New Mojotone Butyrate humbucker bobbins. How accurate are they ?

[JGundry]

Wolfe I would love to see Dow spec. sheet for cab. They may make butyrate but extruded cab would surprise me. Even places that do small batch custom cab buy the raw cab from Eastman. I would love to find an alternative to Eastman so I don't have to buy it 400lbs. at a time.

[belwar]

Wolfe,

I see alot of frustration in what you write - and to me it seems to stem from an inability for someone to admit when they are wrong about something. It can be absolutely hair-pulling to read sometimes.

Most everyone here knows that pickup making is a learn-as-you-go business. Sometimes you learn something new (or think you learn something new) and it can quickly become a marketing point. The hard part is admitting that something is either just plain crazy, or was outright wrong. It must be terrifying to be called out on something on this forum for fear that a potential customer might read it. I recently had a discussion with a friend about perception and that it was imperative that business associates have *absolute* confidence in what he says. In my friends mind, it was of the uttmost importance that thier employer always have faith that he was right.

While I disagree with most of possums asertions, I can .. understand .. why he does not go back on them.

I do know Jon fairly well so I do have bias, but I will say that I don't find him to be arogant. He puts his money where his mouth is, and maybe that rubs some people the wrong way. I think Jon is telling what he knows to the best of knowledge at the time - and sometimes that does evolve. I've worked with him sourcing the butyrate, and we had no luck from dow. none. ziltch. Does that mean that they absolutely dont sell the product? Of course not - but we tried really hard to find out. He's one of the few makers that has his own covers, bobbins, baseplates, screws, slugs, keepers, and his own magnets (actual custom Alnico blends with specifc properties) - In my mind those facts alone warrant a certain level of respect for whats hes accomplished. He also shares alot of what he's learned and that adds additional respect in my book. He also will freely acknowledge the help he's gotten along the way - be it from sam lee guy or some other bizzare legend.

Possum on the other hand talks more about the magic pixie dust portions of pickups and how he knows the secrets but will never tell - and that doesnt add to the coversation unfortunately.

Then again, what do I know - I dont even sell pickups!

bel
(PS forgive the spelling and grammar, I'm a guitar maker not an english teacher).

[Possum]

Belwar I think those remarks were uncalled for and a little cruel. Wolfe wouldn't say something unless he knew it was true, just because you had a different experience than him doesn't mean zip. And quite to the contrary I don't use fairy tales to sell pickups and you will find many forum posts elsewhere where I rant against such tactics; those who use them get found out eventually and it backfires; it also muddies the field of pickup making when BS is spouted as fact and turns customers away. I don't claim any "magic" for what I make; everything I've learned was through thousands of hours of experiments since day one; my basic attitude is nothing is real until its proven over and over again, I don't believe most of the generally accepted winder myths that most do because experiments prove most of it doesn't work. If you have watched my little bio video on YouTube that blue folder I show is real and has since grown to double its size, you may get a hint of its contents there. I'll post one small page from it just on the subject of vintage wire but I blacked out what year and and what manufacturer made the wire, and of course without interpretation it won't mean a thing to anyone; it will show you that one subject I talk about I have documents that are real. I won't tell you if its vintage of modern era wire. My background is 35 years in the advertising industry during which I got a real bad taste in my mouth for any kind of bullcrap, everything I share is real and documented, and damn right I'm not going to share most of it, I make my full time living at it and those papers are pure gold and hard fought to achieve. No pixie dust here, ever.

[Guitarist]

I've enjoyed this thread. I like opinion and character of which the ole Possum has k-rap load of. The story and steps one takes to get to the apex of their art is interesting!
He has typed/revealed (without getting mad like other hotwits) the most. This was a nice string of points: "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."
I've learned that getting a bottom plate for my old T-style P.A.F. may be really hard to find. And finding the tone I'm after, almost a neck single coil hollowness with buttery snap is eluding me. But those Lollar El Rayo Humbuckers sound sweet! EQ'ing down stream is complicated and not many of us have a 10+ bands of it nor want unkosher ICs messing in with things. But I would alike to patch in one of those $3 000 passive EQs after a CF.

I see many get to a point of understanding details and they do add up but the biggest contributors of sound can be agreed on more easily right and what are these? Wire length and diameter, magnet type/strength, coil asymmetry, pole pieces, resonance goal, , ,and on down to the fine tuning.

