DIY Wax Potting

[greatmutah]

Well I’m giving this a whirl. I’ve had this Detroiter in my H-157 for a while. When it was uncovered it was great. But I like it covered. I’ve never been able to get this thing to set right with the existing cover even trying my silicone on tap method that worked on my Shaw in my LP (still a hair microphonic but whatever) or the Mules. So after researching and reading I’ve got a double boiler setup going. Meat thermometer to check temps and make sure it doesn’t get too hot. I ran the wax originally up to 180 to help the two bricks melt down. Now it’s sitting at 150 after I rewarmed the water. It’s not the most scientific way of doing it but if it gets too hot I just pull the jar from the water. As I’m typing this it’s been in fkr about 10 minutes. Gonna give it 5 more and then pull it.

I’d show pics but IMGUR isn’t working well.

[greatmutah]

Starting the wax melting



Potting the pickup. The wax closest to the pickup briefly solidifies because the baseplate is cooler than the actual wax.



Monitoring the temp.



It started getting too warm so I pulled the jar to let it cool a bit.



After a wipe down and testing the pickup. Same reading as always!

[MacaroniSalad]

A man of science!

[greatmutah]

Now here’s a question: how many boutique guys also use their kitchen for this shit

[greatmutah]

So preliminary tests look good. I could not play loud but I ran it into my Orange into the captor to some IRs. Quiet playing was never the issue here. I just wanted to make sure it had sound and output still. Tomorrow I should get some time to push it at volume.

[greatmutah]

At volume it wasn’t so good. Same problem. Going to check baseplate screws, and recheck my solder and try again. If that doesn’t work, I guess I’m replacing the pickup.

[NinjaRaf]

I recognize all the little ramen noodle pieces everywhere lol. My kid leaves pieces of those things all over the kitchen every single day haha.

[thermionic geek]

Hope you are able to solve the feedback problem. This is a great skill to have. Covers are a pain to sort out. What wax are you using? I've done both paraffin and beeswax. I like the lower temp of the beeswax especially for older pickups. but the paraffin seems to get into the small cracks better once it melts and doesnt smell too bad if it overheats. I notice that potting will sometimes ruin the character of a pickup too. I had a really old Dimarzio PAF that was my favorite neck pickup. It squealed all the time though. I potted it and it stopped the feedback but the tone was different. I think I overheated that one. it still sounded good but less full range if that makes any sense. Before it had a roundness and sparkly highs. Afterward it was kind of bland.

[greatmutah]

I’m just using straight paraffin. Im gonna pop it out and take a look at it but I may just outright replace it and toss this one in the parts bin to fuck with at a later time.

[rock flag and eagle]

Did you remove the cover? I always thought you needed to remove the cover so you get the wax in between the cover and pick up.

[greatmutah]

No the cover needs to stay on so the wax fills in between the pickup and the cover.

[linthat22]

Do you think the magnets might be too strong and need to be demagnetized a bit?

[BroSlinger]

bummer it didn't work.

I had to wax pot some unpotted WRHBs. It worked great.

I used a 50/50 beeswax/paraffin mix.

I definitely left the covers on.

[greatmutah]

bummer it didn't work.

I had to wax pot some unpotted WRHBs. It worked great.

I used a 50/50 beeswax/paraffin mix.

I definitely left the covers on.

I may give it another shot in a few days. If it don’t work, well then it don’t work. I have another pickup on the way already. So not a huge loss if it doesn’t. Maybe this one will become a donor for me to take apart and mess with.

[greatmutah]

Well, I got the new pickup and put it in. Another Detroiter. A little over 4 weeks and it was here. Popped it in and it's freakin perfect. Exactly what I wanted. The same pickup but with a cover. Pulled the cover off the other one and it wasn't as heavily potted as I thought. Guess I should have let it sit longer than the 10 - 15 minutes I did it. No big deal. It's not getting covered again and I may toss it another guitar to make sure it's still good uncovered. It never had an issue before I tried to cover it. Right now it's in my spare pickup bin for the time being. Plus side is the bobbins were intact and nothing was damaged either so at least I kind of did that part right (regulating temperature and all). So I'll test that later and decide what I want to do with it.

[JSutter]

Vacuuming out the air would have helped get the wax inside.