neither are doing rewinds anymore, and while I've loved the Bare Knuckle Tele pickups I've heard, I'm not sure I want to ship back and forth to the UK when there's no shortage of highly skilled folks on nearer shores.

I know this is entirely subjective and that I probably can't go wrong here with any of the well-known boutique winders out there, but who would the good people of OSG turn to?

Anyone who has gotten a vintage pickup rewound by either of these folks? Someone else?

Any opinions on/experiences with Lollar/Novak Tele pickups in a more general sense?

Any other suggestions for warlocks of wire who do vintage rewinds?

Any and all relevant thoughts/opinions/experiences welcome!

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Re: Vintage Tele pickup rewind/resto...Fralin? Novak? ****?

Post by nanamour » Sun Sep 23, 2018 3:29 pm

Bump n grind

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Re: Vintage Tele pickup rewind/resto...Fralin? Novak? ****?

Post by Embenny » Sun Sep 23, 2018 8:37 pm

Fralin and Novak are both choices that you will never, ever regret.

Have dealt with both Curtis and Lindy and they are at the top of their game, and super nice guys to deal with too.

If you tell either of them what you want (repair if possible, full rewind, rewind with a specific tone in mind, etc) they can both give you whatever you're looking for.

I'd be hard pressed to choose one over the other. I might just ask them both what their timeline would look like, and go with whoever is available first, because I'd have a hard time finding any other meaningful way to put one ahead of the other.
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Re: Vintage Tele pickup rewind/resto...Fralin? Novak? ****?

Post by kracdown » Sun Sep 23, 2018 9:35 pm

I just had Novak do my '67 tele pickup. He's also done a '63 Jag for me. Both were done to perfect period correct spec and sound amazing. The man knows tone. Fralin is a great choice too. Can't go wrong, IMO. Honestly, I had reservations about Curt doing a tele pickup since he's so well known for his offset stuff, but he turned it around in like 3 days and it is perfect.

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Re: Vintage Tele pickup rewind/resto...Fralin? Novak? ****?

Post by Despot » Sun Sep 23, 2018 10:53 pm

Just a random point re: the warping of the bobbin...

... this is usually how I'd tell a legit late '60s Tele pickup from a fake. Nearly every '60s Tele pickup from the CBS era has some sort of distortion of the bobbin - I've seen it in the bridge pickup in my old '66, in a friend's '67 and in a good few late '60s pickups in store guitars. The material used in the mid/late sixties seems to be lighter than earlier pickups and more prone to warping.

Hope the rewind works well for you - I replaced the non-original pickup in my '66 with a '67/'68 pickup that had something similar to yours done (i.e. a break somewhere near the end of the wind so it didn't need a full rewind) and it sounded amazing. No clue who did the work - but I guess what I'm saying is that this work, if done right, will sound right. And when it comes to pickups Fralin and Novak know their stuff - they'll do it right.

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Re: Vintage Tele pickup rewind/resto...Fralin? Novak? ****?

Post by nanamour » Tue Sep 25, 2018 4:55 pm

Thanks for the input mbene, kracdown, and Despot, very much appreciated. I was hoping this thread might tip me slightly toward one winder or the other, but as everyone has said, both Curt and Lindy have reputations as consummate professionals who really know their craft inside and out, there really is no going wrong here. As mbene suggested upthread, it may simply come down to whoever has a shorter lead time. I'll drop them both a line when the pickup arrives.
kracdown wrote:
Sun Sep 23, 2018 9:35 pm
I just had Novak do my '67 tele pickup. He's also done a '63 Jag for me. Both were done to perfect period correct spec and sound amazing. The man knows tone. Fralin is a great choice too. Can't go wrong, IMO. Honestly, I had reservations about Curt doing a tele pickup since he's so well known for his offset stuff, but he turned it around in like 3 days and it is perfect.
This is exactly what I hoped to hear--while there's plenty of buzz out there about Novak's offset stuff and more custom/one-of creations, it's good to have some (unsurprisingly) glowing experience with him doing a vintage tele rewind.
Despot wrote:
Sun Sep 23, 2018 10:53 pm
Hope the rewind works well for you - I replaced the non-original pickup in my '66 with a '67/'68 pickup that had something similar to yours done (i.e. a break somewhere near the end of the wind so it didn't need a full rewind) and it sounded amazing. No clue who did the work - but I guess what I'm saying is that this work, if done right, will sound right. And when it comes to pickups Fralin and Novak know their stuff - they'll do it right.
Do you happen to remember offhand roughly what neighborhood of resistance that pickup had in the remaining coil? Of course, I would ideally like to make every effort to preserve the original coil, but if the remaining salvageable wire indeed reads in the 5.6k range as the seller claims, I'd worry that may put me into lacerating icepick territory given that these late 60s pickups already have a reputation for brightness/thinness even when in the mid-6kOhm territory.

