Gibson Ultratone Build

[Mark Frederick Jr]

Oh baby... I think these are the ones. I am confident that these 3d print files are as close as I can come to an original without actually seeing an original. I am going to start filing, filling, and sanding the covers and then hopefully start painting soon.

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[Mark Frederick Jr]

I made a line drawing of the flowers, getting some quotes for some waterslide decals in gold metallic.

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The topmost part of the flower to the lowest part of the vine is right about 3 inches.

[Jack Hanson]

Awesome, thanks for the tip! Did you use the same for the other flat metal ones?

Mark, the 12th fret markers on the Ultratone pictured above are presumably the factory originals in which the red paint had worn off. If they would have come out easily, I would have repainted them. Since they did not, I made the executive decision to leave well enough alone and avoid breaking the fretboard in any attempt to pry them out.

I have, however, ground down and painted new screw nails on a handful of rescued Ultratones, Centuries, and Century Deluxes, but not on that one.

By the way, I had to purchase an entire box of the screw nails from McMaster Car, and have plenty. PM me with your mailing address, and I'll be happy to send you some if you can use 'em.

[Mark Frederick Jr]

Awesome, thanks for the tip! Did you use the same for the other flat metal ones?

Mark, the 12th fret markers on the Ultratone pictured above are presumably the factory originals in which the red paint had worn off. If they would have come out easily, I would have repainted them. Since they did not, I made the executive decision to leave well enough alone and avoid breaking the fretboard in any attempt to pry them out.

I have, however, ground down and painted new screw nails on a handful of rescued Ultratones, Centuries, and Century Deluxes, but not on that one.

By the way, I had to purchase an entire box of the screw nails from McMaster Car, and have plenty. PM me with your mailing address, and I'll be happy to send you some if you can use 'em.

I saw that they went by the box, and will definitely take you up on that, thank you! I'll send you a message shortly.

[Greg Forsyth]

Hi Mark,
What an Ultracool project your working on and you have received plenty of outstanding advise for your build process. One thing I'd advise is to mock up a body out of a lesser wood (paint grade) than the walnut. That way you can work out the bugs like you've been doing with your 3d printed parts. Having all your hardware, such as pickup, electronics, bridge, , nut, tuning machines etc. on hand will help with working through the mockup process and can be use to identify any unforeseen situations.
If you like the mockup you can paint it or make a matching body out of walnut to use. Or build 2 guitars or more if you'd like, since you put so much effort into designing the UltraCool.

My best,
Greg

[Mark Frederick Jr]

Hi Mark,
What an Ultracool project your working on and you have received plenty of outstanding advise for your build process. One thing I'd advise is to mock up a body out of a lesser wood (paint grade) than the walnut. That way you can work out the bugs like you've been doing with your 3d printed parts. Having all your hardware, such as pickup, electronics, bridge, , nut, tuning machines etc. on hand will help with working through the mockup process and can be use to identify any unforeseen situations.
If you like the mockup you can paint it or make a matching body out of walnut to use. Or build 2 guitars or more if you'd like, since you put so much effort into designing the UltraCool.

My best,
Greg

That is great and sober advice, I think I will do just that!

[Mark Frederick Jr]

Not much to report today, hopefully I am not boring anyone by over-posting, but forums like this are a good personal motivator. My family is very supportive, and they love the final products, but the journey is the most fascinating part for me. Most people don't really want to hear about the differences between bridges and the possible tonal implications on a 1950's lap steel build. In fact, most of my school students have been asking me what a lap steel is when I have pics up.

One of the best parts of my day job is introducing interesting instruments to my orchestra students. They all know the ubiquitous instruments, the orchestral strings, pianos, guitars, basses, and drums, etc. I vary styles on these, show how the same instrument can have many faces. Then there are the peripheral instruments that are always there, but aren't in your faces as much. These are always a big hit. I'll bring in my 5-string banjo, my mandolin, a latin percussion setup, a ukulele, or maybe a synth from the 90s that has way more familiar sounds than you would think.

And then there are the really cool instruments, the ones that they hear the sound and shout "I have totally heard that before!!" They go nuts when I bring out an accordion, or play some jazz on my tenor banjo, or a balalaika to play the Tetris theme. I have a few Chinese instruments like the erhu and the pipa, which look so different, but they know the sounds.

