Steel Guitar Builder

Thanks, Bent - glad to be here. Here's the site of the man who built my steel (I came up with the design, he made it work brilliantly). He builds his own split coil pickups for 6, 7 and 8 string laps: http://bluestemstrings.com/pageLap.html

Regards,
Peter

I got thinking about all the discussions here about single coil pickup hum today. I'm about to get busy winding a pickup for my latest 12 string pedal steel. The fact that in the normal playing position with a regular electric guitar the coil is vertical as opposed to a pedal steel where the coil is horizontal which greatly increases the hum....why I don't know (or care I guess!) I was thinking today about winding the coil as I do normally on a wooden bobbin and then inserting the pole pieces with a 90 deg bend in them so they sit under the strings nicely but the coil is vertical sort of beside them. I use individual 3/16" diameter circular ceramic magnets and 3/16" steel rod for pole pieces. I kind of hate doing this sort of experimentation when I really don't have a clue what the result will be. Wonder if any of you folks have an opinion on whether this sort of design is likely to work, and would pick up the string vibrations adequately
Thanks in advance....
Mac

Mac, I don't follow you here. You say you use 3/16"ceramic magnets and then 3/16" pole pieces? I simply don't understand, I need to learn more.
I thought if one uses pole pieces you simply would have those as magnets down through your bobbin.

Yes, the vertical/horizontal orientation makes all the difference in the world, and it's driving me nuts, not being able to get rid of the hum. I have done every trick in the book as far as grounding, shielding etc and still I have bad hum.

Currently I am working on trying to make a pup with 2 staggered coils, like the one in the European steel forum, where you wind 2 separate coils with 5 mags in each. One coil is wound left to right and has north magnets pointing up. Second coil is wound right to left and has south mags pointing up. Then these 2 coils are hooked up in series and staggered in placement upon the plates. I have no idea how this is done quickly and accurately. It's a real pain in the @ss to get pole pieces and the holes in the plates to line up. I am about 50% done with what can only be described as a bad looking prototype.
Both coils in series add up to 16.4 K. I do hope that I will be able to put this one together and try it out. I have had too much work with this thing to just have it go in the recycler.

An idea hit me as I was typing. See it under Opposite-wound pup.

Bent...this is what I had in mind. Not a great drawing but the pole piece is just a piece of 3/16" steel rod bent at 90 deg. and the small magnet is just attached to the bottom end of the rod, on the left side of the coil.