Real NOS PAF era plain enamel wire....

[Possum]

Wire in vintage PAF's varies in color. Not a big deal, they were all using the same environmentally toxic stuff, probably noticeably different than whats used now. Tell your Dad it does no good for that wire to be sitting there, its only going to become unusable at some point, may as well send it out to do some good in the world. I'll take any you can spare ;-) Of course this is even assuming that it does anything worthy of using it ;-) I've not wound anything from these old NOS spools, they are just cool to look at. All I'll say is the stuff I got is the most common diameter found in PAF's, I found thinner and fatter but not as often.

YES, I'm the asshole that drove the price up on that roll, LOL ;-) It'll probably start all these dealers frantically searching thru military surplus stores and Grandad's Televison Repair guys' attics ;-) There's some guy selling green poly wire as "NOS" for $75 a pound. I asked him what date its from and he doesn't know, the spools are nylon, not sure exactly why nylon spools came along, probably much much later. I remember WB's "NOS" wire photos that had very modern nylon white spools, supposedly from '67, I think his photoshop job flunked that test, plus the one I repaired had REA wire in it, same stuff I was using before they shut down, absorbed by Elektrisola.

[SonnyW]

Wire in vintage PAF's varies in color. Not a big deal, they were all using the same environmentally toxic stuff, probably noticeably different than whats used now. Tell your Dad it does no good for that wire to be sitting there, its only going to become unusable at some point, may as well send it out to do some good in the world. I'll take any you can spare ;-) Of course this is even assuming that it does anything worthy of using it ;-) I've not wound anything from these old NOS spools, they are just cool to look at. All I'll say is the stuff I got is the most common diameter found in PAF's, I found thinner and fatter but not as often.

YES, I'm the asshole that drove the price up on that roll, LOL ;-) It'll probably start all these dealers frantically searching thru military surplus stores and Grandad's Televison Repair guys' attics ;-) There's some guy selling green poly wire as "NOS" for $75 a pound. I asked him what date its from and he doesn't know, the spools are nylon, not sure exactly why nylon spools came along, probably much much later. I remember WB's "NOS" wire photos that had very modern nylon white spools, supposedly from '67, I think his photoshop job flunked that test, plus the one I repaired had REA wire in it, same stuff I was using before they shut down, absorbed by Elektrisola.

No hard feelings on the wire at all I dropped out pretty early. You will probably put it to better use anyway than I could. By the way I have a couple of old spools of Phelps Dodge wire that are on the white nylon spools the oldest one is dated 4-1983. I have some other ones that may be older but they aren't dated.

[Stratz]

Tell your Dad it does no good for that wire to be sitting there, its only going to become unusable at some point, may as well send it out to do some good in the world. I'll take any you can spare ;-) Of course this is even assuming that it does anything worthy of using it ;-)

I don't think there are too many people on this forum that could tell my Father anything about magnet wire that he doesn't already know.

However he stores it is working just fine because every time I use some of his vintage wire I have no problems other than it being inconsistent with the modern wire I use.

Maybe I'll recommend that he start selling his pickups wound with vintage wire as some vintage mojo marketing BS.
Doubt he'd do something like that. He's a respectable man.

[Ward]

Maybe I'll recommend that he start selling his pickups wound with vintage wire as some vintage mojo marketing BS.
Doubt he'd do something like that. He's a respectable man.

Yep, not many off us left these days

[Stratz]

Yep, not many off us left these days

Maybe when I retire I'll do it.
I don't care about ethics..... what ever it takes to sell a pickup

I doubt I've sold 200 pickups in 35 years. I've built and repaired tons of them but I never seem to get paid very often.
Too many friends, friends of friends, just know where to look when they need something.
At least most of them usually pay for the materials.

[Possum]

Well you're wrong there, I could your Dad a ton of stuff about VINTAGE wire that he doesn't know about. Old timers weren't aware of things that have pretty radically changed since their days. I had one old guy from Gibson tell me to make humbucker slugs just go buy some ten penny nails. Well, that may have been sort of true in the 50's, but nails mostly come from China now and they are a completely different alloy than the old days, not to mention they aren't 3/16" diameter, either.