I know the Net will grow into having much more pure audio representations of these pickups and other key components of tone. Any try a tuning fork over a pickup

[Possum]

Guitarist, you can get a Gibson accurate baseplate here, these are the best available:
Pickup Frames | Allparts.com

[David Schwab]

Any try a tuning fork over a pickup

Yes, but it lacks harmonic content—it's almost a pure sine wave—so it's not that useful for determining the tone of a pickup because it doesn't sound like a guitar string.

That does bring up an interesting point however. Some pickup/guitar combinations don't work as well as others. If you have a dark sounding guitar, and use a dark sounding pickup, you will get mud. As another example, I have a guitar with two humbuckers, 25.5 scale length, and a basswood body. I had installed a Duncan Jazz neck pickup I had laying around, and it had too much low end for that guitar, but sounded fine on other guitars. So I made a neck pickup with a tighter low end, but still with a warm round tone, and that worked fine with the warm sounding basswood.

So even with traditional guitar/wood combinations, like alder or ash Strats, you have variances in the acoustic tone of the guitar. So you might get your intended tone on one guitar, and it will sound totally different on another guitar. I think it's useful when you see pickup makers state that a certain pickup is good for bright guitars, or dark guitars or what have you.

[JGundry]

I might as well say something nice now. FWIW I have talked to both Wolfe and Dave over the years and they both have openly shared info they don't post here and I have done the same with them. Some of their info I agreed with and others I did not and the same probably follows with what they thought of the info I gave them. We all want to verify.

I chalk up the professional skeptic tone tone of some of these posts to marketing schtick and don't really take it personally. Wolfe's marketing schtick is the truth teller, no nonsense tone king, Possum's is the solo mad scientist who has uncovered the hidden secrets lost to the ages that all others have missed. My schtick is I make the most accurate and detailed repros possible and I give as much info about the details to customers because I think it matters to many. Like all marketing some approaches work better than others and some have more to do with reality than others. In the end customers always decide.

I used to be extremely reluctant to share any good info on my web site or forums that might help competitors. But I don't really worry about it much anymore. Most good info I have ever posted I think largely goes ignored by other makers because we all want to verify for ourselves and many don't want to spend the money to verify. So I think most of the info is never really taken advantage of by competitors. Whatever the reason there is often a knee jerk skepticism to good info by other makers.

[JGundry]

I've learned that getting a bottom plate for my old T-style P.A.F. may be really hard to find.

Guitarist,

Email me if you need the baseplate replaced on your T-Top. The All Parts one Possum posted a link to is nice but the pole screw spacing is not correct for a T-Top. I make my own repro baseplates and they will fit your pickup perfectly. I don't really sell them but I do make vintage repairs for customers using my parts. It is not really a money maker for me but I offer the service for vintage stuff.

Jon

[Jim Shine]

I used to be extremely reluctant to share any good info on my web site or forums that might help competitors. But I don't really worry about it much anymore. Most good info I have ever posted I think largely goes ignored by other makers because we all want to verify for ourselves and many don't want to spend the money to verify. So I think most of the info is never really taken advantage of by competitors. Whatever the reason there is often a knee jerk skepticism to good info by other makers.

Maybe I am wrong as I haven't followed any of this, but it appears that your primary specialty is in the materials. Going that extra distance and having everything made to a tight spec with the originals. You wont get much competition there as many either don't have the money, time, knowledge, or connections to do this. For many they wouldn't want to invest so much to have to work so long to get it all back. I don't sell pickups, but I once went to my machine guy to make me keepers because I hate the ones sold. I can't remember the quote now, but it was a chunk of change for so many, I would never use half in my lifetime. I can't imagine what the tooling costs for the complex stuff like base plates and covers.

[JGundry]

I'm just extremely detail oriented like probably most here. I do humbly think I have a good ear and am also a decent musician which I think helps for sure in knowing good tone. The materials are part of it. The winding accuracy and machines are part. Cost for stuff like tooling varies widely I have found. But if you are doing USA made parts like I do then of course all of it will be more than Chinese made.

[WolfeMacleod]

Wolfe,

I see alot of frustration in what you write - and to me it seems to stem from an inability for someone to admit when they are wrong about something. It can be absolutely hair-pulling to read sometimes.

.

Belwar, there's no frustration here, really. My guy at DOW has confirmed that they do indeed still make and sell CAB. It's extremely rare that I state something without knowing first. I'll ask my guy if he would care to chime in here. His particular position at DOW is, as I understand it, to make sure that the stuff they manufacturer and sell won't harm pregnant women, children, etc. That's briefly how he explained it to me. "Public safety" I guess you could call it.
I've done a lot of supply chain research over the last 13 years to track down manufacturers of specific items and materials. I doubt if anyone else would have been able to figure out who the Allparts bobbin's and baseplates ultimate source was. (now if only they'd sell direct) Or who does Gibson's current bobbin tooling, or who HPI wasm or the manufacturer of the Fedner cloth and Gibson braided leads.

