repairing national D8 pick-up

Steven Welborn · Post by **Steven Welborn** » 25 Feb 2016 4:50 pm

restoring a National D8 and just discovered the hot wire is broken off where it comes out of the winding at the top corner. Extremely fine wire. It's a '47 so materials are pretty aged and fragile. Two separate windings - four treble poles and four bass poles wound separately. Each has a top and bottom plate made out of some kind of stiff paper (waxy maybe) and these are connected side by side. The little corner of one top plate where the hot wire came out is also broken off. This is not a stoutly made p'up like you see with most modern single coils. Pretty flimsy components. Anybody ever mess with these guys? I suppose I could just find the right gauge wire and twist on to the broken end and micro solder where it is without coming up and thru the corner (which is no longer there)and leave it at that. OR- make another top plate out of something?? Any tips ?? thanks

Steven Welborn · Post by **Steven Welborn** » 27 Feb 2016 12:44 pm

P'up now seems to have a short in process of handling. Think I need to consider a replacement. I see Lollar offers some Lap steel 8 strng models:

String master reproduction- 8.6k

Gibson Grand console - 7.9k

Chicago - 8.47k

oh... and a horseshoe ($600)

Any recommendations?

Stephen Cowell · Post by **Stephen Cowell** » 28 Feb 2016 6:19 am

Probably best would be a rewind... you don't want a lot of difference between necks on a D8 guitar, normally. It would also be better for the resale value.

Rick Barnhart · Post by **Rick Barnhart** » 28 Feb 2016 6:36 am

Steven Welborn wrote:oh... and a horseshoe ($600)

I LOVE my 8 string Lollar horseshoe! The price always seems to come up in every conversation about it, but I can tell you, it's worth every penny. Mine was comparatively, a little weak on the 8th string, but was easily remedied with the adjustable pole piece.

Steven Welborn · Post by **Steven Welborn** » 28 Feb 2016 12:24 pm

Stephen Cowell wrote:Probably best would be a rewind... you don't want a lot of difference between necks on a D8 guitar, normally. It would also be better for the resale value.

yes i'd like to have both original p'ups intact, but that would require repairing or rebuilding one of the bobbins on the one coil. Knowing the wire gauge and number of winds. Not adverse to doing that if I knew of a pick-up guy familiar with these p'ups. I'd even consider doing it myself if I could get the jigs and set up together. I might set that project aside till those things materialize and replace both necks with something balanced in the meantime. Heck, I wanna start playing this thing.

Steven Welborn · Post by **Steven Welborn** » 28 Feb 2016 12:31 pm

Rick Barnhart wrote:
Steven Welborn wrote:oh... and a horseshoe ($600)
I LOVE my 8 string Lollar horseshoe! The price always seems to come up in every conversation about it, but I can tell you, it's worth every penny. Mine was comparatively, a little weak on the 8th string, but was easily remedied with the adjustable pole piece.

yep... I'd love to go for that horseshoe, but I may want to get a set of something to get some sense of balance between the necks. Two of those would cost four times what I paid for the National. I do wonder how those would sound though....

Steven Welborn · Post by **Steven Welborn** » 28 Feb 2016 2:25 pm

just heard a youtube demo of the Lollar horseshoe on Asherguitar site. Gorgeous sound. Lollars 8 strng horseshoe is on the wide side string spacing at 2.785" center to center outer poles where as the National is on the narrow side at 2.585" which means top and bottom strings would be somewhere outside the fretboard edges.

Tom Pettingill · Post by **Tom Pettingill** » 28 Feb 2016 3:39 pm

Steven Welborn wrote:... yes i'd like to have both original p'ups intact, but that would require repairing or rebuilding one of the bobbins on the one coil. Knowing the wire gauge and number of winds. Not adverse to doing that if I knew of a pick-up guy familiar with these p'ups. ...

Contact Lollar, I'm sure they can fix you up. While their site says they don't do rewinds anymore, they do make an exception for old and vintage gear. Fortunately for us, steel guitar pickups are an interest of Jason's.

Steven Welborn wrote:just heard a youtube demo of the Lollar horseshoe on Asherguitar site. Gorgeous sound. ...

They really are quite nice. I've used 3 of them on some custom builds and they really do sing sweet. Here is a clip of the first one I did https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twDn-Q7Jvzg

In any event, I still think you are best to stay with the original style and have the dead one fixed / rewound.

Steven Welborn · Post by **Steven Welborn** » 4 Mar 2016 9:11 am

Jason was very willing to fix me up. My attempt to repair this p'up was turning into a disaster so it's great to have guys like Lollar come to the rescue.
Tom, real sweet fat tone out of that p'up. Those horseshoe p'ups must have a dc resistance a billion k or so. I notice you get a great Byrd tone , where as Ive heard it producing some brilliant top end of the spectrum as well.

Matt Berg · Post by **Matt Berg** » 7 Mar 2016 6:11 am

I have a National D8 as well. Never like to mess with things that are working, but I'd really be curious as to how they look under the hood. So if you've got any photos of your project, please consider sharing them. I know I like to take photos along the way to remind me how things are supposed to go back together.

Tom Pettingill · Post by **Tom Pettingill** » 7 Mar 2016 6:31 am

Steven Welborn wrote:... Those horseshoe p'ups must have a dc resistance a billion k or so. ...