There were a bunch of guys contact me, wanting me to wind their pickups with the vintage wire, because I posted photos on the MLP. I think WB really polluted the waters with his hyping his fake NOS wire, telling people it was some real special stuff. Players believe that stuff without any kind of proof, sad to say. The old wire has a bunch of properties you won't find in modern wire, but is that "good" or is it a detriment? I like to debunk things if they aren't true, and that was the purpose for buying this wire. Hell, I think the PE we're getting now is some of the best thats been available since I started, though I really was unhappy when Essex quit making it. REA's stuff was so inconsistent and you'd never know what was going to show up from UPS. I am just damn glad ANYONE is even making it, MWS told me no one buys it except pickup makers, if it wasn't for us you'd never see it again. Eventually the Chinese will figure out how to make it, they are making it now but last I heard it was pretty bad.

Is anyone having big problems with the forum on Safari since this last crash? Its kind of splattered all over the place, looks terrible....

[big_teee]

Maybe when I retire I'll do it.
I don't care about ethics..... what ever it takes to sell a pickup

I doubt I've sold 200 pickups in 35 years. I've built and repaired tons of them but I never seem to get paid very often.
Too many friends, friends of friends, just know where to look when they need something.
At least most of them usually pay for the materials.

Stratz:
You sound like me, I give too much away.
I might make a couple hundred bux, thinking I'm doing good, then I turn around and order twice that in parts.
It never seems to compute!
T

[Stratz]

Well you're wrong there, I could your Dad a ton of stuff about VINTAGE wire that he doesn't know about. Old timers weren't aware of things that have pretty radically changed since their days. I had one old guy from Gibson tell me to make humbucker slugs just go buy some ten penny nails. Well, that may have been sort of true in the 50's, but nails mostly come from China now and they are a completely different alloy than the old days, not to mention they aren't 3/16" diameter, either.

There were a bunch of guys contact me, wanting me to wind their pickups with the vintage wire, because I posted photos on the MLP.

"Old timers" huh? You're a funny guy Dave.
My father is a retired Aerospace Engineer (40+ years with Lockheed Aeronautics division) and still an active consultant for BAE Systems and GE.
Whats your background?

I'm not going to get into a pissing contest with you but please don't make assumptions when you have no idea of who you're speaking of.

I hope you can now get $1,200 for a set of your vintage PAF's from the guys at MLP with your new snake oil wire.
Best of luck.
Rob

[Stratz]

Stratz:
You sound like me, I give too much away.
I might make a couple hundred bux, thinking I'm doing good, then I turn around and order twice that in parts.
It never seems to compute!
T

I do give a lot of pickups away Terry. For me it's a hobby and it's a pretty good feeling knowing that there are hundreds of players making great music with something that I created.

Rob.

[CRU JONES]

Well you're wrong there, I could your Dad a ton of stuff about VINTAGE wire that he doesn't know about. Old timers weren't aware of things that have pretty radically changed since their days. I had one old guy from Gibson tell me to make humbucker slugs just go buy some ten penny nails. Well, that may have been sort of true in the 50's, but nails mostly come from China now and they are a completely different alloy than the old days, not to mention they aren't 3/16" diameter, either.

There were a bunch of guys contact me, wanting me to wind their pickups with the vintage wire, because I posted photos on the MLP. I think WB really polluted the waters with his hyping his fake NOS wire, telling people it was some real special stuff. Players believe that stuff without any kind of proof, sad to say. The old wire has a bunch of properties you won't find in modern wire, but is that "good" or is it a detriment? I like to debunk things if they aren't true, and that was the purpose for buying this wire. Hell, I think the PE we're getting now is some of the best thats been available since I started, though I really was unhappy when Essex quit making it. REA's stuff was so inconsistent and you'd never know what was going to show up from UPS. I am just damn glad ANYONE is even making it, MWS told me no one buys it except pickup makers, if it wasn't for us you'd never see it again. Eventually the Chinese will figure out how to make it, they are making it now but last I heard it was pretty bad.

Is anyone having big problems with the forum on Safari since this last crash? Its kind of splattered all over the place, looks terrible....

Good for you Possum!

IMO:
You can get a few coils from 1 pound of wire. If you know what you are doing, you could make that roll pay for itself, even at that price. IMO.

Possum may not have a degree in rocket science, but he does have good ears. He plays his own pickups on his youtube videos. That is raw. So, like them or not; you are free to judge his pickups and his playing. I give that respect.

