tele bridge pickup Archives - Mr Glyn's Pickups

Posted on April 19, 2023December 22, 2023 by mrglynspickups — 1 Comment

The Duchess Tele set

Single The Duchess Tele – NZ$129 for NZ customers. If you’re overseas it’s GST free; $NZ112.17

Pair The Duchess Tele – NZ$249 for NZ customers. If you’re overseas they’re GST free; $NZ216.52

Alnico 5; Bridge 7.28KOhms, Neck 7.1KOhms

The Duchess Tele set is for the Telecaster player in need of that distinctive smooth Tele twang but with none of the ice pick cut. The neck pickup is warm and balanced with a full clarity and string separation. This a medium powered set that sits nicely in my range between the Silver Lady and Cruel Mistress.

The Duchess Tele set will do just about everything from ‘vintage’ Tele twang to a platform for pedals.

The Duchess’ beginnings

The idea for this pickup started in 2021. I had some work at Roundhead recording studios in Auckland looking after the guitars of an American recording artist. During the process, the producer and engineer (working from the US) decided to send over their favorite ‘magic’ telecaster because they wanted that sound on the record.

The guitar arrived and it was an original ’61 Fender Esquire Custom, sunburst, double bound and just beautiful.

Although it was an Esquire it had a neck pickup that they told me had been added later. After taking the pick guard off it looked more like the neck pickup had been fitted in the factory so maybe it was a custom order.

My job was to check over this guitar and set it up for the recording.

Fender Esquire '61. Mr Glyn's Duchess pickup set

I plugged it in and loved the sound immediately, now I understood why they’d shipped it over from the US for this session. So, I got my test meters out to analyze every aspect of the pickup. It was rather unusual for a Fender pickup of that time so maybe it had been re-wound at some stage. That didn’t matter, it sounded great, so I set out to make a Telecaster set in that style but with my own spin.

I made quite a few prototypes and did all the usual testing but didn’t quite get around to releasing the pickup.

The Duchess Tele is finally born

Then in 2022 I had the idea for my Pandora 3-way pickup. I used the design for The Duchess bridge pickup as the middle position for the Pandora. I knew all along the Pandora was never going to be for everyone but was pleasantly surprised when the idea caught on.

An order for a Pandora came in from an old friend of mine in the UK. He’s called Darren Driver and he’s in a well-established Springsteen tribute band – The Boss and the Beeston Street Band

Darren had been a customer of mine when I had a guitar shop in Leeds in the late 90’s. He was a Telecaster player back then. It’s always good to re-connect with people.

A couple of months later Darren got in touch saying how the mid position of the Pandora was his ideal Telecaster sound. Well, that was all it took. I got into the workshop and made a matching neck pickup for the Duchess. That week’s band practice I tested the set next to the drummer and was still really happy with it. So, I sent a set off to Yorkshire.

Darren said he was happy to make a demo of the pickups once he had got them into him number one Telecaster. That’s him in the video above.

And so The Duchess Tele set was born.

The Duchess – Tele set is great with either 250KOhm or 500KOhm volume pots. It’s really up to you – 500K will give more high-end Tele twang while the 250K will sound warmer. It really is a great pickup set either way.

I have made a couple of short videos to explain my thinking behind these two pickups:

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Silver Lady tele set Mr Glyns Pickups — Integrity -vintage humbucker

updated 17 May 2023

The Duchess – Tele set

Posted on April 17, 2023March 18, 2024 by mrglynspickups — 1 Comment

Pandora 3 way Esquire

Pandora 3 way Esquire specifications: Alnico V – 10.07 KOhm 4.4H, 7.28KOhm 2.3H, 5.49KOhm 1.15H

NZ$149 for NZ customers, if you’re overseas it’s GST free; NZ$129.57

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The Pandora 3 way Esquire pickup took its inspiration from my desire to fix a problem.

'Pandora' 3 way Esquire Mr Glyns Pickups

I’ve never been happy with the switching options given on the Fender Esquire so I came up with a plan.

Rather than switch in some capacitors or switch out parts of the circuit and create sounds you can make anyway using the tone control, I thought it would be better to have a tapped pickup so the player could generate usable, ‘real’ tones.

It’s simply a case of ‘tapping’ into the winding at different points to obtain different strength pickups from the one coil.

This essentially gives the player 3 different pickups in one.

