PAF parts

[Spence]

You are kidding right? Slow shutter speed blurs the wire also... Counter only moves once revolution complete... The blur in photo with counter is not a full revolution... You are an engineer right?.... Are you sure you don't believe in UFO's Spence? Because you certainly have healthy conspiracy streak.

Here are the machines stopped, with wire..... But I warn you the depth of field is shallow due to large aperture for low light shooting so the wire is not in sharp focus.

Actually, someone mentioned to me that they couldn't see the wire in a blown up photo and I couldn't either. As for the counter, I guess you were unlucky that it wasn't on the turn when you took that. Look at the speed you're winding at.
If there's anything you'd like to know about engineering feel free to ask. Looks like you need to learn a few basics.
For the record I don't believe in aliens but I do believe if they ever arrive, you'll be the first one they probe.

[JGundry]

Actually, someone mentioned to me that they couldn't see the wire in a blown up photo and I couldn't either. As for the counter, I guess you were unlucky that it wasn't on the turn when you took that. Look at the speed you're winding at.
If there's anything you'd like to know about engineering feel free to ask. Looks like you need to learn a few basics.
For the record I don't believe in aliens but I do believe if they ever arrive, you'll be the first one they probe.

Thank you for the sincere engineering expertise offer. In the same spirit I will say if there is anything would like to know about how Gibson machine wound PAF's and P-90's just ask.

I hear aliens are only interested in sheep and their significant others when it comes to probing.

[RedHouse]

...I for one wouldn't believe some promo from any of the big pickup makers. ...

You sound like a victim of your own hyperbole Dave. You do realise many don't believe your own promo stuff (uTube etc) much in the very same way you suspect others?.

No offence but geez man, sometimes your posts read like that skit from Saturday Night Live, the compulsive-liar guy "oh yeah ...that's the ticket, yeah...my PAF's have the real sound, but all the guitars sound different...yeah but all the players sound diferent and well there is a PAF sound and I have it, but everyone else wouldn't know because it's all in the reasearch I've done, yeah that's the ticket, oh no it's all in the metals, yeah the metals, but tone testing the keeper wouldn't be productive, yeah but it is in the metals nonetheless, oh and I don't have a Lesona but my PAFS are more like real vintage Gibson PAF's than anyone else's, oh yeah that PAF tone is unique but then no it's not, can't measure it, but it is in that 1960 patent sticker one I took apart which is just like a PAF and I have captured it because of all my research and my friends metalurgy testing...oh, did I mention all my reasearch?..."

Heads-up Dave, if you can't find that JP spec with google you can call MJ at the Duncan Custom Shop and ask her about it.

[Possum]

....

If you want to believe what Duncan says thats your problem Ask soundermasterG about his dealings with MJ, she's no pickup engineer.

I stand 100% behind everything I"ve said and none of it is fluff advertsing stuff I can't back up. Yeah I sound like a nut case sometimes because I admit being obsessive about PAFs and most of it I can't share, what would be the point of posting everything I know so everyone else could make the same pickups I do, duh? If you obsess enough to do alot of work on something eventually you figure it out. If I told you how to make what I'm making you would complain about how much work it is I'm sure, and it is. I have about a two inch thick file folder full of stuff I can't show anyone.

You managed to mangle things I've said enough to prove to me you didn't understand much of what I said, I won't even bother responding to it point by point as I explained it well enough and you skipped over things I said, I would recommend you reread my rantings Unless you have actually done any work on PAFs its hard probably to relate what I'm trying to convey without giving anything away. I just know that my research and what I did with it WORKS. Is it a perfect match, a dead-on copy of a real PAF, no and I never claimed that either. All I claim is that I copied every measurement, every technical aspect, everything, the resulting tones are pretty much what happens if you took our modern materials back to 1959 and said here use this stuff; its pretty darn close. The reason I make my own parts is because there are no available parts that are close, and you have to copy accurately or you are making something else Customers are happy with them and eventually some won't be I'm sure just like everything else. Modern materials are the big drawback, they're close but then they're not. I've run into the same problems with P13's and a new vintage reissue pickup I'm working on now. If you want to know how important steel alloys are then experiment yourself, buy a mill and lathe and try different materials, you will be amazed the variety of tones changing one part will give you.

