Wax potting pickups

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Anyone have any suggestions on whether or not to wax pot pickups. I have a Flying V that I am going to install pickup covers on and have been told to either wax pot the pickups, or use some fabric tape to prevent "squeal".

Obviously one method is more complicated than the other, but was wondering if one method is better than the other,

Pickups are 500T in the bridge and 496R in the neck. I play a lot of high gain music at loud volumes through a Marshall.
 
I potted my pickups from my Les Paul Studio a few years back as they started to squeel. I found the instructions online somewhere. I used a combo of paraffin wax and bees wax I think. I actually preferred the tone before I potted them though. I don't recall why though lol. It was easy to do.
 
Best left to the professionals I say. I've had that bridge pickup and if it's squealing not sure more wax on it will help. Are both pickups squealing? Are they squealing in multiple amps? What amps? Does the squealing go away if you lower the amp's gain? Are other guitars with humbuckers squealing in the same amp? Are you sure by "squealing" you don't mean normal feedback associated with high (or maybe too much) gain?
 
Use a strip of tape over the coil slugs to the split between the coils.. Dab some silicon, leaving it raised in a dollop, across the middle. More so toward teh coil slug side. Not too much or you will make a mess. You do the silicon in a raised dollop so it will make contact with the cover. You do not want the silicon to get near your screw slugs so use it sparingly knowing it's surface area will increase when you press the cover on. Press the cover on and solder. Done. I have done it many times and it works perfectly.
 
Waxing them was SUPER EASY and did stop my squeeling.
 
yeah, i dont get the "better left to professionals" comment.
the stock wax can become loose and the coils in a pickup can start to vibrate, even at lower volumes.


it's about as easy as putting air in your car tires....
 
I've done several of mine. made a simple double boiler and melted paraffin at a low temp.

expect it to change the tone in your pickups a bit. sometimes the reduction of noise is worth the change, sometimes not.
 
There are some techniques winders use that will give the same effect as potting without the tone loss.
 
Old Dimarzio pup that was squealing, cut the tape from around the winding's and dropped it in a coffee can filled with hot paraffin wax. Stopped the squealing and the pup sounds fine to this day, That was like 20 years ago.. Was messy but what the hell.
 
ive done a few...and never noticed a substantial loss or change in tone.

not any that would really reflect or cause me to put the guitar down in a recording or band situation.

it gets exhausting all the internet over-ANALyzing of shit that just doesnt matter regarding tone sometimes!

shut up and play!
 
Don't need fancy fabric tape or wax potting to kill the squeal. Cut a piece of electrical tape and place it down the middle seam where the two coils meet. Then cut another piece of the same length, but also cut this strip in half length-wise, and lay each half strip outside of each row of pole pieces. Then use whatever method you're comfortable with for keeping down-pressure on the cover as you solder it to the back plate. I've done this with many unpotted pups from Duncan, Wolfetone, etc., and it works just fine.

When putting a cover on an unpotted pup, I prefer to just take the cover's vibrations out of the equation and still let the unpotted pup do it's thing naturally when a loud, gainy amp is used. Potting an unpotted pup just for the sake of putting a cover on isn't really necessary, and will definitely change how the pickup behaves at different volume levels.

If you want to do the wax potting thing, another option is to try a little trick I learned from Will Boggs...a quick wax dip on the coils only. This way the inner windings of the coils and the basplate are still dry, thus partially behaving like an unpotted pup. This makes the guitar easier to control with higher gain and yet still behave unpotted.
 
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