Part of 3D printing’s popularity is due to its potential for creating custom shaped items –designed to your exact specifications. This has made 3D printing the perfect means for creating a 3D printed guitar pickup.

Polish designer Rob Klaczynski, together with his guitarist friend Martin Kubacki, have used 3D printing to produce the world’s first 3D printed guitar pickup.

While instruments have already been 3D printed, it’s the first time that an electric guitar pickup has been made with a 3D printer.

A guitar pickup is an essential element for electric guitars. It is mounted on the electric guitar and used to capture the vibration under the strings and then convert them into electric signals that then come out of the amplifier and speakers. The pickup consists of a coil and magnetic core.

Standard guitar pickups by Leo Fender are in the range of 5.8 – 6.2 coma resistance. But the pickup made by Martin and Robert is approximately 9000 turns, which gives 6.8 coma. This makes the guitar sound “more severe and metallic.”

“This 3D printed single pickup allows you to customize guitar sound,” the designers say. “By choosing the length of copper wire for a coil in pickup you steer with resistance and this influences your sound.”

Martin and Robert printed the guitar pickup on their 3D printer, and then uploaded the project instructions and files to Thingiverse for others to print, use, and enjoy as well.