Anyway, I know you are just teasing me, I don't take myself too seriously but I love PAFs, only this week I got some new info from the metallurgist that is already paying off, what I wouldn't give to have all the tech gear those guys have, man!

I seem to have identified two different types of PAFs, in 1960 something changed more than just the short alnico 5 magnets, check this guy out, if you can grit your teeth through the whole presentation, this '60 neck pickup is magical. I have been working with a '61 this last month which is very close to this one, PAF stickered with some very unusual things about its construction. This guy is a fan of Throbaks, his videos are getting better:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV_yJ2htyO0"]YouTube - 1954 Gibson Les Paul 1960 PAF Demonstration.[/ame]

The '59's I've heard are more the darker creamy variety, '60 and after are more chimey. Personally I like the chimey versions better but have enough information to go both ways now.

Jon I think Spence just asked you to "bend over" can you say "baaaaaaaah"

[Possum]

...

Redhouse you obviously obsess on amp design, 'splain yerself man! Is a DIY amp kit the same as a vintage amp? Hmmmm?

[Possum]

...

In "amp language" (maybe you will understand this better....) I am "blueprinting" PAFs. Its the same deal in amp-land. Vintage amps are a bitch to duplicate because the transformers were different, the metal in them was different, caps were different, resistors were different, alot of it is close but then its not really, you can only get so close to duplicating a vintage amp and you have to do alot of back-engineering and study to figure out why and how things were made in those days, its the same process as duplicating a vintage guitar pickup really...

[Spence]

Jon I think Spence just asked you to "bend over" can you say "baaaaaaaah"

Not bloody likely! I have standards.

[Possum]

....

What if he uses a big bottle of lanolin lube

[RedHouse]

Redhouse you obviously obsess on amp design, 'splain yerself man! Is a DIY amp kit the same as a vintage amp? Hmmmm?

No, and there's nothing special about the metal!

Check out what George has over a Metroamp, he's a great guy.

[Possum]

....

Hmmmm, you've had iron from vintage transformers analyzed? The stuff I've done with PAFs has shown me that anything made of iron in the 50's was vastly different than what is common today. Nails were different, nuts and bolts, screws. Steel making itself was different. My contact is going to interview an old timer in the steel industry and find out details about this stuff. Its all related, you have to look at the technology of the times....

[David Schwab]

Hmmmm, you've had iron from vintage transformers analyzed? The stuff I've done with PAFs has shown me that anything made of iron in the 50's was vastly different than what is common today. Nails were different, nuts and bolts, screws. Steel making itself was different. My contact is going to interview an old timer in the steel industry and find out details about this stuff. Its all related, you have to look at the technology of the times....

At that Metroamp link:

Heyboer vs Metro vs MM - MetroAmp Wiki

Lastly, materials. Since these parts were originally made, steel and copper have changed. Modern materials are more precise and often higher quality. Today's M6 steel is more efficient than it's 35-year-old equivalent. Which changes the core characteristics. Great for cool running power transformers, but not so good for output transformer cores where you want them to saturate in a musical way. Other modern materials such as plastic and Teflon have replaced paper and fish paper. Which affects tone.

[jonson]

My contact is going to interview an old timer in the steel industry and find out details about this stuff. Its all related, you have to look at the technology of the times....

Why???? The material is still about if you look at what else was made in the 50s/60s. Better to spend money converting what is laying in the scrap or junkyards.

[RedHouse]

At that Metroamp link:

Heyboer vs Metro vs MM - MetroAmp Wiki

And paying particular attention to paragraph 3...

In "amp language" (maybe you will understand this better....) I am "blueprinting" PAFs. Its the same deal in amp-land. Vintage amps are a bitch to duplicate because the transformers were different, the metal in them was different, caps were different, resistors were different, alot of it is close but then its not really, you can only get so close to duplicating a vintage amp and you have to do alot of back-engineering and study to figure out why and how things were made in those days, its the same process as duplicating a vintage guitar pickup really...

