Keeper Bars I was asked.

[Possum]

$8 and the real roundy edges are deal killers for me. Plus, if they're plated it means they're probably brass under the plating too. "Standard" pole screws all the part sellers sell are metric. Gibson vintage are 5-40 MS, so I'm assuming those are metric threaded, like StewMac's screw poles.
Pickups don't settle in sitting around you have to play them. I always had the idea of hooking them up to a radio output and burning them in, but never got around to trying it.

[ReWind]

That's interesting, Possum, about just sitting around not effecting them and needing to play them. Thanks for the tip. Do you suppose it's the electrons flowing or the mechanical vibration that livens them up after a few days? I thought it may just be the non-magnetic parts taking on some magnetic properties as a result of contact with the magnets.

btw - I agree they are a little pricey compared to others. I had to try a few though. I would hope that in larger quantities Dennis might give a discount.

[big_teee]

That's interesting, Possum, about just sitting around not effecting them and needing to play them. Thanks for the tip. Do you suppose it's the electrons flowing or the mechanical vibration that livens them up after a few days? I thought it may just be the non-magnetic parts taking on some magnetic properties as a result of contact with the magnets.

btw - I agree they are a little pricey compared to others. I had to try a few though. I would hope that in larger quantities Dennis might give a discount.

IMHO for one, don't buy the Aging Theory.
Whether just Sitting, or Playing them for Months to break them in.
As far as the Setting around.
Try putting them in the Frig for an hour or two.
That should Cool and settle whatever needs settling.
If the Pickups are Wax Potted, as soon as they cool, nothing will change however long you wait.
Yes IMO the Magnets are too expensive especially if you have to pay That price for 100.
I can buy 100 A2s for nearly 1/2 that at Mojo, and just buy the amount I want.
But, Different Strokes for Different Folks!
B_T

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

I've had the "settle" period on every pickup I've made, and I'm not entirely convinced of any theory, though I think it has something to do with the magnets. I've had some that I've only strummed a couple times, gets put away, and a week later sounds better; that is, they didn't exactly log many hours. I assumed it was the coil settling into place since I wasn't potting them. At one point I wound up a couple bobbins but didn't fully assemble (that is, no magnet) and they sat for a couple months. I put them together and they had that same "new pickup" sound, and settled in the same way the others did, so I didn't think it had anything to do with the coils at that point.

I'm not going to discard the "burn in" theories, but I don't think it is the same phenomenon as that other bit that changes during the pickup's first days/weeks of existence.

[ReWind]

Mine are all unpotted, fwiw.

[David Schwab]

I've had the "settle" period on every pickup I've made, and I'm not entirely convinced of any theory, though I think it has something to do with the magnets.

Try this next time. As soon as the pickup is cool, install it, and record the tone with a clean setting. Then come back after what ever settling period you think changes the tone, and record the pickup again with the exact same settings.

Then see if they sound different. I'll bet you they don't, you just think they did.

[Possum]

Yes Dave we're all crazy, its just imagination, the fact that you don't experience it just means you are doing things differently than some of us, or you've been standing next to the drummer's cymbals for too many years. What my experience and all my customers for my buckers is first day is the worst, pickup will sound like like its a little muffled, not very open sounding, and yes I let the pickups cool down, then 2nd day a dramatic change happens, the pickup opens up and more treble, then over a period of several months it smoothes out and gets a sweet warmth and rounds out nicely. I probably hear it more than most because in prototype work the pickup gets built and played the same day, where most are getting theirs in the mail after a couple weeks, but still they experience it. I do know pretty well whats causing much of it, but there's still some mystery there...

Some encouraging news from Mojo on baseplates, cross yer fingers.....

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

To be honest, it has been strong enough of a change that I don't feel a need for A/B recordings. I don't have a recording set up, and I really don't feel a need to go out and buy one for these purposes.

Possum is describing what I hear pretty well. The first day it is very tight and constipated sounding. It loosens up a bit over time, usually for the better. I can honestly say that it isn't wishful thinking because I've been seriously bummed out many times having wound up a new design to install it and absolutely HATE the sound. I only had one where I felt it hurt the sound, and I later attributed it to a VERY sloppy wind. It seems to plateau after a couple weeks, most of the changes happening after a couple days, but it is always there.

