rare earth magnets

[safas]

I am seeing rare earth button magnets advertised in a lot of places now. Has anyone used these in building a pickup? I would like to build some pickups to be used in a home made steel guitar and would like to try using these.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Rick

[Mike Sulzer]

I am seeing rare earth button magnets advertised in a lot of places now. Has anyone used these in building a pickup? I would like to build some pickups to be used in a home made steel guitar and would like to try using these.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Rick

Yes, many people use them. They are extremely strong. For guitar, small ones can be used on the bottoms of slugs. Tiny ones can be used on top. It is easier with bass pickups, since bass strings are harder to "pull". I believe that two of the Davids here make such pickups. Maybe one or more will comment.

[Dave Kerr]

I've used them on a couple relatively underwound blade humbuckers for bass with good results. They're cheap enough to get a mittful and play around with. I'm thinking of making a couple of Steve Kersting's S90's using them when I find the time.

[David Schwab]

I use neodymium magnets, but I don't use those little buttons. I tried them out and found them to be pretty useless for bass pickups... at least with the design I was working with. They would probably work with pole piece designs though, but I'm using blades. I use bar magnets.

My magnets are pretty strong. They work fine with bass strings, but I have no idea how they would react with guitar strings.

But as Mike said, a few pickup makers use them with great success.

[dpm]

I put 5mm diameter x 2mm neo buttons at the bottom of slugs but found they weren't strong enough, the magnetic field didn't extend far enough away from the slugs.

[Mike Sulzer]

I put 5mm diameter x 2mm neo buttons at the bottom of slugs but found they weren't strong enough, the magnetic field didn't extend far enough away from the slugs.

Stack two or three if you have more.

[dpm]

Tried that, can't remember exactly but I think the results were still not as strong as expected. Slightly larger and a stronger grade would probably do it, I believe these are one of the weaker grades of neo.

[David Schwab]

Those neo buttons are just too thin in my opinion. They stick well to things, but the poles are too close together.

You can get longer neo rods and other shapes. Check out K&J Magnetics

[Dave Kerr]

Sorry - I neglected to take note that you were asking about the button magnets - I used the bar form factor as well.