What mags for a vintage soapbar P-90?

[Spence]

I just repaired a 1960 PAF and the magnet in it was only 400 gauss, the edge was marked with five marker lines for alnico 5, so can show up pretty low sometimes. ....

So two stripes is for AlNiCo 2? Is that how it works?

[Possum]

....

I don't think two strips meant anything, they marked the north side usually. In '60 I think thats maybe when alnico 5 was really starting to replace everything, this was also a short magnet, 2.44" long approx. I've never seen one marked like that so its pretty obvious it was alnico 5, it was marked right in the middle of the pole face 5 slashes all right next to eachother. It was funny because I often do that myself.

[Spence]

I've never seen 5 stripes on any bar magnet but 99% had 2 stripes. This was always done to mark the north face.
You should be able to get that magnet tested rather than guess at it.
I will hopefullybe getting some more old magnets tested on Wednesday with OTPG. I can let you know the results for your lab series if you like Dave.

[NightWinder]

,,,

I've never seen 5 stripes on any bar magnet but 99% had 2 stripes. This was always done to mark the north face.
You should be able to get that magnet tested rather than guess at it.
I will hopefullybe getting some more old magnets tested on Wednesday with OTPG. I can let you know the results for your lab series if you like Dave.

I never seen the 5 stripes either. You would think there would be way better consistancies with magnets now compared to yesturyears?? Things improve and get better

[Chadheckler1]

sandblasting

BTW today China sand blasts one side of the magnet to fool you into thinking they are rough cast. I have seen this from one Chinese supplier and they admitted this was how they did it. Cool looking if someone is going to destroy your pickup and see, but makes no difference in sound for the extra cost involved.

I recieved the same email from Sensmag the other day...thier engineer was sending pics and asking if this was desireable. I thought that they looked like crap. It definately looked like someone had sandblasted them!

[voodoochild]

I recieved the same email from Sensmag the other day...thier engineer was sending pics and asking if this was desireable. I thought that they looked like crap. It definately looked like someone had sandblasted them!

The company I am speaking of is Xiemen One. I can't remember how to spell it but anyway I thought it was dumb.

[Possum]

...

Spence, that magnet was in a repair job so its gone back with the pickup to the customer. Maybe they had just got some A5 and and marked them to show they were the new type magnets or something, I don't know. I've never seen that before either. Yes would love to know what results you get back, email me off list. Email me from my site, my email address changed some months ago. I use alnico 5 in my VL set, I tried everything else in earlier versions and A5 just had the right tones for me, especially when the volume pot is rolled back. got some different A2 from one of the guys here, may try that when my proto set comes back.

[belwar]

Well I had one set of A3 lying around so I tried it in a bridge pickup this afternoon and I liked it. It was very clean but not harsh sounding to my ears like A5 tends to be. I was surprised. It had a nice warmth in the bass too. I put A4 in the neck and it just sounded muddy to me. I think the unloaded resonance peak on the A3 was about 5.5 or 5.8 and the A4 was about 6.0.

I gotta get my mics hooked up so I can record and compare them. I forget how it sounds ten minutes later!.