Does anyone do wax-potting on the cheap?

[prop joe]

Does anyone know of any winders/companies/aficionados that offer wax-potting for a reasonable price?

I have a firebird pickup I want to pot, and since I've never done this, I want to make sure I don't screw it up!

[Sweetfinger]

Are there any local repair shops near you?

[prop joe]

Originally Posted by Sweetfinger

Are there any local repair shops near you?

Yes, but none of them offer wax-potting.

[Peteyvee]

Why do you want to have it potted? Is it squealing or something? None of the local shops here (I'm in Los Angeles) offer that service that I know of, probably because they don't want to be responsible for (possibly) damaging the clients pickup.

IMO wax potting kills the tone, but it's your pickup and your dime. Good luck.

[cowboytim]

Why would you want to? Do they squeal? Does the pups have covers on them?
Wax potting loses tone and is done on hurry up massed produced pups, to keep them from squealing........and you MAY NEED to wax pot them BUT it might just be the covers are causing that and you can fix that a number of ways....no problem.
None of my pups are wax potted.

[chervokas]

I had a problematic Tele bridge pickup and I was able to do a decent light potting with one of these home hand wax spas from Bed Bath & Beyond and a mix of 80-20% parrafin and bee's wax (I had to get the bee's wax at a craft store). It's not real vacuum potting that permeates all the coils but it did the job and the big thing that causes squealing with a covered humbucker is usually the cover vibrating so that kind of light potting can do the trick (provided the bobbins used are up to the potting heat -- some are, some aren't; you'd need to figure that out). I like the hand spa device because it gets hot enough to melt the wax but then keeps the wax at a relatively low temp though I did keep a thermo handy to ensure that the wax stayed in the 150 degree range during the potting.

[cowboytim]

No offense but you do not need any wax to fix a cover problem.

[analogsystem]

Harmonic design does it for $10 a pickup. Check the bottom of this page:

http://www.harmonicdesign.net/allpages/custom_shop.html

[chervokas]

Originally Posted by cowboytim

No offense but you do not need any wax to fix a cover problem.

True enough if its a cover problem removing the cover, and resoldering after attaching it with silicone adhesive can work. I dunno if that's the OP's problem but it may very well be. In my case I was potting a Tele bridge pickup, not a covered pickup w/ the spa wax bath.

[buddyboy69]

I use an old small double boiler , hot plate and a candy therm. Most expensive part of it was the beeswax. I only wax squeealers. If theyre just on the edge of squeeeeal i may give them a short cook or leave it alone. The tone never changed from potting but the "on the edge of feedback" factor may disappear. Which sometimes can be really cool. Ive had great results from wax potting. Usually its an improvement and i can get more out of them.

John

[chervokas]

Originally Posted by analogsystem

Harmonic design does it for $10 a pickup. Check the bottom of this page:

http://www.harmonicdesign.net/allpages/custom_shop.html

Can't beat that price. Prolly cheaper than buying a candy thermo and beeswax.

[prop joe]

Thanks, I'll look into Harmonic Design.

To answer a few questions... yes, the pickup does squeal at higher volume when using gain.

[cowboytim]

Do the pups have covers?

[prop joe]

Originally Posted by cowboytim

Do the pups have covers?

Yeah, its a firebird pickup, so it does have a cover...that I believe I'm not able to remove without damaging the pickup?

[cowboytim]

Originally Posted by robes

Yeah, its a firebird pickup, so it does have a cover...that I believe I'm not able to remove without damaging the pickup?

Take the pups out turn them over on a work bench and cut the solder tack with a knife, you can do it. Then go to office max and get some adhesive putty by 3M (It's made to attach snap shots on the wall) roll a small worm size piece and stick it under the cover.
Could very well fix and no loss of tone!