Turn count on original Fender WRHB?

[Joe Gwinn]

Probably isn't. But it's not alnico either.

I figured they both have iron in them, and alnico doesn't.

Alnico does have iron in it: "balance Fe".

Alnico - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[salvarsan]

Alnico does have iron in it: "balance Fe".

Alnico - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yeah, what Joe said.

Magnets - Pickupedia

-drh

[David Schwab]

I realized that after I posted.

[Old Tele man]

...I kinda like the orphaned name: Al-Ni-Cu

...too bad they didn't use it (ha,ha).

[salvarsan]

...I kinda like the orphaned name: Al-Ni-Cu

* ...too bad they didn't use it (ha,ha).

Dang! *I didn't think anyone would ever read that crap I wrote,

except maybe by accident.


-drh

[Peter Naglitsch]

...my immediate translation of mr. telenator was: "...and, what part of genuine don't do understand?"

...look at my posting to him on this subject over on The Gear Page.

new "revoiced" Wide-Range Humbuckers? - The Gear Page

Thats exactly how Telenator posts about his pickup mods in as many forums as possible

[Tele-Bob]

We have misjudged the caliber of this board. I initially posted information here with the hope of having some discussion and spreading the word about what we're doing with pickups. Had I read a little longer before simply busting in with our big ideas, I would have taken a different tact. I stand in error. Please allow me an attempt to clarify a few facts in the interest of future discussion.

1) Telenator does 3 versions of the WRHB.
MOD1 uses thread alnico II magnets and sounds very good. Not like the vintage original, but very good.

MOD2 uses alnico 5 slugs that are ground and slotted to look like screws but do not function as such.

MOD3 uses actual threaded alnico 5 magnets and works 100% like the original vintage WRHB. Both MOD2 and MOD3 nail the tone of the original.

2) It is not the intention of Telenator Musical Electronics to manufacture a 100% vintage spec WRHB. We are simply doing modifications to existing MIM Re-issue WRHBs which yield a much better sound in our MOD1 version and a truly accurate sound in our MOD2 and MOD3 versions.

3) The issues with Sens Mag stem from our inquiries on various size magnets as they pertain to our several pickup models. We're not only about modding WRHBs! The threaded magnet sizes currently offered by Sens Mag are sizes we had inquired about for other projects and NOT in an effort to re-create the WRHB. Sens Mag has proven thus far to be a loose canon and essentially took the information we provided when asking for quotes and samples, and just went out and started producing the parts and offering them to anyone who wants them. The sad thing is, while some of those sizes might be useful for certain applications, they are not by any means our final sizes for our product line. As you all know, designing new pickups with new materials involves a lot of research, testing and plain old "giving it a try." Further more, Sens Mag was asked that they treat this as proprietary information. Instead, they screwed the pooch.

4) Telenator Musical Electronics is not in the business of attempting to make 100% vintage accurate pickups. Nowhere do we make that claim. We're in the business of making really great sounding pickups in a way not common to the industry at the moment. We're offering something on a commercial level the no one has at the moment and hopefully customers will find this unique enough to want them in their guitars. That's about it.

5) Most all the information about this is out there already. The speculation around here as to "what we're really up to" is kind of amusing. There seems to be a very interesting interpretation of the facts. We're just a small pickup company with a unique product line that is trying to get the word out to the people. We don't expect everyone to like our products but hopefully enough will to make this huge effort all worthwhile.

We're not adversaries. If you have a question, we will answer it honestly and factually. If it gets a little too close to some of our proprietary specifications, we will politely decline to answer and I would expect that you would understand. We're trying to have a go of this and simply divulging everything we've been working so hard on for the past couple years would not be in our best interest.

Lastly, I want to say that I have read many interesting and intelligent comments on this board. There is a wealth of knowledge here that goes beyond what you find at some other forums where the big question of the day is, "what color pickguard should I put on my Strat?"

In retrospect we realize that planting a few seeds here concerning our new products was perhaps a mis-step on our part because you guys are not the type to flock to Guitar Center and buy the latest crap gadget they have for sale there. You guys get down and build your own stuff!

Please accept my apology for not having read enough information here to get a feel for the board before trying to seed it with my own information. Clearly it is misplaced and I'm a bit of jerk for doing it without first knowing the facts.

Bob

[Old Tele man]

...most people here love the smell of solder core rosin, playing with micrometers, wearing eye-lopes, the snap of a discharging capacitor, and the sting of a hot soldering iron.

...as my Dad would say: inveterate tinkerers!

...some do it all for the fun, others for the knowledge, and a few try to do it for a living.

[JGundry]

3) The issues with Sens Mag stem from our inquiries on various size magnets as they pertain to our several pickup models. We're not only about modding WRHBs! The threaded magnet sizes currently offered by Sens Mag are sizes we had inquired about for other projects and NOT in an effort to re-create the WRHB. Sens Mag has proven thus far to be a loose canon and essentially took the information we provided when asking for quotes and samples, and just went out and started producing the parts and offering them to anyone who wants them. The sad thing is, while some of those sizes might be useful for certain applications, they are not by any means our final sizes for our product line. As you all know, designing new pickups with new materials involves a lot of research, testing and plain old "giving it a try." Further more, Sens Mag was asked that they treat this as proprietary information. Instead, they screwed the pooch.

Just to relate my own experience with having magnets made. The plus of Chinese magnet makers is not only price but they are much more willing to make samples with little to your spec. with little or no fee required and turn it around fast. The down side of this is Chinese manufacturers across the board are notorious for shopping around designs made for one company to competitors. This happens with magnets, vacuum cleaners.... anything that is made in China is at risk of this. It is unfortunately part of the trade off of having cheap Chinese made parts. If Sens Mag made and tooled up for samples they supplied and it did not result you are practically asking them to offer them up for sale if they know there may be a market for them. I think even a US magnet maker would do the same if the tooling for the samples was done fully or partially on spec.. for a non patented design.

On the other hand placing a custom magnet order with one of the 3 remaining USA Alnico will require a fairly large minimum at much higher prices than a Chinese maker. This makes can make USA made magnets impractical for small makers. Even at that. If you have a custom mold made by a USA Alnico maker and even if you pay the mold charge, the magnet maker is the owner of the mold. Obviously the wise magnet maker will not shop parts around made with your mold but the fact is they own the mold.

Since these parts are not part of a patented original design and since it sounds like Sens Mag only did sample parts for you it is not a shock that they made and sold these if you did not follow up the samples with an order. If you paid the full tooling charge and then that would be a different story but still would not be a shocker if a Chinese maker started selling the same parts to others.

[Tele-Bob]

Well, if anything, it will serve to throw the rest of the industry off as the parts they're selling are not our final sizes and were in fact way off spec. We have gone more in the direction of magnet size verses magnet type and found a whole new world of possibilities exist using this approach.

Currently we're offering what we call a PT90 pickup using threaded FeCrCo2 magnets. It sounds killer. Nice tight lows. Very articulate and a big hit among jazzers who like a more focused sound from their hollow body guitar. This is our first departure from threaded alnico and it works really well.