PAF Steel Chemistry

[Genericmusic]

 

[rwinking]

I love the throbak guy. He is such a hip geek. I guess it makes sense that my 1962 Epiphone Casino sounds different than  my newer guitars because of the steel used in the Pups. I also wonder if aging has any effect on these things.

[Genericmusic]

23 hours ago, rwinking said:

 I also wonder if aging has any effect on these things.

That would be a question for Jon at ThroBak. I believe anything that affects the chemical composition of steel would effect its ring or sound. I maybe mistaken but it is my understand that HRW PUP's are Schaller's that have been treated with freon. 

[bobmeyrick]

Interesting... In the video he mentions that the original screws and slugs they analysed varied in carbon content from 1006 to 1018, which, along with the variation in magnets used and number of winds, would explain why there's not one definitive PAF pickup.

[LK155]

There's a classic guitar geek line in there at about the 5:30 mark:

"But I'm quite sure that there's a sound difference........I think."

I like his honesty.  

For what it's worth, I could hear the difference.  Will that change my life in any meaningful way?  Unlikely. 

 

As for Mr. Rwinking's musing about whether aging has any effect on these things, I can assure him that it most certainly does.  The older I get, the worse my hearing gets.

 

[rwinking]

18 hours ago, LK155 said:

 

As for Mr. Rwinking's musing about whether aging has any effect on these things, I can assure him that it most certainly does.  The older I get, the worse my hearing gets.

  

Now that's funny!

[tbonesullivan]

This reminds me when one of the mods over at the trombone forum worked as a chemist, and he got access to a gas chromatograph.  So of course, the whole "alloys aren't the same as they were" thing came up, so he ended up testing a bunch of samples from mouthpieces of various eras and makers. It definitely was pretty interesting.

With the PAFs... there was just as much bean counting as there was engineering in what was produced.  The color of the bobbins was whatever color they were making pickup rings at the time. The magnets were probably what was cheapest.

The celluloid they used in the old les paul inlays was definitely a cost saving measure. Of course now people pay extra to replace their acrylic inlays with celluloid, which decays, and can explode if exposed to heat. I have no idea why people would want to go back to such inferior and volatile plastics.

[Gitfiddler]

On 11/17/2018 at 9:37 AM, Genericmusic said:

That would be a question for Jon at ThroBak. I believe anything that affects the chemical composition of steel would effect its ring or sound. I maybe mistaken but it is my understand that HRW PUP's are Schaller's that have been treated with freon. 

Really?  How did you find this out?  I thought Ren would take his HRW 'secret sauce' formula with him to the grave.

[PunkKitty]

It would be easy to test. Someone who has access to Freon should try it with a Duncan 59 to see what happens. They could make a fortune.

[HANGAR18]

If you really like HRW's, you could just buy other pickups which Ren really likes like Seth Lover's or ThroBak's.

[TalismanRich]

I see no reason why someone would treat a pickup with Freon.  Freon is a halocarbon that is efficient in heat transfer cycling (refrigeration).  It was non toxic, compared to previous liquids (ammonia, methylene chloride, etc) but generally not used except in a closed loop system. 

If you are talking about "cryogenics",   simple dry ice or liquid nitrogen would be much simpler, safer, cheaper and readily available.   Drop the pickup into some dry ice ( −109 °F ) or better yet, some liquid nitrogen (-320°F).  

 

[HANGAR18]

What would Lindy Fralin do? hahaha