May Birthdays 
Hi,
I'm looking at building an affordable surf guitar strat. I have my eye on a Squier strat that is loaded with a ceramic pickup HSS configuration. I'm just going to swap all of the electronics with a new harness to give it an alnico SSS configuration.
I'm looking at different options for cheap Alnico 5 pickups with Formvar wiring to get the same approximate sound as the $169 Fender '57/'62 pickups.
Basically I just chose 1962 because that's the model year of Dick Dale's "Beast."
Has anyone ever heard of GFS Pickups? Seems like they have a lot of choices of very nice Alnico 5 pickups with Vintage-correct building techniques.
These look nice. I think with the low resistance they would sound very bright. The enamel magnet wiring I don't think is correct for 1962, though. The quoted resistance of about 5.5k seems closest to the Fender '57/'62 though.
These 1959 models have Formvar magnet wiring but the resistance seems a little high on these, about 6.5K-8K. Maybe they are too overwound, IDK:
The 1963 seems a little less overwound, but still a bit overwound between 6.1-7K:
Finally, these 1964 pickups seem nicely balanced between Vintage and overwound with 5.8k-6.5k resistance. GFS describes these pickups as "Surfy," which is what I am looking for!
Even though the year doesn't match Dick Dale's "Beast," I'm tempted to go for these. Remember 1964 was the year of the Blondeface. The resistances seem pretty close to what other manufacturers are quoting for slightly hot early '60s pickups.
Take a look at the specs for the Klein 1962 Strat reproductions and the GFS 1964 pickups are pretty close:
https://www.kleinpickups.com/p-301-1962-epic-series-stratocaster-pickups.aspx
Any other brands I'm overlooking? I've also seen some handwound Alnico 5 pickups sold direct from China on AliExpress as well, selling for about $45/set and have seen these reviewed on YouTube and these seem fine, also.
Last edited: Aug 28, 2022 13:11:30
