Keeper Bars I was asked.

[Jim Shine]

I see on addictionFX's website they have a lab report on the composition of the alloy.

[Possum]

Pretty cool to see what nickel silver they used in both cover and baseplate. Thats the same lab I used in my first analysis, word gets around eh?

[David Schwab]

Actually i have noticed just the opposite
when i fully charge a tele bridge pickup with A5 magnets it 1200 gauss +/- & after i put the baseplate on it goes way down

Then you are doing something wrong. Get a magnet that's charged already, and take a reading from one pole. Now stick some steel to the other pole and take a reading. This is exactly why they put the steel plate on the bottom.

[David Schwab]

6 cents for probably 12 hours worth of work or more, no thanks ;-) Yes I'm making new pickups, I don't think a customer wants me to hang onto his pickups while I solder and cut the leads to length and record the changes over 3 months then send him a pickup thats all beat up.

Dave, I know you are not stupid, so you are just being obstinate. I'm sure you have pickups that you make that don't belong to customers. So either make a pickup and do a test, or concede that the effect is all in your head.

I don't use all pre made parts. In fact, in my bass pickups the only pre-made part I use is the plastic cover. On some of my guitar pickups I use pre made plastic bobbins. Big whoop. And that has nothing to do with it. If it does, please explain, in detail what the difference between buying a made part and making you own is.

I call shenanigans.

[big_teee]

Then you are doing something wrong. Get a magnet that's charged already, and take a reading from one pole. Now stick some steel to the other pole and take a reading. This is exactly why they put the steel plate on the bottom.

I thought they just put it there to make it Microphonic!
Just Kiddin.
T

[Rj777]

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

I'm new here and don't wish to upset anyone, so the following is only my opinion, but I dont think that winding tension can be summed!! 30 grams of tension will always be 30 grams as the wire is a continuous length between 2 fixed points, because it is soldered at the eyelets.(Newtons laws of equilibrium. I was always taught to visualise the result to check you were appropriately right, can you pick up a 600Kg weight on piece of AWG42?)

I know that there will be friction at the ends of the bobbin that might cause slightly different tensions between winds.So you might have 1 wind at 30 g, the next at 50g and the following at 70g but this doesn't add up to 150g. If anything overtime it will average out to 50g, which might explain the change in sound? I'm not to good with electronics at this level and don't know the effects of capacitance or magnetism on a tensioned copper wire.

There is also the fact that you have brought together at least 3 dissimilar materials and then heated them to 100 deg or so in wax. so there will be internal stresses that despite how small or immeasurable could well have an effect on sound, but over time and environmental changes these will normalise. A bit like tuning your guitar at home and then finding that its out of tune at the gig


Like I said this is just my opinion. and this is great site, thanks for all help so far

All I know is that to get the sound I'm happy with I have to have a guitar that I like playing, good strings,good pick ups, good effects and a good amp

[David Schwab]

I'm new here and don't wish to upset anyone, so the following is only my opinion, but I dont think that winding tension can be summed!! 30 grams of tension will always be 30 grams as the wire is a continuous length between 2 fixed points, because it is soldered at the eyelets.(Newtons laws of equilibrium. I was always taught to visualise the result to check you were appropriately right, can you pick up a 600Kg weight on piece of AWG42?)

This is what I say too. It doesn't get tighter as you wind, but you are putting more wire on it.

[copperheadroads]

Then you are doing something wrong. Get a magnet that's charged already, and take a reading from one pole. Now stick some steel to the other pole and take a reading. This is exactly why they put the steel plate on the bottom.

I put a baseplate on a tele bridge pickup that's already charged & readings before & after the baseplate ,say after the baseplate it reads lower

[Joe Gwinn]

I'm new here and don't wish to upset anyone, so the following is only my opinion, but I dont think that winding tension can be summed!! 30 grams of tension will always be 30 grams as the wire is a continuous length between 2 fixed points, because it is soldered at the eyelets.(Newtons laws of equilibrium. I was always taught to visualise the result to check you were appropriately right, can you pick up a 600Kg weight on piece of AWG42?)

I know that there will be friction at the ends of the bobbin that might cause slightly different tensions between winds.So you might have 1 wind at 30 g, the next at 50g and the following at 70g but this doesn't add up to 150g. If anything overtime it will average out to 50g, which might explain the change in sound? I'm not to good with electronics at this level and don't know the effects of capacitance or magnetism on a tensioned copper wire.

There is also the fact that you have brought together at least 3 dissimilar materials and then heated them to 100 deg or so in wax. so there will be internal stresses that despite how small or immeasurable could well have an effect on sound, but over time and environmental changes these will normalise. A bit like tuning your guitar at home and then finding that its out of tune at the gig

We think of wire is perfectly inextensible, but it too behaves elastically. As a thought experiment, think of winding a coil of rubber cord around two parallel metal rods. The winding tension is one ounce. Each turn leaves to stretched rubber cords between the rods. If I wind ten turns, what is the force pulling the rods together? Well, once wound, the rubber between the rods retains its original stretch, so the force is ten turns times two times one ounce, or 20 ounces.

