Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I bought a project 610 that included a single old-style high gain that had been subjected to previous tinkering (missing magnet, reordered pole pieces, missing leads). Through the generosity of another forum member, I picked up a magnet, put it in place, and pffft!: it's dead. A meter says 0 ohms.

The question is: do I rewind it or trash it? I wanted an old-style high gain for comparitive purposes, but I'm not really sure if it's worth the effort to rewind it myself or the expense to pay someone else to rewind it. In most situations, the efficient solution is to just buy another one. However, I'm an incurable tinkerer, so...

More questions:
- What's the nominal resistance for an old-style high gain?
- How much #44 wire does it take?
- Any tips on home rewinding?
- Any recommendations on rewinding technique?
- Any recommendations on person/shop to do the rewinding?
- Any old-style high gains to sell?

Thanks.

Hmm... Don't trash it, rewind it or have it rewound. Should you decide to have it rewound, you know who you can turn to, and it will cost you nothing. Cheers.

Adam - I've got a toaster that I need to rewind, but haven't done it yet. I have devised a plan though. I've got plenty of skateboard stuff around the house, so I'm mounting a jig on a wheel and truck on one side and my cordless drill with a jig mounted on it on the other, probably strapping a small clamp to a paddle bit.
The pickup's disconnected down inside the bobbin, so I'm going to have to unwind it AND rewind it. The unwinding I'm good at.
I've got functioning toasters in all my Rics already, that's why I've been putting this off for about a year...
Let me know how it goes. Maybe I'll attempt this soon so we can compare.

Adam, if it's 0 OHM there is a chance to fix it without rewinding. There might be a short circuit close to the beginning of the winding or so.

Uhh..., no. It seems that all of my shielded pickup cable is 2000 miles away, and the existing leads are much too short to reach the control cavity. However, the guitar and I are taking a roadtrip back to the home parts bin in three days. I'll have it in by next week, because we're "putting the band back together" for a one-off on 10/29:

I know that Seymour Duncan has a rewind service.
Stewart-MacDonald has a pickup winder. It is pricey though. Unless you have a few to do it's probably not worth it, $329. They sell 42 gauge wire, 1/2 lb, 25,000' for 21.95. That's enough for 5-6 singe coil pick ups, or 2-3 humbuckers, per their catalog.

Funny that this thread should pop up again. I pulled my dead toaster out of the closet this weekend with the plan to unwind it and REwind it.
After I took the cover off, I checked the resistance again just to confirm the job I had ahead of me. Low and behold I got a reading (7.4K) - I don't know how, but it's not dead. It doesn't have a lead on it, so I took the one off of my 325's middle pickup that was disconnected. Maybe it was a blob of solder on the terminal or something. But it reads now. Amazing, because I must have checked it twenty times before, not wanting to believe I had killed it.
I am definitely going to Radio Shack and investing in some 'heat-sinks' before I solder the lead back on, because I still think that heating up that terminal post too much is what disconnects the coil wire down inside the bobbin.

You're right, Spencer. Not to mention that applying too much heat to said terminal can also simply short the coil out.
Groovy poster, Adam.