This will be one of those sounds, when this project is done I get to bring it in and share the music. And a whole bunch of those kids are going to see and hear something they will love, and a few will ask to come in after school or during lunch to try it out. A few of those will seek out a used rogue lap steel on marketplace, and one kid may get pretty good and be featured in next winter's concert on lap steel. That's kind of how these things go. It's the best. Brings me right back to my moments, keeps the fire going strong. I think that is why most teachers teach. Except for the evil ones, of course. We all had one.

Anyway, tomorrow is cluttered shop clean-up after I do the family quality-time thing. Hopefully I can get things where they need to go and start making some templates Friday night. I have materials on the way and I think the journey is about to get even more fun. I am sure a riveting failure is in the cards as always, and hopefully a clever solution presents itself and moves the project forward. If I can tidy my little shop up in a reasonable amount of time I'll give you a little tour, maybe I can take some suggestions on how to better organize my space for a cleaner workflow.

Goodnight!

[Mark Frederick Jr]

Good news everyone! I found a new engineering problem to solve! I just saw that the string spacing is wider for this pickup than a standard p-90! I am seeing a few different measurements:

2 1/16"
2 3/16"
58mm

I don't know which is right, but I am excited for the opportunity to do some more design work in fusion. Once I find the true string spacing measurement I will make a p-90 cover model, along with any other interior components I may need to wind the pickup. I have fibre for bobbins already, and the rest of the pickup I assume is standard components (magnets and screws).

I'll take any insight on this! I am especially curious if they used the same covers, with only the holes drilled differently. It seems like that would be the most cost effective way to go about it.

[Mark Frederick Jr]

It occurred to me that I could use the plan I made (and the sized image it all came from) to measure the pickup spacing. Comes out to 2.275, rounds up to 2.28. Given small tolerance deviations due to pixelation and human error, I would say we have 58mm!

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This works out great, I can work right off of the plan I already made, using the p90 template as a reference! I thought about making a 3d model of that template to print, but I don't know that it would be worth the print with a rectangle. Easier to just make it with wood strips, and go around the pickup cover I have in-hand to guarantee the fit.

[Greg Forsyth]

Sentell pu's makes a lap steel P90 style pu (Tennessee Honey) that has a 58 mm string spread which may have been the original spacing for the P90, but not sure. Here's a link.

https://www.sentellpickups.net/steel

[Mark Frederick Jr]

Made a quick 3d model of a p90 cover with 58mm spacing (2.28"), hopefully this is as straightforward as is seems. I can make templates based on this to shape the pickup flatwork as well. I'll let you know how that went in about 40 minutes!

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[Mark Frederick Jr]

Sentell pu's makes a lap steel P90 style pu (Tennessee Honey) that has a 58 mm string spread which may have been the original spacing for the P90, but not sure. Here's a link.

https://www.sentellpickups.net/steel

Beautiful, I will take that as confirmation, thank you for digging that up!!

[J D Sauser]

In my opinion, the "secret" of the UltraTone is the wood and most of all the PRE-P90 pickup of which I don't know if anybody has yet made a credible copy.
My first legit steel was a 1942 Gibson Console Grand in gorgeous sunburst with bindings and "soap bar"-pickup. The pickups sucked.
I picked up an UltraTone and comparatively it "blew" like a super-charged blow dryer (as our bassist called it back then). Sadly there were only 6 and only a hand full of 7 stringer built. I still have tow 6 stringers, even thou I don't play less than 10 strings anymore because of my playing style inclinations.

I salute your 3D work on the covers. But as I said, the "Ultra" will come from the pickup and to a much lesser degree the wood.

When you got it down, that it "blow dries" everything off the stage, I'll place an order for a couple of S12 UtraTones with you!

... J-D.

[Mark Frederick Jr]

In my opinion, the "secret" of the UltraTone is the wood and most of all the PRE-P90 pickup of which I don't know if anybody has yet made a credible copy.
My first legit steel was a 1942 Gibson Console Grand in gorgeous sunburst with bindings and "soap bar"-pickup. The pickups sucked.
I picked up an UltraTone and comparatively it "blew" like a super-charged blow dryer (as our bassist called it back then). Sadly there were only 6 and only a hand full of 7 stringer built. I still have tow 6 stringers, even thou I don't play less than 10 strings anymore because of my playing style inclinations.

