New Mojotone Butyrate humbucker bobbins. How accurate are they ?

[belwar]

Ps You can make fine pickups from stewmac parts, itīs not much different from making good acoustic guitars with wide grained tops instead of fine grain, itīs just a matter of adapting to whatever materials you have and adjusting accordingly.

I couldnt agree more. As a side note, I just love wide grain tops.

[belwar]

StewMac Allparts bobbins are a Japanese "rock" coil design, almost everyone uses them, some even claim they are making PAF repros using them and their accompanying wrong alloy metric slugs, etc.etc., pretty funny. They don't make good neck coils because of their design, yuk......
I don't think butyrate shrinks, there is no proof of this, it DOES shrink when it comes out of the mold and your mold has to be made oversized to account for that. Sloppy injection molding set up will give you various shrinkages if not done right. Temperature and pressure have to be just right.....

Butyrate off-gasses for a long long time. As it off-gases it shrinks... Think of it like spraying varnish on something. When you apply it will dry to the touch and be smooth and even - but over a period of a month it shrinks and any sanding scratches become evident and show through.

Basically if you can smell it, its losing compounds of some sort and in turn shrinking.

[Possum]

Sure you can make "fine" pickups with SM bobbins, but did you ever notice that they all sound alike. Coil design is PRIME importance, those bobbins were designed in Japan for rock. They are a Japanese rock design coil, you're stuck with that. Some time ago some guy posted sound samples of a big list of boutique winders, all those pickups used SM style bobbins, you literally couldn't tell one from the other. There is nothing wrong with them, but they don't make for good clear neck humbuckers, especially if you hand wind them, they do make nice sounding bridge pickups. I got terribly bored with the tones from those parts about 1 1/2 after starting pickup making, PAF's are way more interesting and have better clarity. The work I did with PAF's taught me about humbucker design because I stretched that design to every tolerance and design limit I could think of. I really don't like using someone else's Mr. Moto pickup design then claim its my own work, except for the PAF thing, but Japanese tone isn't for me ;-) PAF design has enough quirks and tricks to it to make it interesting for me to keep me at it for 9 years, though I'm done with it now having all my questions answered in great depth. I'm already working on other humbucker designs and have one just released for sale thats different than what others are doing. In my ornery opinion, if you want to be a good pickup maker, learn to design one from scratch, don't just copy or rely on pre-designed parts, pickup design is fascinating and rewarding and fun.

Belwar you are just repeating what everyone else repeats, show me some actual evidence that butyrate "outgasses" because I've never seen it. Nitrocellulose on the other hand does outgas and ruins guitar and metal finishes. Having removed alot of PAF covers by now I see no evidence of butyrate deterioration on the metal thats been in contact with it for so many years. If it was outgassing you would see it in the coils and metal finishes. Nickel parts, the slug and screws that have been in contact with butyrate for 60 years under a cover look brand new. Its a myth as far as I'm concerned because I don't see any hard evidence. I used to do wax injection molding for casting, its an identical process to plastic injection, with the same mold you can get many tolerance variations from pressure and temperature. Butyrate shrinks when it cools, thats all it does.

[belwar]

Some time ago some guy posted sound samples of a big list of boutique winders, all those pickups used SM style bobbins, you literally couldn't tell one from the other. .

So by that token, does anyone that wind a humbucker using your off-the-shelf bobbin sound exactly the same as yours?

[David Schwab]

...but did you ever notice that they all sound alike.

Absolutely not.

I can give you three examples of very different sounding neck pickups, and two very different bridge pickups I have made with those parts. I have made more variations, but don't have them recorded. The first example is an entire SM kit. These are all on 25.5" scale length guitars.

Neck pickup 1

Neck pickup 2

Neck Pickup 3

All three of those used the exact same bobbins. You can't tell me they sound the same, or that they sound like "Japanese rock" (what ever that is... I listen to a lot of Japanese bands, and they all sound different).

Now here's a bridge pickup made with the same bobbins:

Hot bridge pickup

That was about 16k with an A5 magnet.

Now about 12k with an A5.

Bright Hot Bridge

If there's any similarities in the tones, it's because they are tones I like. But you can make a slew of different sounding pickups with ANY bobbins.

[WolfeMacleod]

. Butyrate shrinks when it cools, thats all it does.

Dave, you might be interested to know that the original core height for PAF bobbins was taller than 1/4 inch. About .015 taller.

PAF bobbins DID shrink. Unquestionably, when the volatiles leech out of the materials, they will shrink, warp, and do all kinds of funky stuff. It happens. It a fact, it's physics, and it's unavoidable. Anyone who thinks that volatiles won't leach out of a plastic material is a fool.
Deal with it.

And stop being full of yourself.

[JGundry]

There is not just one bobbin height for P.A.F. bobbins. I think this creates a bit of confusion. FWIW my plastics molder does not think shrinkage is a a major factor with butyrate beyond the cool down shrinkage. P.A.F. bobbins use butyrate with a lower plasticizer level than P-90 covers or M-69 rings. There are plastics that have such a cool down shrinkage that they are sometimes dropped right from the mold into water to shock cool them to minimize shrinking. Butyrate is not one of these plastics though.

[RedHouse]

... those bobbins were designed in Japan for rock...

That's gotta go right to the top of the "Whackyest Statements On The Forum" list, ...good one Possum!

Japanese "rock" coil design sound, can you elaborate a bit on just what that "sound" would be?

