Baseplate source and problems.....

[Possum]

Will AllParts give a discount if I bought 100 of them? I'm paying $6.50 each, pretty steep.

OK, so tonite I rewound a neck PAF I was having a problem with at 8K, it should be nice and clear but had a weird midrange bump that sounded awful. I only took off 250 winds down to 7.8K but this time I used an AllParts plate instead of the mystery metal Mojo and voila! Totally clear bright metallic tones back where they always were. Crap, I have a whole bag of these plates and they won't take them back....

[the great waldo]

Hi All

MrCandy was offering baseplates. If I get 10 mins free i´ll try and send him an old post paf plate I have lying around here somewhere as a reference. None of the available plates from other scources have threaded holes for the pollpiece screw holes which is definitely not as in the original paf´s which were threaded.

Cheers all

Andrew

[Possum]

Who is MrCandy??? I always questioned were the holes threaded or did the screws thread the holes on their way in? I have an early Patent sitting here and it does look like it was tapped. You never see that on commercial parts offerings, the AllParts ones are pretty tight tolerances though and its probably a good thing the commercial ones aren't tapped because they use metric screws. For PAF's you want a 5-40 machine thread tap.

[LtKojak]

Who is MrCandy???

Dave, you need to do some catching up in the Forum!

Here you go:

Andreas Pickup Parts

His moniker here is Mr. Candy.

HTH,

[Possum]

Interesting, yeah see what he can come up with. Send him an AllParts baseplate or as someone said a real vintage Gibson plate and see if he can make or get ones of equal or better quality, at an affordable builder's pricing.

[belwar]

Took me years of nightly searching to figure out who Keiyo was. I think I found them is 2002 or 03. They won't sell direct, and if you contact them, Allparts will get pissed off at you.
I;'m the guy that linked StewMac with Keiyo.

I guess we both are. I had no idea you made the connection. I m friends with jay at stew mac and just asked him and he told me.

[big_teee]

I guess we both are. I had no idea you made the connection. I m friends with jay at stew mac and just asked him and he told me.

Does Stewmac have any 49.2 or just the 50mm ones like in their Kits?
Terry

[tomatmojotone]

Does anyone know the source of the exact baseplates AllParts sells, what their minimum is etc. I've been using their plates for bridge pickups and Mojo plates for neck, the metals are different. My new batch of Mojo plates don't seem to be nickel silver anymore. Aging them in ferric turns them horrible ugly colors, see attachment. I did a test with AllParts plate and current Mojo plates, putting the same pickup on each and the Mojo plate is adding a midrange boost which also means its dropping the treble like brass baseplates do (on the Extech). They used to age like real nickel silver, now they aren't. I have an aging formula that I also tried that usually turns the nickel green as normal aging will and now there is no green at all, just another ugly color. There's no weird coating doing this, I think maybe their vendor is trying to cut corners on cost or this is some horrible ROHS metal that has little or no nickel in it now. Mojo's plates used to be really nice for neck position. Anway, I like the AllParts baseplates but not the steep pricing so if I can find a direct source would like to buy a bunch of them, maybe do a group buy if anyone is interested in that too.

I did complain to Mojo but since David Shepherd left they don't seem to care about my concerns and their vendor avoided answering questions about what kind of weird metal are they making these things out of now.

The photo shows a previous Mojo baseplate at the top and 2 on the bottom, all just dipped in ferric solution for a short time....

We are aware of the issue with the humbucker baseplates and are trying to resolve it. Our supplier has denied any changes in the composition of their nickel silver. That being said our goal is to offer the part that you demand.
Currently, I am in the process of sourcing a number of American made products to offer some suitable albeit more costly alternatives. We will also continue to carry the more economical line of parts. Thank you for your patience. I'm always available at tom@mojotone.com if you have any specific requests or concerns.

[StarryNight]

has anyone tried to nickel plate baseplates? It's probably a crazy idea but perhaps it could be a more cost effective solution over time.

[Possum]

Thanks Tom, my confidence is restored!

Plating a baseplate isn't going to change how it affects the tone, it'd be the same thing if you plated a brass baseplate with nickel, its still going to sound like brass. Belwar did you do a listening test to your bad plates? The first baseplates David Shepherd got were real brassy colored, they actually sounded real nice with bridge pickups but no way was I going to send out a pricey PAF repro set with yellow baseplates, plus they would have negatively affected neck clarity. It'd be great if Mojo can make their own, the AllParts plates are really good, but I truly don't believe that Americans can't equal or do better for a little less pricewise without all the middlemen and cargo costs. Gundry did it, I just don't do alot of volume to be able to afford those kinds of things, and not really interested in mass production output myself.

[David Schwab]

We are aware of the issue with the humbucker baseplates and are trying to resolve it. Our supplier has denied any changes in the composition of their nickel silver. That being said our goal is to offer the part that you demand.
Currently, I am in the process of sourcing a number of American made products to offer some suitable albeit more costly alternatives. We will also continue to carry the more economical line of parts. Thank you for your patience. I'm always available at tom@mojotone.com if you have any specific requests or concerns.

Tom, thanks very much for coming here and also for your email.

Sorry if we sound frustrated, but you are a pickup maker too, so I'm sure you know the feeling!

More and more I've been getting parts from Mojo, and so far I'm quite happy.

[Sweetfinger]

If you are an Allparts dealer and your order is over $500 you get an extra 5% discount from wholesale pricing. IIRC.

[big_teee]

Here is the plan to make your own baseplate.
You do all the bending with the steel bar that you cut.
I saved it from a post here that was posted Months ago.
All you need is the Nickel sheet metal and start bending.
It looks easy enough!
Terry

[JGundry]

I truly don't believe that Americans can't equal or do better for a little less pricewise without all the middlemen and cargo costs. Gundry did it, I just don't do alot of volume to be able to afford those kinds of things, and not really interested in mass production output myself.

You pretty much have to accept that the smallest number of parts you can run are 1000. If you shop around you will get wildly different quotes. But doing parts in the US is possible for the small maker. I'm proof. Beyond tooling for baseplates, sourcing the Nickel Silver at a reasonable cost it a total pain. Basically I had to find the material myself for the stamper when I ran my first batch of them. Finding it in the right thickness is part of the problem. If a company does not have it as a regular stock item then it has to be custom run which is expensive.

[Possum]

Tom is looking around for another supplier, I doubt he's going to find anything better or equal to AllParts. I don't think he can get those. Mojo has the resources and funding to make their own, I hope they will figure out thats the only real solution and go for it, so we don't have to suffer through periods of "out of stock" because the boat from China takes a month to get here. Maybe the supplier of the bad baseplates will realize they'll lose a customer for good if they don't stick to real nickel silver, but I have a feeling their metal supplier is the problem and they got stuck with that stuff.