Cream "Gibson" Color Survey?

[Possum]

....

From exposure. But then that last shot I found is puzzling because there's white in there and yet most of the underside is more yellowish. There's probably color variations only way really to know is scrape some off I guess. Not that important really...

[JGundry]

I had these done a few months ago but I had another go at the colorant. I colorant maker the zebra PAF on the right side of this photo to be scanned and color matched. The bobbin on the left is the result. I think it is pretty darned close. The vintage PAF bobbin has sort of a tanned edge around the left side which I think may be from adhesive bleed from the tape. But the cover only recently came off this PAF so it is as good an example of the original correct color as possible.

[clown_luthier]

woooow this look amazing!!
thanx for sharing, send us please more comparing, and maybe pic of whole new paf with new baseplates

[Sam Lee Guy]

Someone peed in your coffee?

Ah! This must be pee-cup forum!

Velly nice looking bobbin Mr. Gundry.

Early covers vacuformed vinyl til 54 then butyrate molded.

[Possum]

I think what you didn't consider is that your matching a CAB bobbin thats already aged, yours are going to darken past that. Here is a shot of a '59 double creme, next to that Seth Lover bobbins which are new, then next to that a 1980 Duncan creme bobbin, next to a rare early Patent with an earlier PAF creme bobbin. Notice how the 30 year old Duncan has darkened and looks more real than the new one. Minor point but.....

[Possum]

HOLY SHIT! These two pickups turned out to be vintage 80's Duncan PAF repros! Every detail on them is correct until you get inside, the keeper has 10 holes all the same size, they even hand sanded the flats like Gibson did, but the magnets are ground flat on the large flat sides and not vintage. One has a dead accurate PAF decal on it that has aged. When these were made all the parts that PAF's had were still being made the right way, the 2 pair shield cable, good brass mount screws, butyrate bobbins, plain enamel, "L" tool marked baseplates. One of them was dead so had to strip the coils and inside I found the same mold details from the early 80's and current Seth Lover, except the zebra had the circle square part wrong. Even the paper tape was still being made and correct. Luckily the buyer bought these cheap and got a good set of Shaws with them so he didn't lose any money. Watch out for these they can fool you....

[JGundry]

I can tell right off the bat that those are not PAF's. The circle in the square is wrong.

I have new Duncan Seth Lovers and Antiquities and they both have a different cream color so I think their cream varies some. Side by side the cream I went with is a bit lighter than the new Antiquity cream bobbins I have anyway. So I honestly don't think the Duncan cream is a useful reference for a PAF bobbin no matter what the age of it.

IMO the best reference for a PAF cream bobbin color would be to find a real cream PAF that never had the cover off and along with that has none of the fading due to exposure. Then take the cover off and send the entire pickup to a colorant maker and have them match it. Luckily this is exactly what I did.

Some misconceptions about this cream is that it only darkens with age. Well it does darken sometimes and sometimes it lightens with age and sometimes it loses red and yellows and sometimes it greens and sometimes it browns. The aging varies due to the kind of exposure it gets as well as probably the colorant that was used to begin with. I have 56' Les Paul P-90's that I think are CAB that have faded to a pinkish bone white on the outside but on the inside they are yellowy cream.

This vintage cream color has a mythical status at this point. People "remember" what the color looked like or they have a photo taken with their digital camera that is "the" color. Nevermind the auto white balance has neutralized most of the color out of the cream. None of these are useful for critical color.

The only way to do it is provide a vintage PAF that has a complete lack of aging and have it on site at the place making the colorant. Sending a photo from a book, or a Duncan bobbin... or saying I want it more "bone white" might get you the color you want but it won't be the color of a PAF bobbin.

[Possum]

Sorry, making that conclusion AFTER the fact doesn't count, you shoulda spoke up before. Everything else about them is right on, basically Seymour did what you're doing now 30 years ago but all that stuff existed back then, still he got it wrong, the double creme is excessively bright, not even worth it for me to have the steels analyzed, probably all 1022 or higher. Even the one I was sent earlier had a high wind and it was still excessively bright. All that said if he would sell those bobbins I'd buy them in a heartbeat. His PAF decal was pretty darn good, he copied the lettering off real PAF decals, all that stuff glows in blacklight like it should too. The zebra though did sound pretty good but was 16K, probably did that to darken it up. I'm going to see if he'll sell these to me for cheap, they are very cool for what they are and the PAF stickered ones are kinda rare probably....

[RedHouse]

Seymour did it ...still he got it wrong

Wow, it's like the proverbial ant diss'ing the giant. He probably sells more in a day than you've sold your entire winding career but the poor guy just can't get it right 'eh?, dang good thing you're here Dave, where would we be otherwise?.

[Possum]

Nope they didn't get it right. There's no polite way to say that. Play an outstanding real PAF then play a Duncan. Its not there. A big company can't put in the kind of efforts I've gone too, and they can't spend the time making sure each single pickup is right in the pocket. Just because a company is big doesn't mean they've done all their homework. In in my opinion, to me it means they are less likely to do the amount of research needed to accurately reproduce a vintage product. Name ONE reissue pickup product that totally nails a vintage pickup, you can't. It took me literally 8 years to figure these pickups out, do you think some larger company is going to tell one of their wage slaves to spend 8 years to find out why those old pickups sound like that? In yer dreams..... Bottom line at any company is make it cheap, sell it steep, make money. If you're making 5,000 of something they are going to be clunkers among those because you can't control materials in quantities like that. Ants do what they do and elephants do what they do, you wouldn't have a single customer if the big companies could match the ants...

