The Steel Guitar Forum

Working on a steel build, I know Forbon Vulcanized Fiber is used for the pickups bottom and top cover plate. Wondering what thickness it is? For a Sho bud outfit. Looking for it in white to accent the steel.

Thanks

That's a just one kind of bobbin material and it comes in more than one thickness. The steel "brand" is irrelevant - ShoBud has used pickups from various suppliers over the years and

What's important is your pickup design, type, winding method, wire used etc etc.. There are dozens of other bobbin materials as well.

Are you actually building the bobbin and winding your own pickup from scratch? If so - why? Any competent pickup maker can make a "steel pickup" and several can custom-wind one to your specifications. If you have never wound a pickup before you will probably be better off just having one made.

Jim,

Thanks for the info, no build, its just a preference in color for the PU cover. The steel will have a classic white sho bud fret board, so the PU cover will continue the accent theme. The PU will be a true tone 10. I wanted to make sure when I swap the covers out that the cover dimension is the same. But didn't know how critical the thickness of the cover plate would be.

Oh, you meant the "cover", not the "bobbin"???? You were talking about the bobbin material in the first post, so it's confusing.

Do you want a bobbin in a special color? If that's true you won't get it in fiber, but many pickup makers can - to some degree - wind pickups on special color plastic bobbins.

But if you want a *cover* they can sometimes be molded in special colors. Not cheap, though.

If I understood the question, the thickness on the pickup top/bottom on my Shobud is 1/16" using a caliper.

or:

0.0625 inch

1.5875 mm

Sweet!! thanks Godfrey for the 1/16" measurements I'll search for it in white.

You can 3D print in a variety of material. Try these guys- no minimums.

https://www.shapeways.com

Aidan Lenihan wrote:Working on a steel build, I know Forbon Vulcanized Fiber is used for the pickups bottom and top cover plate. Wondering what thickness it is? For a Sho bud outfit. Looking for it in white to accent the steel.

Jim Sliff wrote:Oh, you meant the "cover", not the "bobbin"???? You were talking about the bobbin material in the first post, so it's confusing.

Aidan - Be sure to post photos when you complete the project.