Using 1960's Plain Enamel Magnet Wire

[Possum]

cool down dude.....

sheesh you're getting all whacked out over nothing here. Of course all those guys albums I do don't use my work, but I have a couple famous guys who do use my work and basically I could give a shit about who they are, I don't really use that info to sell pickkups because for one thing its kind of a shallow meaningless thing and doesn't really sell a product, I mean I never even heard of those guys who's pictures you posted, and you probably wouldn't recognize names or pictures on my end either. The few who I have on my website, their presence has sold very very few pickups, I don't pursue these guys anymore. If I wanted to boast about my industry connections I'm sure I could bore everyone to death about that. Most of the big time guys I work with and many who are friends all use "noiseless" pickups which I personally detest, and I don't make that stuff and no imminent plans to do so. But there's a couple guys who love my stuff and actually pay me for it. I put that stuff in my bio to let customers know I can actually sorta play guitar and have been around the best guitar players this planet has to offer for almost 30 years. There are guys out there who make pickups who probably don't know 3 chords and would get thrown out of most blues jams on their ear :-) Its all about credability. I think probably the most respect for any pickup maker I have is for Jason Lollar, my friend Greg says he kicks ass on jump blues, I"ve seen Lindy and Seymour play and I sure wouldn't plunk down a dime to watch them play :-)

Do I think I'm the shit, do I think I know it all , hell no :-) If I did I sure wouldn't be hanging around here, I learn stuff from newbies even. Any buzz out there on my work comes from customers, I occasionally post on the Gear Page new products and how they came about and thats about it. The new LP forum is a bust, quit posting there, and don't really have time for that stuff anyway. I like to stay small and actually enjoy making each pickup rather than run a rat race to see how many pickups in a day I can crank out, that doesn't work for me.

I like to share stuff I know, and my opinions and ideas are continually changing. The guys who DO think they are the shit don't hang around here because they get called on their BS and they can't take it :-) I actually don't heavily pursue selling pickups, because I have my hands full doing album design 9 months out of the year, I almost quit making pickups when I was running ads because it burnt me out, I do this because I love it and the thing I like about it is there is never a point where you will know it all and what you know today can be proven wrong next week. Thats why I have an armful of test gear and learned to use it to see things my ears can't hear.

I mentioned the Platinum pickups because I am just betting the wire in them is real close to what you are using except my wire is brand new, I do keep some things to myself as we all do, but we DO share alot of little professional tips that each of us discover which makes each of our lives a little easier hopefully. You sure as shit can't learn everything all by yourself in a vacuum, there have been things discussed here and discoveries made here that I'm sure you know nothing about. JOe Gwinn was posting his engineering ideas about a noiseless system here a couple years ago before the Suhr system which uses the identical technology suddenly popped up on the marketplace. where are you going to find someone of that intelligence and skill discuss with you one on one in a public forum stuff about how coils and magnets and metals all interact with eachother? This place is far from useless. Sure, most of us are very opinionated and irritate eachother frequently but there isn't any book, any teacher, any place where you will learn more by hanging around and contributing and learning stuff you don't know. Yes alot of it is repetitive newbie boring stuff but sometimes those threads turn into mind blowing stuff with contributions from people in other fields that open new doors to this stuff.

If you're in Portland on wednesday thats the only day I could meet up with you at the jam, I only get one nite off a week and thats it. Bring your guitar, I won't play it but I will listen to you play it and see how it sounds. That one nite is priceless to me for listening and testing my stuff and blowing off alot of weekly pent up steam from very long hours.....send me PM and let me know if you'll be there. There's another pickup maker/luthier who comes there sometimes who worked for Red Rhodes of Velvet Hammer fame, who has some good stories to tell if he's in the mood too. Greg will be there back from the Phillipines trying to marry his sweetie so he should have some stories to tell, he another fourm friend.....

[Stan H]

Whoa, cool thread...7 pages! Must be some kind of record
I'm a little lost, did Kevin's initial question ever get answered?!?

[Possum]

...

yes........and no.......

[voodoochild]

I do find it very interesting that people (competitors) here will try to discredit my product and my materials that I am using. I do appreciate that a lot of you spend a lot of time doing your R&D, but you haven't done any on my product so you really just don't know what you are talking about. Have you heard them for yourselves?.... HEAR Them. Isn't TONE the bottom line? Well, the tone sounds fantastic. I am willing to put these where my mouth is anytime.

As for new vs. old wire, to say that my take on this is wrong. Its fine to have your opinion, which is just that: OPINION. But without hearing them yourself, you really don't know. I could go and talk about what they measure to and so on or my winding technique, but I choose not to share this information with my competitors.

A lot of you are saying that wire does not make a tonal difference. Well, than I guess we should all call it day and buy cheap Chinese wire that is so much more reasonable to buy than what we get from MWS. I know for a fact the wire does make a big difference in tone. I have read up on quite a few of you who has been discrediting my wire and my products. It seems that a lot of you have changed your minds as to wire and tone. This wire is something special. I am proud to be offering it to my customers. Some were ready to slam me if the pickups weren't special. Well, they are,and they haven't.

