The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi everyone I am brand new to the Forum and I live in Spain. Just finished building 10 string lap steel and Oops forgot to check that the Barcus Berry pickup was working. I would still like to use the pickup as it is exactly the right width but can anybody help me fix it or open to suggestions
Jim from Spain

What exactly is the problem, Jim, is it completely silent, low level, bad hum, distorted or something else?

Hi Dave the pickup has some sound running through but it sounds kinda out of phase and very treble. Have tested it with a meter and got no reading at all.Sorry bit new to all this and when I find out how I will put a pic of the BB pick up.
Thanks for reply
Jim from Spain

Hi Ulric Its a strange beast I think it might be a humbucker type although not sure Have taken the nameplate off to investigate but all I can see is a copper foil covering the top. No model but it has 11.6K felt tipped on the bottom
Jim from Spain

How many wires and how many coils are there?

Jim,
I bought a Pre-Ultra GFI that had Barcus Berry pickups. They were both dead. Upon asking around, I was told that there was something wrong with the early steel guitar pups. Something about chemical incompatibility, that just destroyed them from the inside out.

Hi Marvin There is just 1 wire coming out of the PU with a live feed and a screen earth. Also thanks for Info John, you may be right about the BB PU as it came to me in the case when I bought my MSA 12 so I really have know idea if it ever worked at all. Now is there someone out there that could do a rewind
Regards
Jim from Spain

Since you have only two conductors, a hot and a shield/ground. It is not likely that you have an out of phase problem. Your pick-up is marked 11.6K so if you connect a Ohm meter across the hot and shield, you should read 11.6 K ohms, plus or minus meter error. If it reads nothing, then it is open. The possible reason for the thin sound is the windings on each side of the open could act as a capacitor and some signal (especially higher frequencies) are passing.

Jerry Wallace of True Tone does a great job re-winding pickups. He turned mine around in about a week. The only problem is that he is in the US and not Europe.

Maybe someone on you side of the pond can offer a suggestion for re-wind.

Jim theres a guy on the forsale forum that has a pickup he wants to sell Charlie.