I salute your 3D work on the covers. But as I said, the "Ultra" will come from the pickup and to a much lesser degree the wood.

When you got it down, that it "blow dries" everything off the stage, I'll place an order for a couple of S12 UtraTones with you!

... J-D.

That's really interesting, I wonder what the secret was? It would be cool to have an output measurement from one, I wonder if the spec was close to a standard pickup of the day. It could also be useful to know if it was early enough that the windings were completely by hand and scatterwound or did they have machines to make everything uniform at that point. If the latter, it could be that the wind counter was a uniform set that was applied to all pickups, which would have given them a unique identity to the wider spaced bobbins. Lots to ponder there..

[J D Sauser]

In my opinion, the "secret" of the UltraTone is the wood and most of all the PRE-P90 pickup of which I don't know if anybody has yet made a credible copy.
My first legit steel was a 1942 Gibson Console Grand in gorgeous sunburst with bindings and "soap bar"-pickup. The pickups sucked.
I picked up an UltraTone and comparatively it "blew" like a super-charged blow dryer (as our bassist called it back then). Sadly there were only 6 and only a hand full of 7 stringer built. I still have tow 6 stringers, even thou I don't play less than 10 strings anymore because of my playing style inclinations.

I salute your 3D work on the covers. But as I said, the "Ultra" will come from the pickup and to a much lesser degree the wood.

When you got it down, that it "blow dries" everything off the stage, I'll place an order for a couple of S12 UtraTones with you!

... J-D.

That's really interesting, I wonder what the secret was? It would be cool to have an output measurement from one, I wonder if the spec was close to a standard pickup of the day. It could also be useful to know if it was early enough that the windings were completely by hand and scatterwound or did they have machines to make everything uniform at that point. If the latter, it could be that the wind counter was a uniform set that was applied to all pickups, which would have given them a unique identity to the wider spaced bobbins. Lots to ponder there..

Output measuring is not revealing the secret. Am by NO measure a electrician, much less an electronics specialist, but from I "learned" from a day with Bill Lawrence around 2000 at his factory, one needs to take into consideration of the wire gauge, the number of windings and the type, size, material, and strength of the magnet poles. Scattered winding vs. smooth winding can have an impact on the width of the windings too.
As he put it, measuring the output and much worse the resistance (which he called it NOT being the real "impedance" of a pickup) was senseless.

I would be inclined to consider to scarify one of my UltraTone's Pre-P90's for such a research by a QUALIFIED pickup specialist with a proven track record of actual scientific knowledge (NO redneck-hillbilly-voodoo tinkerer!), to so allow for these amazing pickups being re-issued and also try to create 10 and 12 string versions.

... J-D.

[Mark Frederick Jr]

In my opinion, the "secret" of the UltraTone is the wood and most of all the PRE-P90 pickup of which I don't know if anybody has yet made a credible copy.
My first legit steel was a 1942 Gibson Console Grand in gorgeous sunburst with bindings and "soap bar"-pickup. The pickups sucked.
I picked up an UltraTone and comparatively it "blew" like a super-charged blow dryer (as our bassist called it back then). Sadly there were only 6 and only a hand full of 7 stringer built. I still have tow 6 stringers, even thou I don't play less than 10 strings anymore because of my playing style inclinations.

I salute your 3D work on the covers. But as I said, the "Ultra" will come from the pickup and to a much lesser degree the wood.

When you got it down, that it "blow dries" everything off the stage, I'll place an order for a couple of S12 UtraTones with you!

... J-D.

That's really interesting, I wonder what the secret was? It would be cool to have an output measurement from one, I wonder if the spec was close to a standard pickup of the day. It could also be useful to know if it was early enough that the windings were completely by hand and scatterwound or did they have machines to make everything uniform at that point. If the latter, it could be that the wind counter was a uniform set that was applied to all pickups, which would have given them a unique identity to the wider spaced bobbins. Lots to ponder there..

Output measuring is not revealing the secret. Am by NO measure a electrician, much less an electronics specialist, but from I "learned" from a day with Bill Lawrence around 2000 at his factory, one needs to take into consideration of the wire gauge, the number of windings and the type, size, material, and strength of the magnet poles. Scattered winding vs. smooth winding can have an impact on the width of the windings too.
As he put it, measuring the output and much worse the resistance (which he called it NOT being the real "impedance" of a pickup) was senseless.

