Butyrate bobbin shoot out--Bang!

[Possum]

Not really a shoot out, just to show differences. The bobbin set on the left are the BareKnuckles, then the Seth Lover, then an early Patent set, then an early PAF bobbin that lost some slugs to "science" he he he he...

Notice that the Seth Lover black bobbin isn't jet black like the BK and the real ones, didn't notice that 'til I photographed these. The BK and Pat and PAF all have solid cores, the SL does too but not as a solid wall, but round cylinders connected by thin plastic between each cylinder, if that makes sense. Forgot to shoot that....

[JGundry]

Now melt them all with a heat gun and see which one is the softest. Been there done that.

[Faux Hog]

Job aplication

Hey guys, Please contact me if you need any help ruining priceless old things. I can give you my wife and my mother's numbers if you need a reference. They will attest to my 25 years of experience in the field. My track record for applying this talent to research, I must admit, is not great though.
Kidding aside, I have not yet built a bucker but have enjoyed this (these) threads. Fascinating process and R&D. It's a pity, perhaps, that 99% of customers will never understand or appreciate what goes into this that we enjoy so much. And 99.99% of wives and sweeties. I doubt Hollywood would be interested in "The Search for the Bobbin that Smells Most Right." but I know I'd watch it with a big tub of cheddar powdered popcorn.

I'll leave you to ponder the question my loving and understanding wife asks me once a week; "Don't you already have one of those?"

[Faux Hog]

So, the Lovers have six cylinders that are connected by a molding tab running from twelve to six o clock from their circumferences? That seems like an awful lot of extra key strokes to get a result much further away from the essence of the product they're trying to recreate. Unless I'm not following you Possum. Why on God's gray Earth would they bother with that? Would there be an advantage? Less mass/more air in the structure? Is this a commonality of Duncan's bobbins? That just struck me as very odd. Perhaps I'm over-reading it. It would be terribly difficult to get a pic of that I imagine.

Here's my thought; and I'm a novice and I might be way the F off here but... If there are exposed cylinders inside the bobbin, wouldn't you run the risk of the the subsequent outer coils exuding pressure onto the inner coils so that they would follow the "topography" of the bobbin form? It seems like that could stretch the wire and force a break or at least raise capacitance in an unpredictable way. Or cause sag and micro-phonics in the coil. I suppose the same would be true for my traditional Leo-like single coils but they are vacuum potted.
Is what I described an actual phenomenon? If so, wouldn't you want to avoid that explicitly in a pickup designed to be a (sort of) recreation. No love loss for the Lovers, they're the only full size bucks I own and I think they sound great in my epi sg custom. I just got thinking because every aspect of building has such an impact and tolerances being what they are, that this would definitely character the outcome and therefor be of some consideration. It just seems to me like the coil could be all over the place. Good for Strats- Bad for Les Pauls. No?
I don't mean to high-jack the thread I just see an opportunity to get some expertise on a possible phenomenon I haven't encountered anywhere yet.
My apologies Possum.

[David Schwab]

Why on God's gray Earth would they bother with that? Would there be an advantage? Less mass/more air in the structure? Is this a commonality of Duncan's bobbins? That just struck me as very odd. Perhaps I'm over-reading it. It would be terribly difficult to get a pic of that I imagine.

It makes no difference either way. The core only holds the poles and creates the space you wind on. It's plastic after all. It's not going to contribute to the tone unless the thickness is different. I know Dave doesn't like the bobbins with hollow cores, but if it's air or plastic, or even wood, it doesn't matter.

I also don't expect Butyrate to sound any different from PVC or ABS or whatever, until someone can prove otherwise.

[Electricdaveyboy]

Wehn..

.... the butyrate or ABS cools down it starts to shrink and you can see the material sink in.
Less corematerial means less shrinking.That is why most bobbins are not massive in the coilformer area.

[David Schwab]

.... the butyrate or ABS cools down it starts to shrink and you can see the material sink in.
Less corematerial means less shrinking.That is why most bobbins are not massive in the coilformer area.

Good point! I forgot about that. My buddy knows a lot about molding, and I remember him talking about stuff like that when we were going to do some covers.

[Possum]

....

I think there is the issue of less cost because the skimpy cores use less material, especially if like Seymour you're doing thousands in a batch. A lot of plastic can be saved by using a core like that. No, the wire doesn't conform to the indents in the core, it stretches over them tight. The old butyrate bobbins are real soft, just rewind one and you'll find out. I don't know if I have time or not but I can rewind the SL bobbins and compare to what I'm doing and let you know if there's any difference, I seriously doubt there is any difference between CAB and ABS and sure not going to take the word of someone with a non-objective view and a product to sell :-) If there's no difference its too easy to hear what one want to hear.... I've done bounce testing for acoustic qualities between CAB and ABS, the black ABS ones are more dense and are pretty close to CAB acoustics, not enough to be audible, especially once the coil is wound on it and tape wrapped, the mass of the coil and damping quality of paper tape are far going to outweigh minimal acoustic differences of naked bobbins I bet.....

[frankfalbo]

I think there is the issue of less cost because the skimpy cores use less material, especially if like Seymour you're doing thousands in a batch. A lot of plastic can be saved by using a core like that.