[big_teee]

To be honest, it has been strong enough of a change that I don't feel a need for A/B recordings. I don't have a recording set up, and I really don't feel a need to go out and buy one for these purposes.

Possum is describing what I hear pretty well. The first day it is very tight and constipated sounding. It loosens up a bit over time, usually for the better. I can honestly say that it isn't wishful thinking because I've been seriously bummed out many times having wound up a new design to install it and absolutely HATE the sound. I only had one where I felt it hurt the sound, and I later attributed it to a VERY sloppy wind. It seems to plateau after a couple weeks, most of the changes happening after a couple days, but it is always there.

The only thing I see that could and does change is magnet strength.
If you check the gauss right after you wind them.
Then recheck and record the gauss, see if that is changing.
If you recorded the gauss for say for a week or so that would be a cool experiment.
I don't buy the coils changing after the initial cool down.
I have the working winding late Scenario.
Everything sounds like poo late at night.
With fresh ears I can tell the next day if I made Gold or Crap!
T

[Joe Gwinn]

Pickups don't settle in sitting around you have to play them. I always had the idea of hooking them up to a radio output and burning them in, but never got around to trying it.

I bet the mechanical vibration speeds the process of relaxing the stresses and strains from the winding process. Attaching the pickup to a heavy metal plate and hammering the plate may achieve the same thing.


For an extreme example, try MIL-S-901 testing. For lightweight equipment (under 550 pounds), the hammer weighs 400 pounds and drops almost six feet. For medium-weight equipment (under 7,400 pounds), make that hammer 3000 pounds. For heavyweight equipment, the article under test is put on a barge and a 60 pound lump of HBX-1 explosive is set off 20' away. MIL-S-901 - Wikipedia

For that heavy-metal sound...

[David Schwab]

Yes Dave we're all crazy, its just imagination, the fact that you don't experience it just means you are doing things differently than some of us, or you've been standing next to the drummer's cymbals for too many years. What my experience and all my customers for my buckers is first day is the worst, pickup will sound like like its a little muffled, not very open sounding, and yes I let the pickups cool down, then 2nd day a dramatic change happens, the pickup opens up and more treble, then over a period of several months it smoothes out and gets a sweet warmth and rounds out nicely. I probably hear it more than most because in prototype work the pickup gets built and played the same day, where most are getting theirs in the mail after a couple weeks, but still they experience it. I do know pretty well whats causing much of it, but there's still some mystery there...

Like I said... do some recordings and post them here. Then if it's real, we have something to think about. If it's not, then you have something else to think about.

The thing is, people are saying it changes, but you say it gets mellower, and others say it starts off muddy and get brighter. Which is it? If something is going on, it should be fairly easy to spot in two side-by-side recordings, and shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

But you have other factors too. As several months go by, the strings are now older. Do you listen with fresh strings each time?

I know guitars change in tone after you first string them up, but that's more of a mechanical thing.

Some encouraging news from Mojo on baseplates, cross yer fingers.....

I want to say publicly, that Tom at Mojo has been very receptive and helpful with parts. So if you have a comment about something they sell, let him know about it.

[David Schwab]

I bet the mechanical vibration speeds the process of relaxing the stresses and strains from the winding process. Attaching the pickup to a heavy metal plate and hammering the plate may achieve the same thing.

Solid bodies don't vibrate that much. But if that's true, you can do like they do with acoustic guitars, and sit them on a speaker to vibrate them.

But the fact that you can cut the coil wire off of old pickups that have been played, and the wire is lose on the inside of the coil, makes me think that the only stress is at the corners. Waxed or not.

maybe this matters more if you wind a really tight coil? I know I don't.

[Joe Gwinn]

Solid bodies don't vibrate that much. But if that's true, you can do like they do with acoustic guitars, and sit them on a speaker to vibrate them.

Tell me more, please.

But the fact that you can cut the coil wire off of old pickups that have been played, and the wire is loose on the inside of the coil, makes me think that the only stress is at the corners. Waxed or not.

maybe this matters more if you wind a really tight coil? I know I don't.