I would be inclined to consider to scarify one of my UltraTone's Pre-P90's for such a research by a QUALIFIED pickup specialist with a proven track record of actual scientific knowledge (NO redneck-hillbilly-voodoo tinkerer!), to so allow for these amazing pickups being re-issued and also try to create 10 and 12 string versions.

... J-D.

I bet Curtis Novak would take a look, he does high quality work, and has been very open to making reproductions of more obscure pickups. I think his fender electric 12 pickup repro description has a statement to the effect of "I'll never make the money back I put into reproducing this pickup, but I really wanted it to be available". If you ever reach out I would love to hear about it.

Bill Lawrence was very cool, what an innovator. What was he like in person?

I'll be the first to admit I am no expert when it comes to winding pickups. I made myself a winder a few years back, and I have made a fair bunch of pickups and interesting prototypes, but I am mostly just taking the general specs of those who came before me. Seems like Alnico 2 and 42awg wire were the norm at the time, but I am still digging. The internet is so vast now that you really have to weed the guesses out of the gems. I don't have the enamel coated wire, just the poly, but it should get me into classic p90 territory at least.

[Jack Hanson]

The first white-painted Ultratones (circa 1946) and black-painted Centuries (circa 1948) were fitted with the wide-oval/racetrack pickups with alnico magnet slugs for polepieces. The second generation, redesigned (circa 1951) ivory-topped Ultatones (mahogany body) and blue-painted Centuries (maple body) were fitted with a P-90 pickup, which had ferrous Fillister-head adjustable screws for polepieces which attached to a chunk of soft iron that contacted a pair of alnico bar magnets on each side, underneath the coil.

Both the wide-oval/racetrack pickup and the P-90 pickup fitted to 6-string instruments had their respective polepieces spaced approximately 58mm apart. A later run of the ivory-top/mahogany-bodied Ultratones (circa 1957 - 1959) were fitted with the new Gibson PAF humbucking pickup. These instruments had a narrower bridge to match the narrower polepiece spacing of the PAF.

[Jack Hanson]

Sentell pu's makes a lap steel P90 style pu (Tennessee Honey) that has a 58 mm string spread which may have been the original spacing for the P90, but not sure. Here's a link.

https://www.sentellpickups.net/steel

I wholeheartedly agree with Greg. I have ordered literally dozens of custom pickups (P-90s and many others) for both overhand and underhand electric guitars from Christine and Jerry Sentell, and they all have been excellent. Jerry has done a handful of rewinds (Gibson wide-oval/racetrack pickups, and Ric horseshoes) for me too, and they have been uniformly excellent.

[Mark Frederick Jr]

The first white-painted Ultratones (circa 1946) and black-painted Centuries (circa 1948) were fitted with the wide-oval/racetrack pickups with alnico magnet slugs for polepieces. The second generation, redesigned (circa 1951) ivory-topped Ultatones (mahogany body) and blue-painted Centuries (maple body) were fitted with a P-90 pickup, which had ferrous Fillister-head adjustable screws for polepieces which attached to a chunk of soft iron that contacted a pair of alnico bar magnets on each side, underneath the coil.

Both the wide-oval/racetrack pickup and the P-90 pickup fitted to 6-string instruments had their respective polepieces spaced approximately 58mm apart. A later run of the ivory-top/mahogany-bodied Ultratones (circa 1957 - 1959) were fitted with the new Gibson PAF humbucking pickup. These instruments had a narrower bridge to match the narrower polepiece spacing of the PAF.

Excellent info, awesome read! I Have seen those older versions with the racetrack pickup, but I didn't know that they had magnetic slugs for polepieces. That may lead me down a rabbit hole later tonight.

[Mark Frederick Jr]

I don't know how much experience some of you have with 3d printing, I assume it is a wide range from zero to expert. I am not either, but I'll share my limited knowledge so far.

I thought when I bought the printer last year that is would be like a paper printer, but for plastic. I now know that is a common misconception, and there is often a lot of trial and error that goes into a successful print. I don't want to sound pessimistic though, it is really an amazing tool. As I post, please feel free to ask questions or share your knowledge, I know there are a lot of folks here who probably can offer some great advice.