[Possum]

Wolfe show me PROOF that butyrate bobbins shrink with age and I will change my mind. There is no physical evidence of outgassing. I don't buy into anything I haven't personally seen proof of, and I've never seen evidence in real PAF's. There isn't a stock PAF bobbin dimension, I have a copy of the original control drawing for PAF bobbins and the dimensions are sized for butyrate shrinkage. Go do some injection molding and then you'll know that the final product depends on who ran the machine. StewMac bobbins are a Japanese design, they are made in Japan, its a Japanese idea of a humbucker coil design. I don't like the way they sound, its a real "white bread" sound made by that particular coil height, coil core and core length, I find it boring and don't offer anything using it. If you like it, use it like everyone else does. I used them when I was a beginner and loved them, but the tones just didn't get close to where I wanted to eventually go. You might try using some stuff that Guitar Parts USA sells, their bobbins are a way different design, at least you would make something different. COIL DESIGN, is the number one factor in a humbucker, whatever you use you are locked into it by who designed the bobbin, pickup making 101 ;-)

[captcoolaid]

So Dave what you are saying is all our pups sound the same if we use the same bobbins. That is freaking funny. First you call those of us that by off the shelf parts glorified assemblers and I can quote you on that then you come and say we all sound alike. Sorry if this offends anyone but personally I am tired of the insults and dillusions of grander from you. My pickups sound in no way like Daves or Wolfes. It is all in the style in which we do our thing.

We are not locked into a coil design by the bobbins we use that is ridiculous. I know I am the new guy here and i am relatively new to the business, but the only thing that limits me is my ear, my quest for great tone and my imagination.

[big_teee]

I agree CoolAid with what you said, but not the way you said it.
There should be room on here for differences in Opinions.
Yes You still have time to Edit Your Post.
Peace!
B_T

[WolfeMacleod]

Wolfe show me PROOF that butyrate bobbins shrink with age and I will change my mind. There is no physical evidence of outgassing. I don't buy into anything I haven't personally seen proof of, and I've never seen evidence in real PAF's. There isn't a stock PAF bobbin dimension, I have a copy of the original control drawing for PAF bobbins and the dimensions are sized for butyrate shrinkage. Go do some injection molding and then you'll know that the final product depends on who ran the machine. StewMac bobbins are a Japanese design, they are made in Japan, its a Japanese idea of a humbucker coil design. I don't like the way they sound, its a real "white bread" sound made by that particular coil height, coil core and core length, I find it boring and don't offer anything using it. If you like it, use it like everyone else does. I used them when I was a beginner and loved them, but the tones just didn't get close to where I wanted to eventually go. You might try using some stuff that Guitar Parts USA sells, their bobbins are a way different design, at least you would make something different. COIL DESIGN, is the number one factor in a humbucker, whatever you use you are locked into it by who designed the bobbin, pickup making 101 ;-)

Dave, I suggest you call the DOW or Eastman and speak to them about Butyrate. Then come back and say the same thing.
Then take a whiff of a butyrate bobbin. What you are smelling there is the butyrate. The butyrate is a plasticizer

Smell that? That's outgassing. All plastics do it. That's why PAF bobbins look so dried, cracked, and warped. Just like the dash of an old car.

Let's talk about being "locked in" to a bobbin design. Well, you're "locked in" to whatever bobbin design you're using, right?

Really, it's impossible to show definitive "PROOF" of bobbin shrinkage since what we are dealing with is already 50+ years old and have already done their thing. What do you want, time-lapse photography done with micrometers? I think something that will facotr in heavily to a bobbin's aging over time is the evironment that it's kept in, too. This woiuld accont for different measurements. I have pages and pages of PAF bobbin measurements I've taken off the 200+ PAF"s I've repaired or rewound.

You know, I get the distinct feeling that you honestly think that you're making REAL PAF pickups. By which I mean not "replicas" but real vintage PAF pickups.

So, you're saying that people like..
Myself.
Jason Lollar
Jim Wagner
Lindy Fralin
Peter Florance
....and Van Zandt, and some more of the most highly regarded makers there are?

All make crap compared to you because we use a Japanese bobbin that's not sprinkled with fairy dust?
Kiss my ass.

[Possum]

This is such basic stuff, and yet I don't see any discussions on it here ever ;-) Coil design!!!! There seems to be this common concept that all humbucker bobbins sound alike....far from it!! A humbucker bobbin design puts the coil a certain distance from the poles, the core is a certain length and determines what the DC resistance of each wind will be, the coil height determines some of the inductance and the taller it is the brighter it will be. You are locked into whatever bobbin you are winding, the total design also creates a certain resonance that no matter who winds it with whatever method its always going to have that quality of that coil design, this is elementary design stuff. Manipulate all of those factors and you are playing in the design box, now THAT is interesting stuff!

I don't like the Japanese SM bobbins, and I hear that design signature in anything wound on them, its not my taste, it may be yours, whatever. Buy the Mojo butyrates and you will hear an immediate difference from the SM coil design and you will notice right away that you can't get nearly as much wire on them. Off the shelf parts put you immediately in a box, there is just no argument about that, you do have things you can do like change wire gauge, how hot, how weak, what kind of magnet, but you're locked into those parts. If it makes you angry that I don't do things that way, so be it, I don't care. I could make much higher profits by winding and assembling stuff, but I can't stand playing the results, I've already been through that stage and I chose to be more of a pickup designer than relying on something pre-packaged ;-) This is why what I make has a lower profit margin and takes way more hours to make, but I happen to like what I make and would never go back.... Coil design rocks

[WolfeMacleod]

Dave, there will be a tonal challenge on the MLP in the next week or so. I invite you to partake, as you didn't do so on the vintage vs. modern slugs challenge.

Actually, I can get more wire on the Mojo bobbins because of the shorter core.


What makes me angry, Dav,e is not tha you do things the way you do. It's the way you put everyone down who doesn't, and act like you;re the only one who can do it right.

[Plucky]

There are plastics that have such a cool down shrinkage that they are sometimes dropped right from the mold into water to shock cool them to minimize shrinking.

Not cold water, though; that causes shrinkage.

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