How I Make Them
Where It Started
I started selling pickups in 2011, but the truth is I’d been tinkering with guitars and pickups for years before that. I’ve always been an avid vintage guitar collector and one of those people who’d rather fix something properly than replace it with whatever happens to be on the shelf. More about me here https://guitar.com/features/gallery/mojo-pickups-marc-ransley-vintage-guitar-collection/
Early on, I realised something that most vintage obsessives eventually discover: many so-called “vintage correct” parts simply aren’t. Even when the description says they are.
That didn’t sit right with me.
So I decided to do something about it. What began as a small idea turned into a slightly mad mission — to have my own parts made, properly, and as close to the originals as possible.
At the same time, I decided that, wherever possible, everything would be made here in the UK. Despite the myth that we don’t manufacture anything anymore, there are still incredible craftspeople and engineers here if you know where to look.
That search wasn’t easy. There were many wildly expensive quotes, a fair number of unanswered emails, and more than a few dead ends.
Then one day, my mate Andrew Pih — of Motion Custom Amps and formerly Kevin Shields’ tech — randomly called in. During the conversation, he casually said:
“Bob could make those parts for you.”
My response was something along the lines of:
“Who the fuck is Bob and why haven’t you told me about him before?”
And that was that.
Suddenly, custom parts and vintage-correct manufacturing were no longer the problem.
Well… that’s what I thought.
How Mojo Pickups Are Made
Parts
Fast forward to today and most of the parts I use are made here in the UK. They’re produced exclusively for me and are vintage correct, both in shape and materials.
For example, I have some of the nicest PAF covers on the market — deep drawn, hand buffed, pulled holes and nickel plated without the copper flashing.
Because I’m slightly obsessed with vintage guitars — particularly Pre-CBS Fenders — I was never happy with how modern laser-cut flatwork for pickup bobbins looked. It just didn’t feel right.
So I had a press made and started punching them, the same way Fender originally did.
At the moment, that includes Strat https://www.mojopickups.co.uk/product-category/pickups/stratocaster/ and Tele https://www.mojopickups.co.uk/product-category/pickups/telecaster/ bobbins, with Jazzmaster bobbins coming soon and others to follow. Once they’re lacquer-dipped they look exactly like the old ones.
My magnets are UK sourced, mainly Alnico III and Alnico V. The rod magnets are hand bevelled here in the workshop, and my Gibson bar magnets are cloned from genuine vintage examples and, where appropriate, rough cast.
Some of the more obscure parts are now 3D printed in-house, copied directly from vintage components using biodegradable filament that’s actually made nearby in Manchester.
Unfortunately, not everything can be sourced in the UK. My wire, copper and hookup wire are made in the United States by companies that have been around for decades.
My #34 AWG two-end braided jacket hook-up wire with 7/30 stranding of tinned soft copper is made to genuine 1950s specification by the same factory that originally produced it back then. The same goes for the 7/30 stranding of bare bunch tin wax cloth “push-back” cable used for Fender-style models.
I even have custom screws made here in the UK.
Winding
Most of my pickups are hand-wound.
The main exception is my vintage-style Gibson pickups. To recreate the real vintage sound these need to be wound with the correct turns per layer, and true PAFs have mismatched coils.
To achieve that properly, they’re wound on an automatic winder — exactly the way Gibson originally did it.
I wind using wire from 38 to 45 AWG, all produced by Elektrosola.
Potting
These days I run three wax tanks.
Two contain a blend of paraffin and beeswax — one clean and one black. The third tank is 100% paraffin for the vegan guitarist.
My vintage-style Gibson pickups are not potted unless specifically requested.
Vintage Fender pickups are only very lightly potted. This keeps the integrity of the coil over time and prevents it from gradually working loose while still allowing the pickup to breathe the way the originals did.
Energy
The workshop is based at my home.
We run solar panels, so for at least six months of the year, the whole operation is powered by the sun. Even during the darker months the solar still contributes a fair bit of our energy.
It’s not something the original 1950s factories were thinking about — but it’s a nice way to make very old-style pickups in a slightly more modern way.