[JGundry]

If Seymour Duncan had the desire or need to make a 100% repro PAF he could certainly do it. He has a custom shop staffed with people that are probably just as concerned about QC as you Dave and they surely have much more expensive and sophisticated equipment to do QC with. Who knows why Seymour has not done a 100% accurate PAF repro but it is not lack of ability that is to blame IMO.

I must say Dave that it is a pretty bold statement to proclaim that you have accurately researched reproducing a vintage PAF when you have not even operated a vintage pickup winding machine like the Leesona 102. Seymour Duncan certainly has a leg up on you there. Seymour knows the importance of the machine and you know the importance of some other stuff. Give Seymour a call and work it out to make the perfect PAF repro. But you will have to mold new bobbins to make it 100% accurate. On second thought don't bother, I have the PAF details covered plus I have more vintage accurate PAF era winding equipment than Seymour.

Well that was easy. Hey how about that cream color I chose!

[clown_luthier]

Hey how about that cream color I chose!

it's perfect

[Possum]

Unfortunately I don't think any company has a grip on why PAF's sound the way they do and its mostly because companies can't do what one independent person can. The problem with companies is that once you start employing people and grow larger you build a bureaucracy and lose focus, you just don't have time to obsess on a vintage product to the exclusion of all else, you have to keep your employees doing their job instead of slacking off and pretending to be busy. As a graphic designer I was often hired by corporations because their entrenched in-house staff couldn't get anything done. Its also why I prefer being self employed, if you want to do something well you do it yourself, my experience with groups of employees working on something is that it becomes design by commitee and breeds mediocrity. I know some of the history of various PAF products available from companies and its pretty shoddy methodology, the Shaw pickups are a classic example of how companies do things. Hell PAF's themselves are a bastard design, not what Seth actually intended.

I don't think you have a clue how much research I've done on PAF's, and especially the experiments, hundreds of them; thats what I do, I try literally EVERYTHING I can think of no matter how weird, to push the limits of understanding, to debunk myths, to prove to myself that something is true or not true. And I get out in the shop and make tons of prototype stuff, a lot of hard work without pay. I don't talk about any of what I've actually done on the forum, and never will. Its way more than I ever shared with anyone. I pretty much don't have anymore questions about PAF's, the last pieces of the puzzle came together about six months ago, and everything just works. I'm finishing up my last set of four, then won't be doing anymore sets, as these cover pretty much all of the variations. I proved to myself that you don't need a vintage winder, I did a whole series of experiments on PAF coil geometry, how far you can push it before it loses the characteristics etc. Hand winding completely loses it, varying too far from the recipe TPL starts to lose it pretty rapidly. I've also had someone in industry helping me with his company's high tech gear over the last 4 years and I know a ton of stuff I don't talk about. Your creme bobbins are very cool, I'll give you that, but its just cosmetics and not necessery in the end. I ain't tellin' Seymour nuthin....

[RedHouse]

...Play an outstanding real PAF then play a Duncan. Its not there. ...

Which Duncan? an SH55 or an Antiquities, or a Duncan 59 or is that sweeping statement covering everything they make?

Too bad we can't play an "outstanding" example and then a Duncan and then yours, that would solve the problem.

It's good to see you are finally of the opinion that there indeed are "outstanding" examples of the PAF species. It wasn't so long ago you were arguing on this board that PAF's were generally all the same and all just like the patent number example you had "studied" doing all your research. As I recall many here (myself included) had to vigorusly debate that was not true there were plenty of dud's and they (PAF's) didn't all sound the same, yeah it was back when you were winding your research perfect pickups and testing them in your Epiphone Les Paul with the opinion the wood doesn't make any difference. What ever happened to all those youtube vids you had up there of you and your Epiphones demo'ing your research perfect PAF's anyway?

...Nope they didn't get it right...

Again, good thing you're here for us all Dave where would we be without you? I guess you would know better than Seth Lover himself too because of all your research.

Here is a quote from a Vintage Guitar magazine interview with Seth Lover in 1996;

"After the patent ran out, Seymour started making the pickups and he did an awfully good job. Not just in appearance but in materials and workmanship and sound. Everything down to the finest detail was intact."

man I'm glad you're here to keep us from buying-into any of that, I mean sheesh, what would Seth know about PAF's anyway.

It must all be a conspiracy 'eh? what with Seymour winding for 35 or 40 years and can't get it right, and Seth Lover inventing them but can't tell shite from shine'ola, but here comes Dave and all his research able to do better than all who came before him.

Geze I'm just proud to just be logging onto this forum where such greatness hangs out, thanks for setting us straight Dave.

...I ain't tellin' Seymour nuthin...

My gut-feeling is ...he ain't asking.

[clown_luthier]

i see some sentences are like copy paste all over the internet.
Dave you invested more time in research than seth lover. i heard there is one man who made all this 25 years ago, and his pafs are today real

back to the cream color, hey Jon share some pics of complete pickup with us, please