Geez Dave, you'll argue 'till the cows come home won't you?.

Vintage amps are not hard to duplicate and "vintage" amps all sound different. But just as with PAF's, the sound/tone of vintage equipment is "all over the place" as I have said, everytime, you post that they are all like the one you copied and a particular certain sound and you pal who has a 1960.

You've done good work, a pat-on-the-back is in order, but you want PAF's to be one thing, one way, they're not. It's understandable to want things to be narrowly definable, like a recipe to discover/follow.

If you post your opinion (as you should) and another person posts an alternative opinion or experience, well ...deal. All the time here if you post an opinion and the next guy posts an alternate opinion you can't let it rest, but are absolutely compelled to post a counter-arguementative retort reciting all the research and blah-blah and so-n-so and customers-said this and that. I'm sure by now at this stage in life you have learned that just because one says something a thousand times, doesn't necessarily make it so for everyone else?.

Indeed I do like to read your posts, and when you're not on your high-horse you have much to contribute, in a forum of your peers. Keywords: we're all peers here. The ever constant effort to establish a heirarchy is just plain silly don't ya think?.

(probably not, I'm confident you'll argue something about it)

[Possum]

...

The only "high horse" is in your mind Mr.Red :-) I state my opinions based on hard evidence and actual work. Jon and Spence are the only others I know with actual experience to comment from. People who've never even seen a PAF requote stuff without thinking about where it came from, just parroting what someone else said, like "oh they all sounded different and some were good and some were bad." I always have to smile at that. The ones that were intact and functioning correctly all sounds like PAFs to me, no matter what variation. If there was no "PAF" tone I wouldn't even be interested in them at all.

Thanks David for posting the transformer info, I've read that before, the same deal, all steel back then was different and sounds different, end of story. It sounds like he did the same research I did with PAFs. BTW, another pickup maker friend asked some questions for me to an old guy who worked at Gibson in those years, he said when they ran out of keepers they would sometimes cut up "old transformer iron."

As for getting stuff from the scrap yard, have you ever tried to mill a keeper out of a piece of solid steel that has no dimension in common? I have and it takes about 3 hours to make one or two, its just not worth it. It would also be expensive because you couldn't put a date on any of it and would have to have each piece analyzed to see if you hit it or not. I think China is buying up alot of our scrap iron from a few things I've heard out there.

So all vintage amps sound different? A Deluxe Reverb is still a Deluxe Reverb no matter what year or what speakers are in it, its still going to sound like a Deluxe Reverb. I haven't seen a modern version yet that sounds like a vintage one, the Fender reissues are a joke. Vintage amps are easy to duplicate? Did you read that article, he just said the old transformer can't be duplicated, they are the core of the amp! Put a new transformer in a vintage amp and oops..... I've not seen a convincing JTM45 clone yet, why? Here is a vintage to die for, and oh by the way, some rather bitchin' PAFs too :-)

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA0LtElaUIo"]YouTube - betts toler les paul on a peter green classic[/ame]

[RedHouse]

...Here is a vintage to die for, and oh by the way, some rather bitchin' PAFs too :-)

YouTube - betts toler les paul on a peter green classic

A great couple of speciments there , that's old news, from the LPF years ago.

It's a good example of a great sounding PAF mounted in a great piece of woodwork, heared through a great unique example of an old Marshall. The old Marshalls were not all the same either, and didn't all sound the same just so you know.

It's good that you mention that Toler setup, you should try to get a tone like that, it's far away different than your PAF tone, and your friends tone in that uTube PAF comparison video clip you had him make.

You probably wouldn't know it but the Toler Les Paul, that particular guitar is one of the good sounding vintage Les Pauls (they are not all alike either, and don't all sound the same just so you know) a great piece to base a holy-grail search on.

BTW this one is a much better example to go by:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfCLYlzYO68&NR=1"]YouTube - betts toler burst vintage jtm 45 kt66[/ame]

and this is Dan Toler's website dantoler.com is cool but that's not Dan in these videos, the videos you are referencing on uTube are originally posted from a German magazine Guitarre & Bass you can read more about it on this LPF thread