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Rick its always amusing to me that Jon talks about "positioning" like he pioneered this PAF research shit. I first met Jon when he emailed me in 2005 and asked to trade one of his pedals (a nice one I might add) for one of my early PAF attempts, I was already making my own parts, experimenting with different alloys and asking Joe Gwinn alot of questions on the forum, Jon made pedals and maybe a StewMac kit bucker. I had a full line of every type of pickup and many of my own unique designs, Lollar helped me get started so I had a very broad range experience in pickup making already at 3 years, and got Joe to teach me to use an LCR meter, which no one was using back then, now most have them. From some comments on other forums its obvious that some of his customers think that he taught ME all about this stuff when I was actively on the trail of back-engineering PAF's from real early in my career. We did share some info at one point but I quit as I got deeper into real treasures and I didn't want him making the same thing I am.
There was really no one on the pickup forum back then who was interested in PAF's enough to really do anything about it other than mismatch a coil now and then ;-) I was obsessed with finding out why those pickups just don't sound like anything being made and why couldn't I GET those tones.
Anyway end of story, end of pissing match. Jon focuses on mass production, I focus on making individual sets that are intensely finely crafted products that take hours and hours to make, I like having total control of each pickup that goes out, I don't use assemblers, I do everything myself, my main interest isn't making money its TONE, yes I'm stupid. Jon is doing great so far, but you can't nail an accurate PAF witout a Leesona? Come on, get real. I do like Jon and if I thought I was going to fall over dead next month I would pass the ton of information on to him as really no one else out there gives a crap about this stuff except me and him, despite the pissing matches ;-) It would take a small book to put down what I've learned and the technical data I have but who would buy it? And it would put me out of business ;-) I'd pass it on to RedHouse but he is still deep into research into how to make LSD in his bath tub ;-) so far it keeps turning out as butter....
You name it, I've tried it Rick, if it comes under the subject of PAF's, but not strictly limited to that. My main love is experimenting and trying everything and anything I can dream up to see what works and to debunk theories. I have all the gear here to make pretty much anything I want. I love working with my hands and making things, and have a back ground in art metal jewelry, casting, and fabrication. I bought a couple thousand dollars of expensive electrical steel at one point because Joe Gwinn thought maybe that Seth Lover's "soft iron" comment meant "electrical steel." It worked pretty well but it was just going in the wrong direction, the stuff was nearly pure iron and was just too "soft" sounding ;-) and expensive as hell to get centerless ground for slugs, and a horror story trying to mill keepers out of thick hot rolled sheet. It would take 3 hours to make 2 keepers and they looked like shit and my mill complained loudly. I tried steel shims on both sides instead of wood and all kinds of ridiculous things, I had screws made in 2 alloys, I got AllStar and Magnetic Hold to get the Chinese to start making rough cast magnets, now they are everywhere. Allstar's looked great but were real thin and useless, Magnetic Hold's are perfect and the best anyone makes, they could pass for real. I did alot of stuff I won't even mention, every crazy idea you could probably think of I did and I found a wealth of useable knowledge and tricks. I discovered a liquid potting fluid that would give you the equivalent of vintage magnet wire, but it was too unctrollable in the end. It wouldn't solidify the coil either which is what I wanted, I spent months on that one and may some day revisit it. I still constantly experiment with PAF parameters looking for perfection, there are strict recipe and specs but within that there is room for endless variety, they all sound pretty much the same but you can get endless textures, bloom, etc. etc. I just finished one experiment this evening that worked great! Perfection, perfection, perfection, its out there, I want it!
I've been working with an industry magnetics alloy specialist for 3 years so far and have learned a ton of stuff from him and he did extensive lab work for me on nearly the complete history of Gibson vintage steels, up to late TTop era, screws, slugs, keepers, P13's parts, everything. I don't think anyone has ever done that in such detail. Really you don't want to be using silicon alloys for screws as they would be really bright sounding, what works best are alloys with the most eddy currents and permeability you can get, thats where the most musical tones come from, thats for screws not slugs. The higher carbon stuff just sounds too bright for me. But if you're wanting hi-fi tones, the efficient magnet alloys would be worth looking into. There is a book called Ferromagnetism by Bosworth or some similar name if you want to damage your brain. PAF's use 3 different alloys, they were common alloys of the period and just off the shelf material, nothing special. Steel making back then was noticeably different and you can read the elements list on a variety of lab tests and compare to modern steel and see the differences. They used whats called the Bessemer process or open hearth, all those furnaces in the US are gone, the last one closed in '68. Steel now is made much more pure and clean and thank God is still being made in the US, but I have gotten really bad batches of stuff that sounded horrible. Same thing for magnet wire, the old copper was less pure and more ohms per foot, insulation was different and not applied the same way. Elektrisola did a bunch of lab work on vintage wire samples I've saved since day one when I started this career. That wire can never be made again, there's no source for bare wire stock made the old way.
There's members here who insist PAF's are nothing mysterious, there's no secrets, they want things to be easy and get it all from Wikipedia or StewMac, well I'm here to say there is nothing simple about those pickups, it took 8 years of obsessive experimenting, questioning industry specialists and engineers and trying to find some who worked at Gibson back then, not to mention tearing real PAF's apart and staring at the parts for weeks measuring everything, missing nothing. You have to immerse yourself in that era's materials technologies if you want to decode this stuff. I found one guy who did work at Gibson back then but he knew nothing of value. You would think with all I know I'd get alot of questions but no yet has asked me a single question here, there's just no interest in the subject, except Gundry and me, and yeah we butt heads mostly over what's real and whats bull, I really try not to have new "myths" about those pickups contaminate the web, because I get those questions, now, why don't I use a vintage winder? Because you don't need one if you replicate what you find, which is easily done by any automatic winder and intelligent control, you know that. Anyway, back to work here....
