Identifying a Seymour Duncan pickup

[Zender]

Hi all,

When rummaging through my old stuff, I came across a SD pickup that I pulled from a guitar about 5 years ago. It's a seymour duncan, with 16.09kOhm resistance. Black bobbins with the Seymour Duncan logo on it.
There is a gray wire comming from the pickups, a blue and white core. Although this might be added later when looking at the shoddy soldering. Pole pieces are one row normal flat rods, and one row flathead screws.

What strikes me most about this pickup, is that it seems to have been leaking wax. The baseplate is covered (on the label-side) with wax leakage. I pulled the base plate, to discover that the magnet is also more or less stuck in wax. I also cut the ground wire, as I'm thinking to really clean this pickup, and it needs proper soldering anyways.

In the photo below I already removed the wax gunk from the base-plate, so that is now nice and clean again.

But, I have NO CLUE what it is. It came out of my Ibanez Ghostrider (which stock was not supplied with SD's), without any further labels so this is all I have. Does anyone here have an idea what it might be? And is that wax leaking stuff normal? Or did someone do something horrible to this pickup?

 

[cip 123]

Ummm someone can correct me if I'm wrong but aren't they supposed to have wax on them, even the baseplate? To help prevent squealing

Most Duncan pups if not all are Wax potted?

 

[Zender]

Ummm someone can correct me if I'm wrong but aren't they supposed to have wax on them, even the baseplate? To help prevent squealing

Most Duncan pups if not all are Wax potted?

Well yes, some potting is normal. But I've never seen a base-plate of an SD pickup covered in it like this one was. As if someone put a blowdryer on the pickup and got all the wax to leak into the guitar cavity or something. Also, when looking online at images of SD pickups (I was checking to see if this was normal) they all seem to have clean backplates, at least on the logo/sticker/visible side of the baseplate. The same holds for the bobbins, which in my case also have wax on the edges. Even the two coils seem to be slightly stuck together with yet more wax. Wax everywhere.....

As if someone did a seconds (or third) potting after replacing a too short lead with a shoddy new one soldered in shoddedly.

 

[cip 123]

Honestly I thought they dipped the whole pickup in Wax when potting it.

I just received a used duncan and there is waxy residue on the baseplate, most other pickups I've had are similar.

 

[FwLineberry]

The only way it would leak wax is if it got hot enough to melt the wax. If the guitar ever got left in a car, I could see that happening.

No Idea on how to identify it.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Honestly I thought they dipped the whole pickup in Wax when potting it.

They do.

 

[cip 123]

They do.

Yea I didn't wanna say it till someone confirmed. But I feel like OP has just pulled a pickup apart for no reason at all.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Yea I didn't wanna say it till someone confirmed. But I feel like OP has just pulled a pickup apart for no reason at all.

Yeah, it's not like any of the guts are going to identify it as one pickup or another.

I would have just installed it and gone from there. That, combined with the outward appearance and resistance would have probably narrowed down what it is.

Luckily, he can just slap it together again and do just that.

 

[Zender]

Luckily, he can just slap it together again and do just that.

Yup, pickups are not exactly complex things. Although I did see that someone before me has pulled it apart and messed with the solder. Redid the connections, put some proper shrinktube where it seemed like a good idea to keep things together, and 'slapped her back together again'.
The previous owner did mess up the cloth tape, that was gone... So had to make due with black insulation tape. That's going bo become sticky in a few years.

My whole reason for taking her apart was the wax leak (few mm thick on the underside of the baseplate, never seen that before), some discoloured gluewaxrubber-stuff on te baseplate (did someone epoxy this thing?), and the shoddy wire (broke while looking at it...).

For the time being, she's back together. I'll put her through her pases in a few weeks to see if it will help me identify her. Probably something like a JB.

 

[Zhysick]

Yes, probably a JB: it is a nice neck pickup despite it's "high" output (high DC resistance, but that high-mids pike is nice for a neck pickup).

Maybe when the previous owner had to resolder the wire also re-wax the pickup thinking that probably he took off enough wax to make the pickup squeal or something and he just didn't clean the excess properly... but nothing to worry: too much wax is something you don't have to worry about except if you care about how it looks. Wax is not magnetic or conductive so... just aesthetic.

Because of the resistance and the color of the magnet (seems to me Alnico so probably Alnico V because higher DC seymour duncan have Alnico V not Alnico II) it seems to be a JB and is the only "high output bridge" pup that it is common to be used in the neck position so...