Old Hofner Jazz guitar rewind

Most of what I do all day is make new pickups ... Oil City Oil City Masterwound ... but sometimes something cool and old comes in to be restored ... and I like to share

This is a lovely old pickup made for Hofner between 1955 and 1957. Sadly, it had suffered major damp damage, was full of corrosion and dead as a dodo!

The coil in this sort of pickup is an 'air coil' wound without a bobbin ... originally on a wire basket affair in a lathe chuck. After winding the coil was tied at three points with cotton then wrapped in plain old Sellotape ... no potting.

Below is my two part 'dummy bobbin' made just for doing these Hofner coils.

And above ... the pickup rewound. I stuck to the fifties German method right up to the tape wrapping ... where I used much tougher modern cloth tape. The pickup will receive a very light wax potting to 'seat everything together nicely ... and make it usable on the lovely old jazz box it came off of. Not enough to deaden the tone ... just stop the worst of the squeal these units are renowned for.

Doing this sort of job gives you a real feel for the era and production methods ... and lets some nice old kit get used again.