So in the middle position it’s an Esquire pickup, one way it’s less than that (I’m calling it ‘Gold Foil’ though it isn’t). The other way it’s more – my Cruel Mistress pickup. This gives 3 distinct tones going from jangly rhythm to fat lead without losing the distinctive Esquire/Telecaster character.

It makes use of the normal 3 way switch to achieve this.

Then, of course, I realized that the main use for this wouldn’t be in Fender Esquires but in single pickup builds. The single pickup movement is getting bigger and this is the perfect tool to give those guitars extra versatility while still using a single Tele style bridge pickup.

So the experiments and trials began, there’s a lot to test with this sort of pickup. There were a lot of trials to get the 3 sounds to work well together, that’s different amps, pedals and most importantly with different drummers and bass players.

The ‘Cruel Mistress’ part was easy, it’s my best selling Telecaster pickup set. The middle position is based on a ’61 Esquire I once had the good fortune of getting to know. I was going for that clear, ringing bridge pickup tone we all know and love, a sound that stands out from a mix. I was so happy with how this pickup turned out that I have since made a Telecaster set from it – The Duchess. The third position I’m calling ‘Gold Foil’ but I could have equally called it ‘Lipstick’. It’s a tone in the character of that style of pickup though technically is neither.

I sat on the design for quite a while (about a year) thinking that although I really liked it the idea might be a bit complicated. I didn’t think people would want a pickup with all those switching options. I had done all the testing, was really happy with the sounds and feel but didn’t do anything about it.

Then on a whim I just posted on Instagram about it and received a huge response. It seemed players and builders liked the idea. So here it is, the Pandora 3 way Esquire.

Thanks to Reg Ayers for this demo : go and check out his YouTube channel – he makes some great pedals.

Pandora 3 way Esquire sounds great with a 500KOhm volume pot or to get the most out of it I recommend this wiring diagram:

Pandora 3 way Esquire suggested wiring diagram

The difference is that 1Meg pot (it’s usually 250KOhms) and those resistors. This enables each of the 3 pickup settings to ‘see’ the volume pot as a different value. It just emphasizes the good points of each setting, it’s subtle but it does make a difference.

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Check out Mr Glyn’s YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@MrGlynsPickups/videos

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Cruel Mistress hot telecaster pickup set.

Posted on October 27, 2021October 18, 2023 by mrglynspickups — Leave a comment

‘68 Telecaster bridge pickup repair

I repair quite a few old pickups and thought you might be interested this ‘68 Telecaster bridge pickup repair.

68 Tele Bridge Pickup. Fender Telecasterbridge pickup from 1968 — ’68 Tele Bridge Pickup

Assessing the damage

As you can see it’s looking pretty tired. I quite like seeing pickups like this – it’s clearly given great service for decades. This is just wear and tear and the sign of a happy life, and although it isn’t working now there’s no reason why it can’t be made good for a few more decades.

One of the first things I noticed is the black tape. Underneath it is the original waxed protective string. I’m not sure why someone added that.

The plate underneath has aged fantastically but as you can see the earth wire is missing from it. I re-solder the connections just in case there is a dry joint but the pickup is still dead.

I suspect this is the fault- the top plate has warped over time and the corrosion has got in and damaged the windings. That top plate looks like a skateboard deck – it should be flat! This ’68 telecaster bridge pickup is going to need a re-wind.

Removing the windings

With the back plate off you can clearly see the date.

And here it is, this is the problem. With the windings cut away you can clearly see that the corrosion on the pole piece has spread into the winding. There’s a bit of wax in there too from when it was potted originally.

So here’s the plan. I need to flatten that top plate back. Then clean up the pole pieces. I need to do something about the corrosion. And finally re-wind the pickup to original spec. And most importantly make it look like nothing ever happened.

Repairing this 68 Telecaster bridge pickup

Cleaning the poles is easy, then I flatten the top plate and glue it in place with super glue. Originally it was just a push fit. Then I treat the rust with some anti rust stuff. Here you can see it masked off so I can give the poles a couple of coats of lacquer.

Next I wrap the poles with thin tape. I want to protect the windings from future corrosion. I want this pickup to play hard for another 50 years.

Then it’s re-winding and wax potting and finally replacing the original string.

Of course, I forget to take a photo of it with the string on.

If you want a Telecaster pickup set similar to an old 68 Telecaster bridge pickup take a look at my “Silver Lady” set. The Silver Lady is wound to very similar spec to the old Fenders.

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