There was really no one on the pickup forum back then who was interested in PAF's enough to really do anything about it other than mismatch a coil now and then ;-) I was obsessed with finding out why those pickups just don't sound like anything being made and why couldn't I GET those tones.
Anyway end of story, end of pissing match. Jon focuses on mass production, I focus on making individual sets that are intensely finely crafted products that take hours and hours to make, I like having total control of each pickup that goes out, I don't use assemblers, I do everything myself, my main interest isn't making money its TONE, yes I'm stupid. Jon is doing great so far, but you can't nail an accurate PAF witout a Leesona? Come on, get real. I do like Jon and if I thought I was going to fall over dead next month I would pass the ton of information on to him as really no one else out there gives a crap about this stuff except me and him, despite the pissing matches ;-) It would take a small book to put down what I've learned and the technical data I have but who would buy it? And it would put me out of business ;-) I'd pass it on to RedHouse but he is still deep into research into how to make LSD in his bath tub ;-) so far it keeps turning out as butter....
You name it, I've tried it Rick, if it comes under the subject of PAF's, but not strictly limited to that. My main love is experimenting and trying everything and anything I can dream up to see what works and to debunk theories. I have all the gear here to make pretty much anything I want. I love working with my hands and making things, and have a back ground in art metal jewelry, casting, and fabrication. I bought a couple thousand dollars of expensive electrical steel at one point because Joe Gwinn thought maybe that Seth Lover's "soft iron" comment meant "electrical steel." It worked pretty well but it was just going in the wrong direction, the stuff was nearly pure iron and was just too "soft" sounding ;-) and expensive as hell to get centerless ground for slugs, and a horror story trying to mill keepers out of thick hot rolled sheet. It would take 3 hours to make 2 keepers and they looked like shit and my mill complained loudly. I tried steel shims on both sides instead of wood and all kinds of ridiculous things, I had screws made in 2 alloys, I got AllStar and Magnetic Hold to get the Chinese to start making rough cast magnets, now they are everywhere. Allstar's looked great but were real thin and useless, Magnetic Hold's are perfect and the best anyone makes, they could pass for real. I did alot of stuff I won't even mention, every crazy idea you could probably think of I did and I found a wealth of useable knowledge and tricks. I discovered a liquid potting fluid that would give you the equivalent of vintage magnet wire, but it was too unctrollable in the end. It wouldn't solidify the coil either which is what I wanted, I spent months on that one and may some day revisit it. I still constantly experiment with PAF parameters looking for perfection, there are strict recipe and specs but within that there is room for endless variety, they all sound pretty much the same but you can get endless textures, bloom, etc. etc. I just finished one experiment this evening that worked great! Perfection, perfection, perfection, its out there, I want it!
I've been working with an industry magnetics alloy specialist for 3 years so far and have learned a ton of stuff from him and he did extensive lab work for me on nearly the complete history of Gibson vintage steels, up to late TTop era, screws, slugs, keepers, P13's parts, everything. I don't think anyone has ever done that in such detail. Really you don't want to be using silicon alloys for screws as they would be really bright sounding, what works best are alloys with the most eddy currents and permeability you can get, thats where the most musical tones come from, thats for screws not slugs. The higher carbon stuff just sounds too bright for me. But if you're wanting hi-fi tones, the efficient magnet alloys would be worth looking into. There is a book called Ferromagnetism by Bosworth or some similar name if you want to damage your brain. PAF's use 3 different alloys, they were common alloys of the period and just off the shelf material, nothing special. Steel making back then was noticeably different and you can read the elements list on a variety of lab tests and compare to modern steel and see the differences. They used whats called the Bessemer process or open hearth, all those furnaces in the US are gone, the last one closed in '68. Steel now is made much more pure and clean and thank God is still being made in the US, but I have gotten really bad batches of stuff that sounded horrible. Same thing for magnet wire, the old copper was less pure and more ohms per foot, insulation was different and not applied the same way. Elektrisola did a bunch of lab work on vintage wire samples I've saved since day one when I started this career. That wire can never be made again, there's no source for bare wire stock made the old way.
There's members here who insist PAF's are nothing mysterious, there's no secrets, they want things to be easy and get it all from Wikipedia or StewMac, well I'm here to say there is nothing simple about those pickups, it took 8 years of obsessive experimenting, questioning industry specialists and engineers and trying to find some who worked at Gibson back then, not to mention tearing real PAF's apart and staring at the parts for weeks measuring everything, missing nothing. You have to immerse yourself in that era's materials technologies if you want to decode this stuff. I found one guy who did work at Gibson back then but he knew nothing of value. You would think with all I know I'd get alot of questions but no yet has asked me a single question here, there's just no interest in the subject, except Gundry and me, and yeah we butt heads mostly over what's real and whats bull, I really try not to have new "myths" about those pickups contaminate the web, because I get those questions, now, why don't I use a vintage winder? Because you don't need one if you replicate what you find, which is easily done by any automatic winder and intelligent control, you know that. Anyway, back to work here....
Can I get some 1955 accurate earrings? 
Get a haircut you hippie. LOL
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