What I find most shocking here is that most of you are my competitors. For you to try to descredit my products and me seems unprofessional and unethical since you have not heard or played the 67-07 pickups. My customers & endorsees have.

Oh by the way here's some pictures from the other night when the 67-07's were played live in concert with the Chris Cornell band. For those interested, I will be posting some video footage and more pictures when I have the time on my news section on my web site from the show...
][/QUOTE]

Well Will,

I'm a newbie to this forum however I am no newbie to the biz. By the way I am no competitor of yours. I build guitars and pickups for fun and for friends. My main gig is guitar repair and restoration. I was simply questioning the topic of the post. As far as your pickups go sure they may sound great but thats not what I or anyone else was talking about. No offense but you did pop up out of no where acting like you own this forum and everyone here is some sort of novice and you are God or something. Also I couldn't help but notice you seem to be using this thread to put a plug in for your pickups every time you post. I don't believe that is what we are supposed to do here Will. I'm sorry I have to reply to you this way but you put a bad taste in my mouth.

[kevinT]

No offense Kevin, I am not mad. But when Kevin posted copy written material from my web site here. Which made it really obvious who's wire you are talking about since I am the only one offering this wire. It made it all about my product.

I wanted to quote what you said on your site because i wanted to use your knowledge of the wire and expertise to support my premise that old enamel wire was in fact fragile and there was a possibility that the pickup could short... which is the truth...not to discredit you.

Your name was never mentioned in any of the posts. I think folks on the forum already knew who I was referring to before i quoted your site because you have pics of the wire on your site and in forums. We all visit various forums as well as visit each other's Web sites from time to time as well as do searches about pickups on google...so i'm sure most folks here were already aware.

Will, to discredit is to intentionally harm the reputation of someone...I just don't see that this is happening to you on the forum.

Please don't think that the process of debate that is taking place here as slamming you. Experts are going to question...that is their nature...otherwise there would be no experts and a solid knowledge base about a topic. My personal note to you is to use this thread as a educational experience rather than an attack on you. There is got to be something that someone has said that you can take away and use. I just don't see negative vibes about you. I do see experts dissecting this issue.

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I want to reiterate....the thread's purpose is to question the use of (which isn't against the law) and examine the topic of vintage wire in the manufacturing of pickups.

Like i said earlier, we all support one another here and i don't think it's in the best interest of anyone here to slam another pickup maker and i think it's great to see someone receive recoginition for their work and become more successful.

[Spence]

Anything else?

To be fair, I think we've done what we can but he ain't listening.

[kevinT]

I agree.

To switch gears but to stay on the topic of wire, i ran across a web site a while ago that showed a clever way to reference and identify gauges of wire. I think it was Clint Searcy's site before he changed his site's design.

He used a large microscope slide and lined up different samples of wire and identified each guage. I just thought that it was a clever way to quickly compare wire sizes and to get an idea of the wire size used if you're dissecting or repairing/rewinding a pickup.

Obviously it would only be a quick preliminary comparison (if you don't have a micrometer) to check the wire gauge and even then, as Possum eluded to earlier, you would have to be careful not to smash/flatten the wire between the slides in order to keep the wire sizes somewhat accurate.

I wish he still had the image posted.

[Spence]

That's a great idea for a quick reference. Off to ebay for a cheap microscope I think.......

[NightWinder]

He's marketing his shit here....he wants a spot in googleworld. Thats funny shit!!
People will talk and slam your shit to the dirt....get used to it! Thats business

[Joe Gwinn]

To switch gears but to stay on the topic of wire, i ran across a web site a while ago that showed a clever way to reference and identify gauges of wire. I think it was Clint Searcy's site before he changed his site's design.

He used a large microscope slide and lined up different samples of wire and identified each guage. I just thought that it was a clever way to quickly compare wire sizes and to get an idea of the wire size used if you're dissecting or repairing/rewinding a pickup.(

Look for optical comparitors for the microscope plus calibrated reticles. One can also get reticles (chrome on glass) and look at reticle plus wire with an ordinary microscope.

[Clint Searcy]

http://www.searcystringworks.com/mlere.html

The article is still on the site. It's just got buried a bit when we cleaned up the look.

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...almstrom21.jpg

I can't take credit for the idea. I have an old friend that helps me out when I need to slow down and think! This was his tip.

[Kilo]

Anything else?

To be fair, I think we've done what we can but he ain't listening.

Hi,
New here. Looks like a great place to yak and learn. But do you very often get guys like this WB guy? Man, that stuff could get old real fast.....

[GlennW]

Hi,
New here. Looks like a great place to yak and learn. But do you very often get guys like this WB guy? Man, that stuff could get old real fast.....

WB Guy? Could it be a distant cousin?

[WBPickups]

WB Guy? Could it be a distant cousin?

[madialex]

Ok thats it, it a coo going on here..... Sam Lee Guy and now WB guy. arm yourselves, hide your parts stash and wire and lets get this thing going