New Mojotone Butyrate humbucker bobbins. How accurate are they ?

[the great waldo]

Hi David

I was was trying to be witty with "tonally stabilize" I let my pickups cool down if they have had a wax bath and thats as stable as iŽm going to make them. Maybe if you check back up this thread youŽll get my drift

Cheers

Andrew

[David Schwab]

Hi David

I was was trying to be witty with "tonally stabilize" I let my pickups cool down if they have had a wax bath and thats as stable as iŽm going to make them. Maybe if you check back up this thread youŽll get my drift

Cheers

[David Schwab]

Didn't they have just anyone handy run the Pickup winding machines?
They were to turn them off when they got full?
Probably had the Floor Sweeper doing it.
Same with Fender, Cheap was the game.
Terry

SWD: How did you figure out the number of turns for the type of frequency--if you put too many turns on, when do you start loosing your high end?

Seth Lover: Well, I was just simply using # 42 plain enamel magnet wire. I put as many turns as I could satisfactorily fill the space available. And that’s where we stopped right there.

SWD: We were talking earlier about how many turns were used to--whatever could fill up the bobbin.

Seth Lover: Whatever would fill up the bobbin nicely. In manufacturing, normally when you are winding by hand the bobbin fills a little faster than if you have a traverse there that lays them in nice and smooth. In other words they can get a little more in than you can get by hand unless you are very careful about your winding, which is a little difficult to do. People are lazy--you know you try to keep it going as fast as you can so the job doesn’t take quite so long. Where it builds on one side, and you have to crowd it over here and hope that it doesn’t get squeezed on.

Seth Lover interview 1978 vintage gibson PAF humbucking humbucker pickups guitars

[Jim Shine]

In the years before CBS, Fender pickups were handwound by women that also wired guitars and amps (their smaller fingers were considered ideal for this work). The machines changed at some point though. In the 50's it was very crude and the coils looked like most beginners work. The coils were often mis shaped with bulges on the top, bottom. or middle. I have seen some pre-1956 examples with middle bulges so big, the cover rubs.

Fender was constantly growing in the Leo years and you can see a visual change happen in the late 50's. For all we known it could have been something as simple as better lighting. The coils became better shaped on average. But the winding patterns still vary, so it was still hand guided. In this video you can see the women at their benches winding pickups.

Fender Factory Tour 1959 - YouTube

Be sure to like it

CBS invested in automated winders. Those are very consistent. You can see a sort if grooved pattern in the winds and pickups are very close in tolerance. I can spot a CBS factory pickup from a rewind just by looking at the coil. It would take a lot of work and time to wind that grooved pattern by hand. Even harder to do it and stay within the tight ohm tolerance. Does that sound any different? Likely not. The detail stuff is moe or less for the cork sniffers.

[Possum]

Who's back pedaling, they ARE Japanese "rock" coil design, designed in Japan for rock players ;-) What else would they be?

[Possum]

Yes if you change metal parts in a bucker - parts that didn't come over on a boat, the metal WILL NOT sound right until it has time to settle into the magnetic circuit. Since I don't use offshore magnetic circuits parts for 8 years I have no idea what the offshore stuff does. Mine DO go thru a process of sounding immensely dark on the first day of changing parts around or putting in new parts. It took me a couple years to realize what was happening and it really screwed with my prototypes to the point I was going around in circles not knowing what was going on. A new pickup (of mine) also is going to sound dark the first day and goes through a break-in process that takes months. Someone started a thread on whether this is BS or not on the MLP, and of course the newbie winders all scoffed at it; my customers, however all chimed in saying it was real and they all experienced it. I deal with it every week in prototype work and don't make any judgement calls until its been played for about 2 weeks. I also had a customer who bought some old PAF's and tried them out and told me they were horrible. So, he played them for about 3 months, and they completely changed into something wonderful, so apparently unplayed pickups can sorta go to sleep, or whatever you want to call it.

There are many reasons a PAF may not sound so great, one big one is the magnets in many I dissected barely had a charge left in them, some down to just under 300 gauss. This is too weak to get any kind of life out of the pickup. I've also found some of these original magnets, even when recharged won't hold a charge over 300 gauss either, basically defective magnets, so the pickup never worked very well. On the other hand some of the late period PAF's with the short alnico magnets could be super bright with magnets still holding a charge up around 600 gauss. The ones that had covers taken off can have salt/sweat residue in the coil probably which could possibly dull things way down, most of the dead ones i unwound had sweat that ate thru the coils. Different batches of steel that Gibson used could have been tonally bad, though all the metals we analyzed were very very consistent, way more than what I've seen in modern steel which varies widely to the point of some stock that was just made wrong and sounded terrible.