My theory is that the bobbin crushes slightly, and this would have the effect of loose inner turns. I've done the computations a few times before, but let's do an example:

Assume 10,000 turns with a winding tension of 30 grams. Each turn is a complete loop around the outer poles, and so contributes 2*30= 60 grams of force pulling the outer poles closer to one another. With 10,000 turns, that's (10,000)(0.060)= 600 kilograms (1,320 pounds) force pulling the outer poles together. Now, this well exceeds the strength of any non-metal, so the poles will move slightly towards each other, until the force is reduced to whatever the bobbin will handle. It takes very little cruching to achieve this balance, too little to be seen, because copper is far stiffer than plastic or forbon.

The force is very small at the start, but as the winding progresses the force increases, and the outer poles steadily approach one another. So, the inner turns, which were tight at first, become looser and looser as winding progresses. I suppose one could achieve uniform as-wound tension if one started with high winding tension, and reduced the tension as the winding progressed.

Things are shifting around as this proceeds, and it takes some time for everything to settle.

The stress is applied to the bobbin only at the outer poles (~corners), but that's enough.

[David Schwab]

Tell me more, please.

Acoustic Guitar Central: Aging a guitar with vibrations

Makes sense, since that's what playing it does.

My theory is that the bobbin crushes slightly, and this would have the effect of loose inner turns. I've done the computations a few times before, but let's do an example:

Assume 10,000 turns with a winding tension of 30 grams. Each turn is a complete loop around the outer poles, and so contributes 2*30= 60 grams of force pulling the outer poles closer to one another. With 10,000 turns, that's (10,000)(0.060)= 600 kilograms (1,320 pounds) force pulling the outer poles together. Now, this well exceeds the strength of any non-metal, so the poles will move slightly towards each other, until the force is reduced to whatever the bobbin will handle. It takes very little cruching to achieve this balance, too little to be seen, because copper is far stiffer than plastic or forbon.

The force is very small at the start, but as the winding progresses the force increases, and the outer poles steadily approach one another. So, the inner turns, which were tight at first, become looser and looser as winding progresses. I suppose one could achieve uniform as-wound tension if one started with high winding tension, and reduced the tension as the winding progressed.

Things are shifting around as this proceeds, and it takes some time for everything to settle.

The stress is applied to the bobbin only at the outer poles (~corners), but that's enough.

Not all bobbins are crushable. I make some bobbins that are built around a steel blade. Also, even with humbuckers, the screw bobbins has the screws going down into the keeper and baseplate, so I doubt it's going to change dimensions.

You can also see that sometimes the outer wraps are quite loose too.

[Joe Gwinn]

Acoustic Guitar Central: Aging a guitar with vibrations

Makes sense, since that's what playing it does.

Wow. I wonder how many guitars died before they found the correct vibration level? A shaker table like that is quite capable to testing a MIL-SPEC bit of equipment to destruction.

But their test isn't actually adequate, for lack of a double blind. The classic test would be to take a batch of guitars, have people rate them in a series of pairwise tests, take a randomly-chosen subset away and shake them, then repeat the pairwise comparison rating exercise (but don't tell people which instruments got the shakes), and see if shaking did anything.

Not all bobbins are crushable. I make some bobbins that are built around a steel blade. Also, even with humbuckers, the screw bobbins has the screws going down into the keeper and baseplate, so I doubt it's going to change dimensions.

Everything is crushable, given sufficient force. The end of a bobbin is perhaps 3/16 wide by 5/16 high, for an area of 0.0586 square inches; this is carrying a force of 1320 pounds, or 22,528 pounds per square inch. This exceeds the compressive yield strength of any bobbin plastic, so the plastic will simply flow slightly until the stress is relieved. Creep (slow flow) typically takes hours to days, with lower temperatures taking longer. Copper wire is far stiffer than plastic, so the amount of flow needed isn't visible. And copper can creep as well.

Creep (deformation) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You can also see that sometimes the outer wraps are quite loose too.

Most likely because the winder either let up at the end, or the outer turns weren't firmly attached and so loosened over time.