Do you reject polepieces with pitting?

[rhgwynn]

I had ordered 6 pickup kits from stewmac (6, since the price goes down to 10$/each), anyhow - some of the poles had a pit on the end, but one out of all of them had pitting on BOTH ends.

My question really is this - is this JUST a cosmetic issue? Or is do you think it affects performance? I've never seen a fender that had pitting on the pickups, but then again; I havent looked at that many up close.

I've emailed stewmac about this, and asked that they send me another pole - is that a crazy notion? Or perfectly reasonable? Does anyone use a supplier that sells polepieces with little to no pitting? Or maybe pitting just comes with the territory?

Thoughts? Thank you.

-Rob

[David Schwab]

You mean alnico poles? No, that's fairly common. It's only cosmetic.

I have some real Fender pickups with pits on the poles.

Are both ends like that? Just flip it over.

[rhgwynn]

You mean alnico poles? No, that's fairly common. It's only cosmetic.

I have some real Fender pickups with pits on the poles.

Are both ends like that? Just flip it over.

I had already flipped over a few; then I got just one that was pitted on both ends. I feel like it would stick out like a sore thumb. StewMac emailed me today and are actually sending out another one.

-Rob
Both ends

[big_teee]

I had already flipped over a few; then I got just one that was pitted on both ends. I feel like it would stick out like a sore thumb. StewMac emailed me today and are actually sending out another one.

-Rob
Both ends

You can charge extra for those, for the guys that like that stressed worn out look!
T

[Stratz]

I'd be careful with rod magnets that have imperfections that look like pin holes. While they may look like just simple pin holes there's no telling how deep the holes goes. I bought a box of Stew Mac pickup parts from a woman that used to work with me and some of the rod magnets had holes on the ends and the sides as well. Some of the holes on the sides ran almost the entire length of the magnet. I won't use a magnet that has any pin holes anywhere.

One would think that Stew Mac (of all suppliers) would have better quality control considering the price they charge.

I have quite a few NOS pre CBS Fender rod magnets and I don't ever recall seeing any holes in the ones I've used so far.

[davos]

I use them if they have a little pit hole, but I put it on the bottom. I occasionally get bevelled rods that have chipped a little on the bevel, I pick those out and stick them in a jar which I then use for prototypes or just pickups for myself. People a lot of money for pickups so I owe them the best quality product I can produce.

For what its worth, I get rod from Mojotone often and aside from the odd chip in bevelled rods, pitting is very low - 1 in 50 rods or so have pitting from my experience with them.

[jason lollar]

I regect them unless they are the size of a pin head and you really have to look hard for it but anymore its usually more of a cosmetic problem than it was 15 years ago. I didnt use to be as picky and back then I would regect 20 % or more of the alnico rods I would buy - the quality as far as pitting or chipping goes has gone WAY up. The thing to be careful about and you would never know it today is sometimes that little pit is the opening to a big airbubble inside. you use to see chambers from air bubbles exposed but no longer.
I remember AZ being the first to advertise- what little advertising therte was back then- that they had a new process so pitting was dramatically reduced. I had originally taken that to mean they were manufacturing thier magnets differently but maybe it just meant they were inspected more thoroughly

[the great waldo]

Hi All

I had noticed that a lot of older fender pickups had a small hole in either the top or mainly the bottom side of the magnets. I have not seen this much with most of the new magnets that I came across so I assume that manufacturing processes have improved. A technician once told me that Mullard rejected a third of the tubes they produced in order to keep quality levels high, I wonder if the magnet manufacturers do that or have just improved the production techniques.

Cheers

Andrew