BradHK
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2014
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I have a 1964 Polara that I saved from a person who buys vintage guitars, strips them down, and then sells off the individual components (you know who I am talking about but I thought I would be nice and not list names). I brought the guitar back to life with all original period correct components. However, the one item I have been unable to find are the original chrome single coil pickups. I have only seen them in some Polara and Slim Jim guitars of this era and I have never seen a set for sale.
I had Pete Biltoft (Vintage Vibe Guitars) make me a custom P-90 style set to fit the original pickguard. They are ALNICO 2, not too hot and sound great in this guitar. However, I keep wondering what the original pickups would sound like in this guitar. Does anybody have any specifications on the original pickups such as resistance, magnets, etc that I could use to have another set custom made that “reproduce” the originals as close as possible? Alternatively, if you have a set for sale let me know!
I know we all love photos at LTG so I will provide a brief into to the guitar and some pics:
The body is mahogany and the original finish is showing its age from what appears to be temperature changes and poor storage rather than play wear. The frets were non-existent and it had fret buzz above the 15th fret or so. However, it has the best neck profile out of all of the vintage Guilds I own with a wide nut (just over 1 11/16”) and a very full feeling neck. I decided to spend the money and had Glaser Instruments in Nashville refret and set up on their Plek machine. I used vintage width frets but a little taller than the originals. It now plays beautiful all the way up the neck with very low action. Definitely a keeper!
I had Pete Biltoft (Vintage Vibe Guitars) make me a custom P-90 style set to fit the original pickguard. They are ALNICO 2, not too hot and sound great in this guitar. However, I keep wondering what the original pickups would sound like in this guitar. Does anybody have any specifications on the original pickups such as resistance, magnets, etc that I could use to have another set custom made that “reproduce” the originals as close as possible? Alternatively, if you have a set for sale let me know!
I know we all love photos at LTG so I will provide a brief into to the guitar and some pics:
The body is mahogany and the original finish is showing its age from what appears to be temperature changes and poor storage rather than play wear. The frets were non-existent and it had fret buzz above the 15th fret or so. However, it has the best neck profile out of all of the vintage Guilds I own with a wide nut (just over 1 11/16”) and a very full feeling neck. I decided to spend the money and had Glaser Instruments in Nashville refret and set up on their Plek machine. I used vintage width frets but a little taller than the originals. It now plays beautiful all the way up the neck with very low action. Definitely a keeper!