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Cloning a Rickenbacker Bass neck pickup

The following pic's show a clone I made of a Rickenbacker Bass neck pickup

I had originally intended to just rewind the Rick pickup I had got off eBay
but since I have some pickup building and rewinding experience under my belt now
I wanted to "fix" a couple of what I percieved as design shortcommings in the
original pickup.

A clone was in order, so I copied the dimensions and made the bobbin flatwork
from some similar thickness FR-4 I had around the shop from making circuit boards
for my Univibe clones.

I decided to leave the copper on the top piece and attach a ground lead to it
as I'm big on shielding all my stuff that goes into my own instruments.

The original pickup's rivet pole pieces are magnetically challenged so
I decided to make my own pole pieces out of some low carbon steel bolts...

Here I ground the heads of each screw into pole piece shape the same height as
the original was set-up to...

When I assembled the bobbin I used some of that carbon shielding paint under the
pole piece heads to insure they made (and kept) great contact with the copper...

Here I made sure the bottoms of the pole pieces were flush with the flatwork...

The next pic is before and after painting the bobbin. I attached the ground lead
before I painted it.

I used self-etching primer on the top then sprayed it with some decent DupliColor
high-temp gloss engine enamel, baked it in the oven at about 250° for 5 hours
to make sure it is as durable as it can be...

When I did the wind, I wanted to change the way the wire exited the bobbin.
The original Rick pickup has a cut-off screw stuffed into the bottom for one
lead, and the magnet had to have a big divot in it to make room for the wire
to pass through. I decided to use the old P-90 style way of handling the leads
where the both exit out the end of the bobbin.

I used 43-AWG wire (Poly) to wind this clone pickup because as I had it on hand,
normally #44 is used on Rickenbacker pickups since forever.

The wire comming from the top of the bobbin is connected to the copper foil
I left on the top piece of the FR4 I made the bobbin out of, this connection serves
to shield the area the stock Rick chrome cover leaves uncovered...

And here it is installed in my P-Bass, I used the original Rickenbacker
pickup's chrome mounting ring...