Tri-Sonic Style Pickups.
I decided I’d custom make my own pickups to match the specifications that were recorded by Greg Fryer when he reconditioned the original in the late 1990’s. I had purchased some Korean Tri-Sonics but the inductance on all pickups was around 6k. They had Nickle bases, coils on plastic bobbins, a single bar magnet and a thin piece of black plastic separating the coil from the cover. Modern manufacturing.
In the 1960’s they used two small bar magnets and the coils were air wound, held together by cotton and tape as seen on Greg’s recondition. The 1960’s Tri-Sonics had metal bases which altered the inductance. Brian May removed the metal neck base and used epoxy resin to hold it in place changing the inductance. Using a Nickle base rather then steel base also has a null effect on the inductance like epoxy so I used two metal and one nickle base on mine. Between the coil/magnet and top cover I replaced the thin black plastic with a piece of black rubber similar to the original.
Greg recorded the following details on his website.
Bridge pickup: 7.02K 2.202H magnet: North approx 620-640 gauss
Middle pickup without cover 7.44K 2.326H magnet: South approx 700-740 gauss
Neck pickup: 6.96K 1.620H Magnet: North approx 500-570 gauss.
Below is a video of making my Tri-Sonic style pickups.
The final process is wax potting each pickup as seen in the video then fitting.
If you like a set of custom made pickups to closely match these specification please send me an email. I’m also happy to re-build your Korean Tri-Sonics to match the Red Special if you own a set.
Blank pickup covers can also be custom engraved by Creative Devils if you’d like some personalised products.
