Today's Score TBird-ST

Quantum Strummer

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When I was first checking out my Fender Jaguar (a '66) the folks at Elderly told me it had really juicy pickups. Which it does…they're thicker sounding than the Jag norm. Not too many years after I got the guitar, Forrest White put out a book about his time at Fender. In it he says one of the things that drove him to quit his job was a directive from the CBS muckety mucks to wind Jaguar pickups with 43 gauge wire, I guess due to a temporary shortage of 42 gauge. This was in mid 1966, right around when my Jag was made. :)

-Dave-
 

DThomasC

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Usually different resistance measurements mean different amounts of wire; more resistance means more turns of wire which makes it hotter (and darker and muddier.) But you're right that sometimes it has to do with the gauge of wire. Some of Firebird pickups, for example, have really high resistance, but it's not because they're hot, it's because they used really fine wire in order to get enough turns on those really small bobbins.

Anyway, when it came to NS minihums, (aka LB-1's) I had assumed that the bridge pickup had lower resistance simply because it had fewer turns of wire, but this wouldn't be the first time I made a poor assumption...

I do have one bridge LB-1 that I bought on ebay and I'm not afraid to sacrifice it to science, but it wouldn't do much good without a neck version to compare it to.

In any case, I'm going to guess without any supporting evidence whatsoever, that the NS LB-1's have not ever changed since they where first put into production by Fender. But, again, I've guessed wrong lots of times.
 
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