[Possum]

Materials are super important in PAF building. I was priveleged to be taught about 50's thru late 70's technologies by an industry expert few will ever have access to, and this was from examination of real vintage examples and also queries from an in-house old timer associate of his. Unfortunately the bottom line is you can copy everything mechanically with a cold eye to detail but you won't get the same results as the originals by surface skimming the subject that way, been there done that and it only works partially; my very first VL PAF was built that way, they were good but not quite there. What I learned covers a broad range of pickups, Charlie Christians, PAF', P13's, P90's, TTops, and any pickup made using period steels, wire and magnets, quite an illuminating education that was dumbed down enough for me to understand very complex subjects. Just read that Elektrisola lab sheet, I had to ask questions for 2 weeks to understand the data I got.

I though of something I should mention about butyrate "shrinkage." I have a collection of 50's / early 60's fountain pens I use for drawing. They are all made of butryate. You need to remember that butyrate was used for everything back then, it was cheap common plastic, toys used it, tools had butyrate handles etc. etc. Fountain pens are precision injected parts, the barrel threading is very fine, the nibs have butyrate feeds that thread into the barrel, piston feeds, or lever filling. If there was any noticeable shrinkage at all the pens would simply jam and not work. You never find that with old 50's pens, it just doesn't happen.

Guitarist, AllParts baseplates DO fit TTops, I'm sitting here holding a patent stickered TTop baseplate and AllParts plate, the spacing is identical...

[SKATTERBRANE]

I was going to say. T-Tops., PAFs, 57 Classics, Burstbuckers, 490R, and 496R all have the same pole screw spacing, and the Allparst plate is the same as well. I was totally thrown off that Jon said Allparts backing plates will not work with T-Tops.

[belwar]

I doubt if anyone else would have been able to figure out who the Allparts bobbin's and baseplates ultimate source was. (now if only they'd sell direct) Or who does Gibson's current bobbin tooling, or who HPI wasm or the manufacturer of the Fedner cloth and Gibson braided leads.

Maybe i'm lucky but I came across two of those three very easily without help. The Keiyo link I found by asking Jay @ stew mac.. I asked him originally about getting the humbucker mold owner to run butyrate in that mold and he gave me the contact info for Keiyo - who did in fact say they would do it. Both Jason Lollar and Don Whittemore (luxe caps) gave me the name of Gavitt whichout even asking for it. Maybe I'm lucky? Today, I dont think Keiyo has anything that I would want to order direct (assuming you have to buy in quantities). Assuming stewmac/allparts are marking up 100% to OEM's it's still cheaper to have your own parts made in some instances. i.e. After a small tooling expense baseplates (in similar quantities that Keiyo would sell - i.e. 500) would cost anywhere from 3-4 dollars. Though to be fair I say that flippantly because I can use the volume - Most people probably cannot afford that kind of investment.

Some of the most interesting suppliers i've found have either been totally by accident, or found by just outright asking. I stumbled across Seymour Duncan & Fenders primary injection molder (not mold maker) totally by accident and went as far as driving over to see them and watched fender humbucker bobbins popping out of the mold (I think I have pictures some where of this). I met the gentleman that does the Deep Drawing for TV Jones at a namm show after tom introduced me and now he's about to make mini/firebird covers for me.

The best for me though was a gift from Nacho Banos (A gift which I hold in high regard) detailing all of fenders electronic component suppliers including all pickup parts in 1955. Nacho is located in a small area of spain that my family regularly visits (near Madaras Barber).

[JGundry]

Materials are super important in PAF building. I was priveleged to be taught about 50's thru late 70's technologies by an industry expert few will ever have access to, and this was from examination of real vintage examples and also queries from an in-house old timer associate of his.

I have to say Dave I find posts like this hilarious. There is no shortage of old school manufacturing people in the midwest here that are more than willing to share info. and even make the parts if you are a serious customer. In fact I met face to face with some of them that made parts for Gibson Kalamazoo and some of them make my parts. Gibson sourced almost everything in the midwest. The covers came from a stamper here in Grand Rapids where I live, bobbins and surrounds from Benton Harbor about an hour or less from me, baseplates, screws, cast parts, buffing, plating from Kalamazoo an hour away from me. Magnets from Indiana and Illinois. Many of them are family run and were doing work for Gibson in the 50's and 60's. Trust me, people around here know how this stuff was made, materials and all.