After experimenting with placement, I try and get a print with the least amount of contact with my build plate. There is always going to be a bit of cleanup where the print contacts the plate, at least the way I am doing it. There will also be plastic bits from any supports that are there for the overhanging bits. I am just using sandpaper, files, scrapers, and other typical woodworking tools to get the texture and biggest offenders down. You will still be able to see the striations from the build layers, in fact they will be very upfront after a light sand.

The idea here is to add material now. I have a spray primer/filler that slowly fills the voids, so you can just keep adding and sanding back until you have a smooth primed surface. If there are big voids you can use bondo or other filler, but I really don't like working with that if I don't have to. The smell seems to really stick around for a long time in my little shop even if do most if the work outside.

So I am on step 1 here, I sanded down the big texture. We are going to hit 60 today outside, so I am going to start a coat or two of the filler/primer, and do that through the weekend until things are smooth.

Again, if anyone has insights or a better way to increase efficiency let me know!

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After some filing, scraping, and sanding:

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[Mark Frederick Jr]

I printed a bobbin drilling template for the pickup last night. I haven't tried it like this yet, it is a bit of an experiment. I plan on sticking the fibre blanks as well as the maple spacer blank to the template with double stick tape and possibly a clamp. I'll get the holes drilled and use the bits to stabilize the blanks to the template. I can then sand them right to the blank itself.

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I stayed up later than I should last night when I made the pickup cover, and made a silly mistake that I just noticed after my initial surfacing. I messed up the placement of the mounting screw holes...

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That was an easy correction though, I will reprint later when I get home. The bobbin template fits perfectly though, so all should turn out well.

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[Mark Frederick Jr]

Does anyone have an accurate body thickness measurement? I am seeing a bunch of numbers.

[Mark Frederick Jr]

I have some local slabs of poplar that I bought last year, really good deal. Every year I have a student or two who wants to learn some luthiery, and we build a bass or guitar together. It's mostly been a great experience, and I have a few instruments with twins out there. Every time I pick them up to play I get to remember building it with a student, lots of really fun memories there. So I picked this up with that in mind, I have enough for 6-8 bodies. I can spare some for this first one.

It is all still rough, and about 2.5" thick x 7.5" wide. So darn close in width, I'll have to tack an extra chunk on to one side. Thats fine, this baby is getting paint. Took out the good ol' thickness planer and brought it down to 2", I'll get the rest by hand and with the thickness sander later.

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Pardon the mess in the yard, all the snow just melted and this is what's left of the firewood. It was a 7 cord winter!

[Greg Forsyth]

I don't know how much experience some of you have with 3d printing, I assume it is a wide range from zero to expert. I am not either, but I'll share my limited knowledge so far.

I thought when I bought the printer last year that is would be like a paper printer, but for plastic. I now know that is a common misconception, and there is often a lot of trial and error that goes into a successful print. I don't want to sound pessimistic though, it is really an amazing tool. As I post, please feel free to ask questions or share your knowledge, I know there are a lot of folks here who probably can offer some great advice.

Mark,
I've never used a 3d printer but I think they are a marvelous invention. Around 2004 I had a project that spec'd resin products. I found the name of a man who worked for a plastic company and did resin on the side. I contacted him and he invited me to tour the plastics company. The highlight of the tour was a prototype 3d printer. It was a large and sloppy machine but the true value of it was the research that got it that far. You could see it printing layer upon layer of the part it was manufacturing. From that research 3d printers have evolved into machines that are inexpensive enough that most anyone interested can afford one. Companies are now building houses and other buildings with them.

I don't have advise for you on how to use your 3d printer more efficiently but from the looks of your parts you have learned quite a bit about the 3d printer already. Well done!

[Mark Frederick Jr]

Kids got me sick this weekend unfortunately, stalled my progress a bit. I did a quite a few spray coats on the plastic with the filler/primer yesterday, tomorrow I will start to sand them flat. It has made a big difference already. I have some pickup-making supplies on the way, and I hope to wind that up next weekend. I picked up some hardboard for a template, so I will get that cut and ready to go this week.

I may revisit the plans, I am finding multiple measurements of the side thickness. I have seen 1 1/2", 1 3/4", and 1 7/8". I am sure there are some variations there, and any of those thicknesses would probably work just fine, so for the moment I am pondering that. The poplar is relatively light, so thicker would be ok in this case.

As always let me know if you have any thoughts, thanks!