Workshop: Early Kay Guitar Pickup


This is a pickup on a Kay-made "Oahu" Spanish electric guitar model (ie, regular style electric guitar) from the late 1930s, probably 38-39 or thereabouts. It's a laminated archtop body in a typical Kay-styled shape and neck profile for the time, but of course electrified with this very cool pole-style pickup.

This pickup is rather heavy and has a big old magnetic baseplate and two big magnetic blocks to either side of the "pole" center area (those blocks are to the left and right of the pole pieces with new electrical tape on them to hold them in place -- the original masking-style tape was torn and loose and dried out).

This whole bit is enclosed in a softwood box and then covered over with some tortoise-y celluloid material and suspended to the top from that.


...and here's the bottom with the connections going to the waxed-covered thick gauge wire leads.

I'm eagerly awaiting completion of this instrument and I'm sure you'll all enjoy seeing the rest of what this guitar looks/sounds like. These Electro-Spanish models are darn rare!

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