No, this is silliness. The bobbin represents such a small cost of the total pickup making process, that it would be insignificant. The default "Seymour must do ____ to save money" sentiment is completely misguided and insulting to our entire Operations team, including Derek Duncan our Quality Engineer, Cathy, and Seymour. If we wanted to save money we wouldn't use Butyrate at all. I hope that's not how you talk about us when customers call. Having said that, you are making sense, along with others, when you suggest no impact on the coil integrity. Thank you for that. I don't mean to give you a hard time. (It just burns me whenever I see that sentiment coming from other winders) The inward pressure along the core is almost nothing, regardless of the winding tension. So the fact that you have maybe 30% less material making contact is moot. It's like talking about what percentage of your drapes are touching the wall.

As others have suggested, it's exactly because of the shrink on top, and something Seth figured out a long time ago, too. He didn't like sink holes, and neither do most customers. Today, what with relics and vintage recreations taking center stage, people might actually want sink holes again. And that's cool, and that's why Gundry's bobbin is cool.

The next concern is whether the sink holes on top translate directly into a change in the coil geometry, and the answer is no. The fact that they are sink "holes" means that's where all the material migrated from so the distance between high and low E strings is the same whether the core is relieved or not.

[Possum]

...

Frank, I didn't mean that comment as a slap against anyone, it just seemed to me that the cheapest Asian bobbins really cheaped out and have real airy cores, and figured they were trying to save on plastic costs in making thousands and thousands of bobbins as it surely would. The air core ones do have a negative impact on tone that you can hear. Gibson's BB bobbins did something similar to Seymour but use squared segments, and Holmes did too. Personally I LIKE a solid core bobbin and StewMac/AllParts ones do that nicely, but their coil geometry sucks and makes anything wound on them sound like every other thing wound on them, too many of them out there. So Duncans aren't interested in saving money Bare Knuckles went totally authentic in every way, the only thing about them that sets them apart is the texture on the bottom of the bobbins isn't what you find on PAF bobbins, so otherwise they could pass for the real deal. The SL bobbins are great except the black is more dark grey compared to the others in the photo, something I never noticed til they were all lined up. Glad you don't think butyrate has some magic tonal quality, I sure don't want to see a new "myth" out there muddying the waters of whats real about PAF's. No insult intended, I have deep respect for Seymour's work, and the best factory made stuff comes from there for sure. As many jabs as I've taken from you, lighten up, this was never intended as a jab, you'll know it if I ever do, sucka' :-)

[JGundry]

I think what Frank is getting at is that considering the time and expense required to do Butyrate bobbins it is not entirely appropriate for competitor to critique, or rank or proclaim the virtues or lack of virtues of them on a public forum. Especially when the maker critiquing them has zero skin in the game as far dollar investment or market profile when it comes to Butyrate bobbins. Not to say you cannot have an opinion and state it though. But if that is all you were doing I don't think you would get the sort of response you got from Frank.

The fact is anyone getting these made has out considerable thought, time and money into it and no matter how you slice it the cost is at least double for Butyrate. There are so many little details with PAF bobbins to address that nobody makes a dead on knock off them. Some are closer than others by choice but again I'm sure considerable time thought and energy went into all of them.

[David Schwab]

The air core ones do have a negative impact on tone that you can hear.

If they sound different it is not because there is air in there. Why would that matter? They must sound different because of some other aspect of their geometry.

But if you want to demonstrate that, take a solid core pickup, wind it and record it, and then drill holes in the core between the poles and then see if it sounds different.

I'm sure you know it wont.

The hollow cores are to stop sink holes.

[Possum]

.....

Frank flipped out over some remark that had no other intent than I thought manufacturers were trying to save a buck in mass production, I make no apologies for having a simple thought, 'scuse me??? So I learned it was to avoid dimples, in other words not copying the real deal and "improving" on them. And Jon you are the one that went off on the Duncan product saying they were way off, well they are, its not criticism its an observation. I put those up there for everyone to see what has been done, the BK's are dead on for certain examples I've personally seen and in fact rewound one exactly like it last nite. Butyrate bobbins are just a cosmetic touch, and not a high priority on my list anyway. I know everything about Seth Lovers, Holmes, BurstBuckers, and more, examined them all in a metals lab, measured every part, to see if anyone was making a totally accurate PAF reproduction. Well, no one does. If Frank doesn't like me thats fine, but saying I was insulting every person working at Duncan's because I thought they had made an economically driven design decision is just childish....

[JGundry]

Dave, Frank invited an A/B comparison. If he had said nothing I would not have done an A/B comparison.

As it is right now you have ranked all Butyrate bobbins being made. Proclaimed that Butyrate does not matter and that your non Butyrate bobbins are functionally identical to Butyrate and then in the same breath said you are working on Butyrate bobbins. In addition you claim to have an original PAF drawing from a super secret source. I don't think it is surprising that Frank, a representative here for Seymour Duncan, would find all of this laughable and maddening at the same time. Especially when you consider nobody has the sort of inside history and documentation as Seymour does via Seth Lover.

Now if you had said, guys here are my Butyrate bobbins. Please inspect them carefully and tell me everything you like and don't like about them. Also if you could kindly submit your own Butyrate bobbins for the same treatment maybe we can pool the information so the next guy who makes these will benefit. Maybe you would get willing submissions and then again maybe not. But it would also assume that you had made Butyrate bobbins, which you have not.

[Electricdaveyboy]

Now we know that the airgap is made against shriking sinks.That is a fact.

I am not willing to believe that it is made to save butyrate or ABS .

How much is a pair of PAF clone bobbins worth for the small pickup winder if it would be available ?
An how much weight has the PAF Clone bobbin as a marketing tool ?

Many winders showed up with those clone bobbins in the past month and I am shure they will be on sale sooner or later for all of us.