Actually, they are pretty low in resistance because they are wound with a thicker diameter wire. Resistance readings can be a useful tool when comparing pickups of like construction, same size wire, same size coil, etc, but pretty much worthless when comparing apples to oranges.

Steven Welborn · Post by **Steven Welborn** » 8 Mar 2016 11:29 am

Matt Berg wrote:I have a National D8 as well. Never like to mess with things that are working, but I'd really be curious as to how they look under the hood. So if you've got any photos of your project, please consider sharing them. I know I like to take photos along the way to remind me how things are supposed to go back together.

Soon as I figure out why my laptop doesn't recognize my samsung cell phone, I'll snap a pic the good pickup insides and post.

Matt Berg · Post by **Matt Berg** » 8 Mar 2016 11:52 am

Steven Welborn wrote:
Matt Berg wrote:I have a National D8 as well. Never like to mess with things that are working, but I'd really be curious as to how they look under the hood. So if you've got any photos of your project, please consider sharing them. I know I like to take photos along the way to remind me how things are supposed to go back together.
Soon as I figure out why my laptop doesn't recognize my samsung cell phone, I'll snap a pic the good pickup insides and post.

Thanks, but if the tech is drivin' ya crazy, no worries!

Steven Welborn · Post by **Steven Welborn** » 11 Mar 2016 2:23 pm

here's the good p'up with housing removed. It's missing the two magnets that sit on either side of the two side by side coils. I sent the magnets off for a recharge along with the damaged p'up.

Matt Berg · Post by **Matt Berg** » 11 Mar 2016 8:48 pm

Looks very brittle and less winding than I imagined. Thanks.

Steven Welborn · Post by **Steven Welborn** » 11 Mar 2016 9:27 pm

yes, it's kinda dinky and fragile. I wonder what the wire gauge is. It's like spider web.

Mick Hearn · Post by **Mick Hearn** » 18 Sep 2016 10:49 am

Hi - it's been a while since the last update on this topic so am interested to know what the finished result was and any further pics if possible.

My National D8 is very microphonic on the back neck so that if my pick happens to hit the fretboard it can be heard well through the amp. With a standard guitar at this point I would wax dip it to cure the problem but am rather reluctant to start pulling it apart bearing in mind how the pictures show how fragile it is. I love the tone so do not really want to change the pickup. Any suggestions would be welcome.

The effect can be heard in my version of Four Five Times on Youtube especially on the solo.

Steven Welborn · Post by **Steven Welborn** » 18 Sep 2016 11:14 am

Jason Lollar just finished repairing the one pickup to be mailed soon. He recharged the original magnets but they didnt take an even charge- from 350 gauss down to 170. He has much better magnet upgrades at about 600+ gauss so I went for em. Should sound more lively and full. I'll post pics when I get em.

Steven Welborn · Post by **Steven Welborn** » 20 Nov 2016 12:41 pm

70 year old tone capacitors here. Would anyone advise I replace these with new or upgrades while they're out or just leave em? I've never even tested or played this D8 when first acquired before tearing apart to restore (it was coming apart and unplayable). I hope the old switch still functions.

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Steven Welborn · Post by **Steven Welborn** » 20 Dec 2016 8:35 pm

Finished. Wish I'd posted before pics. It was in shambles, sections had come apart, buttons crumbled off. I never heard it before the restoration as it was unplayable. So now the pickups have been upgraded with stronger magnets from Lollar (along with his repair/rewind of one pickup). So I have no reference to compare, but it sure sounds fat,potent, and sweet now. The old rusty broken set screw pickup poles were replaced with new ones but an 1/8" longer. Too long actually as the strings were hitting the tops of the poles when pressing down the bar. So I drilled undersized holes an 1/8" deep in the wood precisely under each pole allowing the poles to thread into the wood a bit. I like to think this is contributing to the sound as well. Paint color was altered a bit to my liking but I accidentally sanded through to primer here and there but decided that was cool, an accidental relic job. Think I'll do more of that. Funny... doing a relic job on vintage restoration.

Looking forward to developing non pedal chops now, but I must say, the short space btween the strings and neck compared to pedal steel is really a nuisance with picks tapping the fretboard. I assume string masters are higher off the fretboard.
The control panel was re chromed and applying gold and red paint quite tedious. Again, not quite the same color tones but I'm happy with the effect.

David M Brown · Post by **David M Brown** » 21 Dec 2016 1:46 am

It's always nice to see a vintage steel put back into playing shape. Good work.

Bill Creller · Post by **Bill Creller** » 21 Dec 2016 3:49 pm

Looks to me like you did a nice job on it ! Jason is the man, for sure !

Bill Sinclair · Post by **Bill Sinclair** » 21 Dec 2016 5:57 pm

I love the looks of those totem pole Nationals. That center control panel you restored is the nicest I've seen, worth the effort.

Re: the string height
The previous owner of my '59 National D8 slapped a piece of 3" X 1/2" X 1/8" steel bar behind each bridge to raise the string height at the pickups just a bit. The added 1/8" to the scale length didn't seem to throw off the fret markers - to my ears and eyes at least. Completely reversible if you don't like it.

Steven Welborn · Post by **Steven Welborn** » 22 Dec 2016 9:46 am

I considered something like that. I may give something like that a try.

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repairing national D8 pick-up

repairing national D8 pick-up

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