How To Make A P90 "Soap Bar" Guitar Pickup

How to build and wind your own p90 guitar pickups from parts or a kit. Introduction to the parts, tools and techniques used to build one of my popular pickups the p90 Red Edition. Enjoy and Happy building!!
Please like and Subscribe if this is a helpful video for you!!
#guitarbuild #guitarpickups #windpickups

[@victormarinelli5660]

Appears to be your second highest viewed video. I certainly enjoyed it. I've just started going down the rabbit hole of pickup building. Please offer more pickup building content.

[@AaronTheOrchestrator]

Thank you sir, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I will do that

[@edadpops1709]

Loved the video.I haven’t wound for a couple of years.this was a great refresher. Hey what size grommets do you need ,2 mm?

[@FreeDanielLarson2025]

Is this how the 1953-56 p90s were made?, specifically on the Gibson Goldtops, I've seen those pickups go for thousands.

[@martinmelhus7324]

I assume the thin magnet wire has insulation. Do you need to scrape off the insulation at the contacts, or does the heat of the solder remove the insulation?

[@das250250]

It's a very Robert Cray sound for the music ( nice )

[@donmorcego]

I understood that you said that both poles are the same, they come into contact with the screw and central bar. But it seems to me that there is polar opposition, because the magnets attract each other in the video

[@das250250]

How much wire are you using here ? If you have approx 120mm ( 60mm wide pickup) of wire @ 10,000 turns = 1200m of wire ?

[@AaronTheOrchestrator]

That's a very good question, I'm not sure. I usually buy pickup wire by the pound and a half pound is about 25,000 feet I believe, I think I get about 4-5 pickups out of that.

[@das250250]

@@AaronTheOrchestrator 1kg of (0.06mm)43gauge wire = 37,000m. = 37m / gram. For a single pickup approx 1200m = 32g of wire = 0.0705 pounds. 1/2 pound equates to 7 single pickups = 3.5 humbucker types .So your gut feel is about correct with my calcs.

[@Quaffables]

So, it “picks up” the vibrations of the strings through a magnet that translates it into an electromagnetic wave?
Also, I wonder if anyone ever used these in acoustic pianos? I would imagine that sounding pretty damn amazing.

[@NotMarkKnopfler]

Fender Rhodes is exactly that 👍

[@timhamlett5042]

What about wax potting?

[@AaronTheOrchestrator]

I didn't for these but you absolutely could and you'd have a great pickup!

[@Earlvis]

Gibson didn’t start wax-potting til the early 70’s and that’s when they started going south. You lose overtones and harmonic richness when you pot a pickup.

[@joeking433]

Who makes that winder?

[@AaronTheOrchestrator]

It was handmade by a gentleman on eBay. I believe he calls it the "Eagle" I recommend it if he is still selling them on there. They're well made and half the cost of one from Stew-Mac.

[@joeking433]

@@AaronTheOrchestrator I bought one, he's still selling them on ebay. I always like to help these folks out.

[@AaronTheOrchestrator]

Me too! I'm happy to hear that, I hope you have fun time with it!!

[@christianurgese]

Wire gauge?

[@AaronTheOrchestrator]

Sure! I'm using a 42 AWG poly- coated wire for this pickup.

[@christianurgese]

@@AaronTheOrchestrator thanks,
42 0.0025" 0.0635mm

[@redcatstw]

The direction of wire winding is determined by the direction of winding the wire and not the direction of rotation of the bobbin. So your ccw winding up is wrong.

[@joeking433]

There is no possible way to wind a single coil pickup the wrong direction! Either wire end could be the start or the finish, it doesn't matter!

[@redcatstw]

@@joeking433 Yes, this is obvious to those who know it. The reason for what I wrote was different. If someone publishes a video from which others can learn something, if they say they will do CCW, then they should do it correctly.