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cleaning up old pickups

Are there any special tools needed to clean up old pickups? I picked up an old Hondo guitar off CL for $25 bucks and it needs a good cleaning before I can break it up to use on other builds. What do you use to clean rust spots off the magnets?

Thanks,
Travis

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Permalink Reply by Josh Gayou (SmokehouseGuitars) on January 29, 2010 at 7:41am

Someone definitely needs to chime in on this as I've never taken a pickup apart before, but as far as the magnets are concerned, you should be able to use a dremel tool with a wire brush wheel attachment. I use that to polish up metal all the time. I would suspect that you'd want to take the bobbin off before you do this so you don't scuff it up, but that would screw up the parafin if you did so, and you might have to pot the whole thing again when you're done (if it had ever been potted in the first place).

There are guys here that are a lot more intimate with pickups than I am, so please make sure that you hear from them as well before you start ripping things apart.

Permalink Reply by Roosterman on January 29, 2010 at 9:17am

I have the opposite problem... I want to put rust on!!

Elbow grease & fine wire wool usually takes it off though.

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