The way I see it is: NOS PE? Hell yeah! what isn't to be stoked about on that? I really, REALLY want some I'm not going to talk to my lady about NOS PE, and neither should you. Hell, 95% of the guitarists I know won't want to hear about NOS PE. If a pickup makers forum can't get stoked on a score of NOS PE, maybe find something else besides pickups to get stoked on.

So anyway, good score Possum. Looking forward to hearing what you come up with!

Cheers

[big_teee]

Good for you Possum!

IMO:
You can get a few coils from 1 pound of wire. If you know what you are doing, you could make that roll pay for itself, even at that price. IMO.

Possum may not have a degree in rocket science, but he does have good ears. He plays his own pickups on his youtube videos. That is raw. So, like them or not; you are free to judge his pickups and his playing. I give that respect.

The way I see it is: NOS PE? Hell yeah! what isn't to be stoked about on that? I really, REALLY want some I'm not going to talk to my lady about NOS PE, and neither should you. Hell, 95% of the guitarists I know won't want to hear about NOS PE. If a pickup makers forum can't get stoked on a score of NOS PE, maybe find something else besides pickups to get stoked on.

So anyway, good score Possum. Looking forward to hearing what you come up with!

Cheers

Cru, Take a deep breath, and don't hyper ventilate!
I still get excited when I get a new roll of PN at 12-14 bucks a pound!
T

[CRU JONES]

Cru, Take a deep breath, and don't hyper ventilate!
I still get excited when I get a new roll of PN at 12-14 bucks a pound!
T

I do too, Buddy! In fact, I never totally kill a roll. I try to leave a few coils left on a roll before I put it away for fond memories! *sigh*

I'm loving that PN you turned me onto, BTW! Thanks for that. Took me almost the entire 1 pound roll to figure out how to make something that sounds good, but; to my ears it sounds pretty good!

[Possum]

Stratz why the attitude? Has your Dad had vintage plain enamel wire examined in a magnet wire manufacturer's own lab? I DID. 14 examples ranging from 1938 up to late 70's. Even those guys discovered things from the lab results they didn't know about (Elektrisola). Old wire looks like new wire but trust me it isn't. I'm 62, a veteran graphic designer, among my clients were EMG Pickups and about six record labels, I've done hundreds of album cover/package design for more famous guitar players than I can remember, my very last job before I bailed out of dying career field was Leslie West and Mountain, a good friend whom I did many album designs for. My Dad was military lifer, Signal Corps, ham radio, I grew up on tubes and electronics. You can search and find my discussion of vintage wire and the lab results that I can disclose, much of I won't, since some day I may want to figure a way to afford to have a close batch of replica wire made, because what we're getting now isn't close to vintage wire at all. My PAF replica's have 9 years of research, 6 of which I worked with a magnetics metallurgist, compiling a huge file folder on everything Gibson made from 1938 to late 70's. As a veteran of the advertising business, I absolutely HATE anyone spewing hype about work that isn't 100% founded on demonstrable facts. 33 years in the advertising business showed me that using hype to sell products is a sure way to slowly kill your business as word spreads that what one sells isn't the same as you're telling people it is. There is nothing wrong with being an old timer, but the ones I've talked to don't really know the changes in technologies and materials manufacturing that have happened in the last 40 years, and believe me everything changed. The bottom line is NOS PE might just be so much dumpster trash, until it proves otherwise. Players have been duped into paying higher prices for work that supposedly has NOS wire, and that it has some kind of magic to it, well show me the proof please. Vintage PAF's aren't a good way to judge old wire, because the metallurgy and the design itself is where the real tones are coming from, the wire may not actually have much at all to do with it. I will find that out finally and I will post the results in a YouTube video for the world to see......

[Ward]

Looking forward to your assessment Dave.

[Possum]

Thanks Ward! The interesting thing to me about vintage PE is there are indicators in the lab results that point to it being brighter than modern wire, but then there are indicators that its darker sounding than modern wire. Will it balance out and be nothing special or will it swing in one direction or the other? If you listen to audio of vintage Les Pauls when they were just about brand new the pickups can be extremely bright, see video below. Then with vintage Les Pauls that exist now there are factors that are dumbing down the treble in the harness. Aged braided shield wire in experiments I did, really clamps down on treble with just a short length of it. Probably the cloth deteriorating or absorbing moisture, hard to say, but modern braided wire is way brighter. My vintage PAF's if I unhook the original leads on them have a very high resonant peak, re-attaching the old leads drops the peak by a full 1 khz.

http://youtu.be/waIu4z7eyXA