[big_teee]

We think of wire is perfectly inextensible, but it too behaves elastically. As a thought experiment, think of winding a coil of rubber cord around two parallel metal rods. The winding tension is one ounce. Each turn leaves to stretched rubber cords between the rods. If I wind ten turns, what is the force pulling the rods together? Well, once wound, the rubber between the rods retains its original stretch, so the force is ten turns times two times one ounce, or 20 ounces.

Isn't the tension only while it is being applied?
Once the coil is wound, you can take a strat coil apart and slide the rods out of the coil.
IME There Doesn't appear To Be any tension present.
T

[David Schwab]

I put a baseplate on a tele bridge pickup that's already charged & readings before & after the baseplate ,say after the baseplate it reads lower

Well I don't know what to tell you. I think if you do a search others will also say it boosts the magnets up a bit.

I just did a test with an unwound Strat bobbin with charged A5 rods, with, and without a steel plate under the pickup:





This is absolutely repeatable with any magnet or pickup I have here.

[Rj777]

We think of wire is perfectly inextensible, but it too behaves elastically. As a thought experiment, think of winding a coil of rubber cord around two parallel metal rods. The winding tension is one ounce. Each turn leaves to stretched rubber cords between the rods. If I wind ten turns, what is the force pulling the rods together? Well, once wound, the rubber between the rods retains its original stretch, so the force is ten turns times two times one ounce, or 20 ounces.

Ok I see where you are coming from and that is fine if you are talking about something like rubber or elastic that has a large elastic range and is capable of storing energy, however as far as I'm aware the winding tension involved in pick up winding is not great enough to start stretching the copper (otherwise it will elongate and change dia.) and hence there is no elastic energy internally pulling the wire back on its self, only the initial winding tension is present.

Once the coil is wound, you can take a strat coil apart and slide the rods out of the coil.
IME There Doesn't appear To Be any tension present.

And there's the proof, if there was any substitutional tension then you either wouldn't be able to dismantle it or the coil would collapse. Also when you have wound a coil you don't have to hold on to the end to stop it pinging back into the wind do you?

[copperheadroads]

Well I don't know what to tell you. I think if you do a search others will also say it boosts the magnets up a bit.

I just did a test with an unwound Strat bobbin with charged A5 rods, with, and without a steel plate under the pickup:




This is absolutely repeatable with any magnet or pickup I have here.

Thanks Mr. Schwab
I will be looking into this a little more to see whats up , when i get back from the North

[Possum]

David I am obstinate in stating my experience of the break-in phenomenon because it always does it year after year after year and is 100% reliably there. You are obstinate in thinking that someone's experience could possibly be different than your own. Thats a pretty hard stance to take and precludes learning anything new, hmmmm? No I don't make pickups other than what I sell except for prototypes during design phase and every single one of them goes thru the change, which I repeatedly have stated that I don't decide if a pickup is ready for the public until its aged about four months or so. You simply are not using my methods, the things I am doing are vastly different than anyone I know. I do believe that you personally don't hear this change and I can guess why, but then I'd have to explain my own methods, which I won't ;-) End of story. As for baseplates, they always increase gauss at the poles.

Tension in the middle of a coil is always lower than the ends, Leo Fender struggled and struggled to solve that problem, I read all the books written by the principals involved at Fender and one book describes the things he tried and the stupid low tech ingenious solution. It really pays to do historical research on one's craft, I've read all those books on Fender and Gibson in particular, some real good things to learn in them.

[David Schwab]

David I am obstinate in stating my experience of the break-in phenomenon because it always does it year after year after year and is 100% reliably there. You are obstinate in thinking that someone's experience could possibly be different than your own.

Either explain why it happens to you, and not everyone, or give us a demo. It would take you, what, an hour to make a pickup? So make a pickup, record it, and then come back after the break in and record it again so we can all hear it.

I'm going to do the same.

As far as the way I do things, making pickups is not rocket science. I wind coils, pot them in wax, assemble and wire them up. Same as you. I make most of the metal parts.

But I'll be happy to make a standard guitar humbucker using those pole screws you had made and do a demo. That will give a control specimen since it's not made the way I make them.

As far as my hearing, sorry Dave. I'm a more accomplished musician than you are and I have very good ears for tone. I've also been engineering and mixing recordings for the past 30+ years. I don't need to go to a blues club to get guys to play my pickups. I can do that myself. So why should we trust your ears?

So unless you can back up what you are saying, I say nonsense!