Well of course if you put a real PAF in a brand new Gibson with its crappy fake bumble bee caps and junk pots its not going to sound good. I get my customers to trash that crap before they install mine, many do it before they arrive and tell me there is an immense difference from upgrading those parts, which I already know from personal experience working with harness wiring for the last five years on the 16 guitars I use for testing. Great pickups can't be heard through bad filtering of a mediocre harness, I thought you already knew that? Gibson also seems to randomly use 300K pots which is going to choke things off, Dan Spitz told me both his Historic 335's had all 300K pots in it.

As for StewMac bobbins, anything wound on them is going to reflect that coil design tone, thats what I'm trying to say, you really should go buy bobbins from GuitarPartsUSA, they are a different design, actually a more intelligent design, the cores in a slug bobbin really shouldn't be the same as core on a pole screw bobbin and thats exactly what they did. They are real nice there and offer a builder discount if you run a legitimate business. SM bobbin design is just too bland for me, Mr. Moto

[David Schwab]

Yes if you change metal parts in a bucker - parts that didn't come over on a boat, the metal WILL NOT sound right until it has time to settle into the magnetic circuit.

Oh come on now Dave.

[ReWind]

Perhaps you guys know already, but there's a chapter in this book which is a visit to Seth Lover's house for an interview about the PAF and Gibson. It's a great read IMO.

Amazon.com: Million Dollar Les Paul: In Search of the Most Valuable Guitar in the World (Genuine Jawbone Books) (9781906002145): Tony Bacon: Books

[big_teee]

Perhaps you guys know already, but there's a chapter in this book which is a visit to Seth Lover's house for an interview about the PAF and Gibson. It's a great read IMO.

Amazon.com: Million Dollar Les Paul: In Search of the Most Valuable Guitar in the World (Genuine Jawbone Books) (9781906002145): Tony Bacon: Books

Well, Don't just dangle the Carrot.
Just Tell us what it says!
I just want the Milk, I don't want to buy the Cow!
B_T

[the great waldo]

Hi David

Dave could be using cast iron keepers, cast iron needs to stress relieve for some months. Or maybe this has something to do with it "My background is in music industry marketing" a qoute from Daves meet Dave Stephens web site, just a thought.

Cheers

Andrew

[RedHouse]

Oh come on now Dave.

No, really, he's serious.

Possum's got the folks over on MLP forum believing that "stuff", go on over and read up on how his customers are advised to "play them in for several weeks", then as Possum said, they sound better after that.

[RedHouse]

Perhaps you guys know already, but there's a chapter in this book which is a visit to Seth Lover's house for an interview about the PAF and Gibson. It's a great read IMO.

Amazon.com: Million Dollar Les Paul: In Search of the Most Valuable Guitar in the World (Genuine Jawbone Books) (9781906002145): Tony Bacon: Books

I bought that book for like $4 at the local Borders when they went T-U this summer.

I haven't read it yet, but if you can toss me a page number or chapter I'll go look right now.

[big_teee]

No, really, he's serious.

Possum's got the folks over on MLP forum believing that "stuff", go on over and read up on how his customers are advised to "play them in for several weeks", then as Possum said, they sound better after that.

If I make a P/U that Sounds like PooPoo Today, It will still sound like that tomorrow, or a month from now.
B_T

[frankfalbo]

Two things I will add to this thread:

1. Assuming all other dimensions are the same, it is my opinion that bobbin material affects the tone of a pickup. Accurate or not, they will sound different than an equally dimensioned alternate material. I can't say how much dimensional difference would have to occur before the dimensional difference overtook the material difference. Like if the material differs by a factor of x, at some point a change in coil geometry equals greater than x. If your core is materially different, you can't really "wind" to compensate for that. But in all of these cases, the differences are very small. So your pickup will still sound like your pickup, but there is a difference.

2. I believe (strongly) that butyrate changes dimension over time, and under pressure (coil tension). The smell of butyrate serves as a poor man's proof to this. The degree can be argued or theorized (.00001" over 50 years, or .001" over 20?) I have no opinion to share on the subject other than it does change.

3. Dave Stephens is a crazy nutjob.

Okay three things.

[RedHouse]

...Well of course if you put a real PAF in a brand new Gibson with its crappy fake bumble bee caps and junk pots its not going to sound good. I get my customers to trash that crap before they install mine, many do it before they arrive and tell me there is an immense difference from upgrading those parts...

Wow that's so funny!

The bumble-bee replica caps (which have already been well documented) and found that while they are indeed not paper and oil (the only gripe against Gibsons reproduction claim) but were in fact found to be quality mil-spec caps, installed in the Gibson Custom Shop guitars along with CTS pots and push-back wire, and according to you it's all crap and won't allow your pickups to sound good ...WOW!.

...which I already know from personal experience working with harness wiring for the last five years on the 16 guitars I use for testing...

Wow again, prey-tell what 16 guitars did you buy, that's quite impressive, post a picture of them so we can all have a drool 'eh?