demagnetized

[Joe N]

So, Just because I'm kind of obsessive/compulsive about these things, how easy is it for magnets to become demagnetized?

[madialex]

very easy if pickups are stored with others in the wrong manner. I am not the expert here on that so i'm sure someone else can be of more help.

[ken]

Supposedly, SD learned about demagnetization with one of Sting's Teles... he rode on a trolley to a recording session with a Telecaster guitar with new SD pickups in it, and his seat for the ride was over one of the trolley's electric drive motors. In the story, this almost totally demagged the pickups.

Computer monitors, TV's, microwave ovens, bulk tape erasers, neighborhood electricity transformers, arc welders, big speakers, really any source of strong magnetic fields can demag Alnico.

IMHO Al5 is the most resistant to demagnetizing, lower grades are easier to demag.

Ken

[David Schwab]

Alnico magnets can easily be demagnetized. On the other hand, ceramic magnets are very difficult to demagnetize... as long as you keep them away from rare earth magnets.

As Ken said, different magnet types, and grades, have varying degrees of coercivity, which is the resistance to changes in magnetization of a fully charged magnet.

As madialex said, storing alnicos the wrong way can partly demagnetize them... just pushing the same poles together will have an effect. Ceramics can be stores any which way.

[Joe N]

Alnico magnets can easily be demagnetized. On the other hand, ceramic magnets are very difficult to demagnetize... as long as you keep them away from rare earth magnets.

As Ken said, different magnet types, and grades, have varying degrees of coercivity, which is the resistance to changes in magnetization of a fully charged magnet.

As madialex said, storing alnicos the wrong way can partly demagnetize them... just pushing the same poles together will have an effect. Ceramics can be stores any which way.

If this is the case, how careful do you have to be without looking like a complete lunatic? for example, throwing a guitar, which is in a hardshell case on top of a high wattage guitar amp that has fairly large TX's from a gig to a practice space. will that do any kind of damage? What about carrying your guitar on a subway? Or playing it on your lap while you have a cell phone in your pocket. I guess I really only have pickups that are AlNiCo5, or ceramic, so according to you guys I'm pretty safe. but how carful do you really have to be?

[David Schwab]

I don't think you really have to worry about it... I have some old Fender pickups that have been in a box with a zillion other pickups, and the magnets still have a charge... that doesn't mean they haven't been weakened however.

There's a lot of really old pickups out there that still work, and a lot of people seem to like the weakened "aged" magnet sound.

Just keep your guitar away from very strong magnetic fields.

If you want to be really safe, don't put your guitar on top of an amp or right next to a speaker. And never use a soldering gun near your guitar! You know the big things with the trigger and lights. They create a fairly strong magnetic field at the tip.

[Mark Hammer]

Magnets, like a lot of forces in the world, vary in influence proportionately to the distance from the thing to be influenced. Lest people start panicking unnecessarily, when you consider the actual distance between the magnets on the back of the speakers in the cab, and the distance produced between speaker magnets and pickups when the guitar is leaned at an angle against the amp, the risk is low. Same thing for transformers.

I'm not saying there is NO risk, merely that the level of risk can get fairly low fairly quickly with the sort of distances from magnetic "threats" normally encountered. Hell, color TV screens are even MORE susceptible to magnetic fields than alnico pickups are, and when you consider how many magnetic threats there are to CRT screens (house-keys, for starters) they ought to be a lot more discoloured and purple than we normally find them to be.

[jason lollar]

even if you stack alnico correctly you will loose some charge, thats one way I manipulate the gauss level- take bars out of a brick, measure them, put them back in the brick, measure again etc.
Restack a brick a few times and youll loose an appreciable amount of charge.
as far as once its in the guitar there is very little chance for stacking a brick of bars against the magnet

[Joe N]

I don't think you really have to worry about it... I have some old Fender pickups that have been in a box with a zillion other pickups, and the magnets still have a charge... that doesn't mean they haven't been weakened however.

There's a lot of really old pickups out there that still work, and a lot of people seem to like the weakened "aged" magnet sound.

Just keep your guitar away from very strong magnetic fields.

If you want to be really safe, don't put your guitar on top of an amp or right next to a speaker. And never use a soldering gun near your guitar! You know the big things with the trigger and lights. They create a fairly strong magnetic field at the tip.

I wont worry about it then, I really wasn't, it is just that I have been reading alot on the subject from various sources, that seem to out to scare people, and since I really don't know much about coercive properties of magnets, I really didn't know what to believe. I really don't use super vintage pickups, or any expensive custom winds, mostly just dimarzio's that I buy pretty cheaply anyway, so I shouldn't really worry about it. who the hell uses a solder gun to wire in pickups anyway????

[David Schwab]

I really don't use super vintage pickups, or any expensive custom winds, mostly just dimarzio's that I buy pretty cheaply anyway, so I shouldn't really worry about it.

DiMarzio seems to mostly use ceramic magnets anyway....

who the hell uses a solder gun to wire in pickups anyway????

Oh you'd be surprised the stuff you see when doing guitar repairs!

[Joe N]

DiMarzio seems to mostly use ceramic magnets anyway....

I tend to use alot of their models that have an Al5, but I guess al5 according to you guys here is not at as high a risk as al2. what about when vendors store these things stacked on each other? seems like you would be running some risk there???

Oh you'd be surprised the stuff you see when doing guitar repairs!

sometimes even a 45watter is overkill, as it's relatively easy to damage carbon pots if you over heat them. I'm aware of what people try to do on their own, although I don't really have any bad horror stories that I have run into

[ken]

Actually, demag is nothing to fear...

Just playing your guitar will very slightly demag your pickups, in the first two years your pickups may weaken 10-15%, and less so afterwards. As they weaken, the tone will get warmer and sweeter. Pickups are a lot like wine,
the older stuff may be preferable.

ken

[Spence]

I recently did an article for a guitar magazine with a 57 strat, a '59, two '62s and a '63. The gauss levels on the pickups were pretty interesting.
What difference this has on tone is a matter for debate. The '57 had rarely been out of the case. Some of the old timers who played that guitar loved it for it's likeness to a telecaster. I hated it for that very reason. It was the one guitar where the pickups still retained most of their gauss.
These old timers think that that is the ultimate Strat tone. Personally I think they're wrong.
That in itself is something that pickup makers need to be in tune with because a customer's perception of what a guitar should sound like may not be yours.

[David Schwab]

I remember playing a '59 strat once, and I thought it was really dark and muddy sounding... I didn't like that tone from the demag'd pickups at all. But I also don't like that real icepick hard tone you hear sometimes...

I have bright humbuckers in my stratoid guitar.

[solderstain]

First-timer post

I'm a new member here, invited by Wolfe. I've been working with him and his magnet supplier doing some tests to see JUST how quickly and how much magnets deteriorate from handling. I disagree with people who mention that how you store magnets effects how they demagnetize. Just having two (or more) magnets in stationary proximity with each other is not a promise that there will be a reduction (or increase) in strength.

What causes that, in my experience, is relative motion between the two magnets. Meaning moving the magnets in close (like within an inch or less in the case of Alnico pickup magnets) proximity over and over. Or, in something we're all familiar with, pulling a magnet off a brick.

I don't believe that two magnets (of the type we're talking about here - pickup magnets) will effect each other's strength if they're sitting stationary and stagnant with no relative motion. Two HUGELY dissimilar magnets? Perhaps. But I don't believe stationary storage of pickup-grade and size magnets is going to result in any more signficant loss of magnet charge than they will through normal degredation if no other magnet was around.