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Re: Vintage Tele pickup rewind/resto...Fralin? Novak? ****?

Post by Embenny » Tue Sep 25, 2018 5:36 pm

nanamour wrote:
Tue Sep 25, 2018 4:55 pm

This is exactly what I hoped to hear--while there's plenty of buzz out there about Novak's offset stuff and more custom/one-of creations, it's good to have some (unsurprisingly) glowing experience with him doing a vintage tele rewind.
I read an interview with Curtis where he said that he started with strat and tele pickups, but quickly grew bored after he felt he had achieved the best pickups he could make for those guitars.

That's when he started getting into the weirder stuff, like offsets, lipsticks, and goldfoils. But he cut his teeth on teles and strats and considers his pickups for those guitars to be the best he can wind. They may not have the internet buzz on TDPRI that he gets on OSG, but he actually has more experience with teles than anything else.

Not directly relevant to this discussion, but check out his noiseless Telecaster bridge pickup if you ever get the chance. It's a side-by-side design and it sounds bloody fantastic. I think there's a YouTube demo of someone playing one and it's as beautiful a Tele tone as I've ever heard.
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Re: Vintage Tele pickup rewind/resto...Fralin? Novak? ****?

Post by Despot » Wed Sep 26, 2018 12:04 am

nanamour wrote:
Tue Sep 25, 2018 4:55 pm
Do you happen to remember offhand roughly what neighborhood of resistance that pickup had in the remaining coil? Of course, I would ideally like to make every effort to preserve the original coil, but if the remaining salvageable wire indeed reads in the 5.6k range as the seller claims, I'd worry that may put me into lacerating icepick territory given that these late 60s pickups already have a reputation for brightness/thinness even when in the mid-6kOhm territory.
Yep ... it was just over 6k (6.1 or 6.2 iirc). I had two (and tried two) - one was close to 7k and was thin/brittle sounding - very bright with no bass response really. The lower output one that I used in the end was bright sounding (treble for days) but in no way ice pick-y. It sounded full and detailed. I sold the guitar to a friend of mine who runs a guitar shop (he took it home to keep, as was the deal and reason why I sold it to him). He's had CBS late '60s Teles in the shop before - he reckoned that low output pickup was exactly right - bright but not ice pick level bright.

The guitar originally had a '50s spec pickup in it when I got it (a pickup maker out of LA) - it sounded great, but it wasn't the right sound for a '60s Telecaster bridge pickup. The one that eventually went into the guitar made it sound as it should - bright with treble for days, but not an ice pick.

The thing to consider with treble too is that you can't add it if you don't have it to begin with - you can always dial it back with the tone control ... but if it isn't there it's tough to add it in. The main thing isn't that the pickup isn't too bright (it should be bright) - but that it sounds full. I've always thought that the difference between just bright enough and ice pick level treble isn't actually the degree of treble itself - but the perceived fullness of the sound. If it lacks a full sound and then the trebles are the only thing coming through ... but if you've got a fuller sounding pickup that's bright it doesn't come across as an ice pick at all (even if there may actually be similar levels of treble in both cases - just how it's perceived is different).

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