This is Tony and he will be assembling, winding, wiring, testing and casting the pickups for the various models of instruments. He starts with cutting the copper clad phenolic board that is used in making the "bobbin" for the stacked hum canceling pickup. He will assemble the parts so that there is a piece of board then the magnet another piece of board then a corian dummy core then the final copper clad board. This will form the bobbin for the copper wire to be wound on. There are an equal number of turns on the top and bottom wound in opposite direction to create the hum-canceling effect. The pickup is tested for continuity, this is to make sure no breaks have occurred in the winding and sealing process. Tony pic
Faraday cage pic Tony now has completed shielded the pickup up in a copper wire mesh cage . He has wired them with a shielded coaxial cable and attached the mini- plug containing gold plated contacts. He will test them again for continuity before placing them in the pre-stamped plastic shell and casting them in epoxy. They will receive another test for microphonics, then placed into inventory.
This is a CNC machine that is used for drilling the printed circuit boards used in all the Alembic products both for instruments and rack mounted products. We are very unusual in that most people don't make their own hardware, electronics and pickups let alone manufacture their own printed circuit boards. PC Board pic
Brass CNC pic We manufacture all the brass parts on this CNC machine. Here we are drilling and tapping a solid brass bridge block.
Fingerboards are held in place by vacuum tooling. The CNC machine accurately slots the fingerboard for the frets, even custom scale lengths! It also tapers the fingerboards and the for the oval inlays if the model requires it. Fingerboard  pic
Brass pic Inspecting the parts for the bridge assemblies that have been drilled and tumbled. He will now buff the brass parts so that they can be assembled.
There are brass bridge saddles, brass spacers, brass rails, stainless steel knurled pins, aircraft fasteners, and screws that all need to be assembled to make a complete bridge. Brass parts  pic
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