'74 StratPU staggered poles, one is weak???

[guitician]

I've charged all the poles and one pole(one of the two .710") is weaker. Did they use alnico II or III for one of these poles?

[Possum]

.....

You will almost always find magnets that don't hold the same charge as others. Also, in an assembled strat pickup the end poles will read higher as the result of the overall magnetic field of the entire magnet assembly. Don't worry about it....

[guitician]

It seems about half as strong as the other .710"x.187" pole. Could this be variations in the alinico tolerance? If the G string has more output than the D, it will work, I suppose?

[Possum]

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Put it in a guitar and find out. I built a cheap hall effect Radio Shack parts guassmeter when I started all this and was appalled at finding weak magnets, but I had no charger at the time either. If the magnet is really a bad one and it has a big drop out while its in the guitar, you'll just have to take the thing apart and start over.....

[guitician]

Oh, I should have mentioned, it's already apart. I thought of buying another pole from someone, but if it's OK the way it is, why bother.

[guitician]

Did Fender Always use the same Alnico?

Are all Mid 70's Strat PU's made with one type of Alnico? I'm wondering if mine may have a "G" pole made with alnico II instead of V that the others seem to be. After many attemps to get it to charge up to anything close to the others, it still remains about half as weak as the others. I'm testing this just by the feel of the pull when lifting a tiny screwdriver off of the pole. Thanks

[Spence]

It wouldn't be AlNiCo II. It could be A3 however, I have seen Fender Start pickups where one pole is N up instead of S up. Check the polarity while you're at it.

[guitician]

I've tried recharging it both ways. Do these poles go bad? And never take a charge again? I've got an original '62 that has all the same pull strength, relative to the length, but the "G" is slightly weaker than the "D".

[Spence]

That's not unusual which is why a lot of players used to push the G pole up a bit.

[jonson]

Spence iv'e told you before bruv. You have to remove the g-string before you push the pole up a bit.

[Possum]

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WHOA!!! If you push the G magnet up you'll likely cut the coil and kill it. You shouldn't be so concerned about differences no two magnets are gonna charge exactly the same, the magnets in the pickup work together as a group and likely you won't hear the weaker magnet's difference, if that were true you would hear that the high E and low E magnets are almost always the strongest because they all work together as one single magnet and the edges of a magnet are always the strongest.

[Spence]

WHOA!!! If you push the G magnet up you'll likely cut the coil and kill it. You shouldn't be so concerned about differences no two magnets are gonna charge exactly the same, the magnets in the pickup work together as a group and likely you won't hear the weaker magnet's difference, if that were true you would hear that the high E and low E magnets are almost always the strongest because they all work together as one single magnet and the edges of a magnet are always the strongest.

At no point did I recommend he do this. I don't take risks like that and I do know what the risks are thanks all the same.

[guitician]

OK, back to the reason for the post. This '74 Fender Strat PU is un-wound and I have some formvar #42 I'm going to use to rewind it. I know they used plain enamel, I'm going for pre-CBS spec. Anyway, this pole seems to me to be a lot weaker, and not a normal variance in the material. I've weighed the "D"&"G" poles and the "D" weighs 4 grams, and the "G" is 2.5. Are they different materials? They both are the exact same dimensions. Thanks

Edit: I remeasured that weight difference after putting a non magnetic spacer between the magnet and the digital gram scale and I now get 2.4g ea. So, the pull on the base of the scale was about 62.5% weaker for the pole in question.
It looks like there is a density differance between alnico's
http://www.magneticproduct.com/AlNiCo%20magnet.htm
A few tenths of a gram per cubic centimeter. Which may be too small to show up on my .1 gm resolution scale.

[Possum]

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Spence I wasn't talking to you

When I charge my strat pickups none of the magnets are identical, it doesn't bother me and no one can even hear it, it all evens out....

[guitician]

I know I can put it together as-is and it will "Work", but that is not what this thread is about. I'm trying to determine if the pole is either bad, of a different material or under charged. I've checked many strat pickups by lifting a tiny screw driver off of the pole, and never felt such a big differance between poles of the same size.