I bought the flatwork material in 6X6" sheets from Stewmac and cut them carefully to match the Jazzy covers on a tabgle saw and drill press in the shop. Then, I had a friend make a grinding fixture and grind some standard Alnico V magnets (in their demagnetized state....very important) to the short (.531") dimension. Then I made some fixures from Baltic ply to help set the magnets in to the flat work to the proper dimension and waxed the baltic with beeswax so the super glue would not stick to the fixture. I use a little super glue to stabilize the magnets to the flatwork and them I shim to put the second layer of flat work on. that way the flat work is secure and I can get the fixture out after the assembly. Then I can dip em in lacquer to seal em. Of course I have to install two gold plated rivets before all this for the connection points.
Before I assemble the flatwork I spend a lot of time sanding it smooth and deburring the edges so the magnet wires don't break during the winding. There are a lot of little details but I basically keep the magnets cool with some water because the alloy must not heat up during grinding (my freind developed the process). However there are magnet companies out there that will grind or cut to length Alnico V magnet to .531 but not 12 at a time.
Here is something to think about:
If the group wanted to pool it's resouces we could buy a run of jazz pup magnets but the minimums are at least (200 ea) .531" long rods. At that quantity they run about $.77ea. U.S. Even if the magnet vendors would sell a few dozen they would be several dollars each. Of course this only works if there are enough of us out there that have pick up winders or are interested in home brewing a winder. I built a winder and have since built over a hundred pickups for strats, teles. jaguars etc. and gone thru pounds of copper already and I love the fact that I can build any pickup I want and stylize the sound to my liking and it costs soooooo much less. This short, non-standard dinension is a unique problem for the Jazzmaster PUP.
Since it takes 12 magnet rods just to make one Jazzmaster it wouldn't take too many people to make it work but even with as many pickups as I make I would probably never make more than a handful of jazzy pups and it was a hassle getting 24 of em ground down and then remagnetizing them.
I love making pickups. If there are other winders out there or folks who want to make a few special pick ups, discuss winding, well just jump on in.......
Constantine[/i]
