Humbucker Kit

It's a good kit but there isn't a wider polepiece spacing option and would like the Maple spacer option.

For me a very good kit

A very easy to use kit, but would like the option to buy other types of bar magnets , such as an Alnico 3

Great kit, but fits neck position mainly. I miss one for the bridge position pickup too.

Great kit, but no wider polepiece spacing opiton for bridge position pickups.

Just wound, potted and installed one of these. Very impressed with the quality and historical accuracy. Will buy again for sure!!!

I wound the pick-up (Alnico V magnets) as per the instructions and it sounds great. I wound it at 7.7K ohms, slightly mis-matched coils, about the same as the '57 classic. I have several gibsons and other guitars and I like the sound of vintage pick-ups. I also used a wooden spacer instead of the supplied plastic. I used an electric drill to wind the pick-up. The only thing that is odd about this kit is, all the other ZEBRA pick-ups I have (PRS and Seymore Duncan) have the cream coil as the adjustable coil, these have the cream coil as the slug coil. So it would look a little odd if I just replaced one pick-up. I'll write another review when I try the alnico II magnets. I think this is a very reasonable price for a great sounding pick-up.

I recently bought 2 of these kits, and the quality was great. the slugs DO go into the bobbin, but you need to press them against a solid object with quite a bit of force. there is no need to drill them as someone commented.

overall, I would suggest getting this if you are interested. I had no issues with the wiring, and was a great experience.

will definately buy these again.

I picked up a few of these to put in a flame top LP copy I was making. I had mixed feelings on these. first the good, the quality of the parts were the best, no complains there. it came with instructions that were easy to follow, but a few minor things were left out.

now for the bad. this kit did not include a pickup cover, which to me it should have been better disclosed that it was not part of the kit. the hook up wires included should have been longer. I recommend that anyone making these buy your own 28 gauge hook wires to use, because the kit does not come with enough. same story with the 2 and 4 conductor wire. the cost of leaving an additional 2 inches or wire would cost pennies and would make this kit rake much higher for me. also the metal rods do not go into the slug coil and there’s no information in the instruction why this is.

you will need to drill it out gently to be able to push the slug coils inside the coil. Make the slugs sit flush with the top of the coil (BEVELED SIDE GOING TOWARDS THE BASEPLATE) and add a very small drop of super glue on the underside of the coil to keep them from moving once they are in place and allow proper drying time. also the screws fit a bit too snug on the adjustable bobbin. I had to use an screw from an old gibson humbucker the work out the bobbin first to make sure the new screws weren’t too tight. Also old gibson bobbins were segmented on the inside of the coil, and these are smooth. I have no idea if this would do anything for tone or not, just sayin…

another thing is I wish this kit came with options like gold hardware for example or double cream bobbins, different lengths for the bobbins (just in case someone wanted to put one of these in a strat for example) and more magnet options. according to seth lover most 50's PAF's came with alnico 4 mags, but 2 and 3 were also used, but NEVER 5's. alnico fives were used later in the 60's versions almost exclusively and earlier on the 50’s P-90’s. GE was the company that provided gibson with these magnets, but you can find the 50’s correct magnets pretty easily with a google search.

the plastic spacer on these should have stretched the whole space of the baseplate fence in my opinion, even if it's not necessary, it just looks better. The 50’s PAF’s didn’t use a plastic spacer like in this kit, they use a maple wood spacer. I just made my own out of a square shaped dowel I had in my workshop. This will add a wee bit of treble to the pickup. 50’s PAF’s also only used plain enamel 42 gauge copper wire, which I’m sorry to say stew mac does not currently stock. Despite my complaints here, I will order these again, the price is right and like I said before the quality is great.

Great kit, and fun to make! Great sounding, and its so easy to buy this since all the parts are here! However, the instructions left me wondering... I tried to follow them, but I think the instructions are not ment for first time builders.

It was too difficult to get the finish-end of the coilwire through the hole. I now make my own custom wiring for this, but I still use this kit! Would love to see some extra magnets.