New Masterwound PAF replica pickup ... The 'Last Word'

OilCityPickups

For some time I've been building PAF style pickups in my Standard and Masterwound ranges, striving to keep the sound as authentic as possible yet keep the price down. There comes a time however when all the experience I've gained in repairing and rewinding genuine 50s PAFs has to result in a no holds barred replica ... no concessions.
Above you see one of the prototypes: the cover showing the unique shape and tooling marks that characterise the real deal ... 

Butyrate bobbins, PVA plain enamel wire, unpotted and proud. 

I started playing about with PAFs when I worked in the back room repairs area of music shop at seventeen, and this is the culmination of forty years experience handling, playing and latterly rebuilding these classic pickups. 

They are simply the most accurate replicas of an Iconic pickup I can make.

And no, they aren't cheap ... but they are my 'Last Word' on the PAF.





 

Rowby1

So is the difference between these and the Bean-Os the covers, tape and hook up wire?

Look great anyway Ash, still loving the Bean-O’s in my Heritage. 

lovestrat74

Cool! Any sound bites?

OilCityPickups

Rowby1 said:

So is the difference between these and the Bean-Os the covers, tape and hook up wire?

Look great anyway Ash, still loving the Bean-O’s in my Heritage. 

I've been sourcing ever more accurate parts in the last few months ... mostly made in small batches in the US. The Beano is a damn fine pickup and as accurate as I can make it at that price point ... but these don't share the regular Beano's baseplate, cover, bobbins, pole pieces ... in short, pretty much anything. I've gone the extra mile ... but won't be making many of these. I'm doing them largely because I can ... and because it seems that Gibson refuse to make a carbon copy PAF ... no doubt as they want to bring out a more accurate one next year. 

lovestrat74 said:

Cool! Any sound bites?

I'll be loading a set into my own LP shortly ... and hopefully finding someone who can show off their capabilities better than me :-) I have my limits and hate doing demos myself.  

earwighoney

Ash, you have get a set of those pickups to Darren @Danielsguitars to put into one of his guitars!  

OilCityPickups

earwighoney said:

Ash, you have get a set of those pickups to Darren @Danielsguitars to put into one of his guitars!  

  :-)

OilCityPickups

For your general interest .... a genuine 50s PAF bobbin I rewound a while ago. You can clearly see the rather rough texture of the butyrate and the 'bullseye' tops to the slugs. This one reaked of fags and barrooms ... no I can't replicate that :-)

gringopig

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OilCityPickups

gringopig said:

Great idea! I was looking for PAF replicas recently and wanted to buy in the UK so went for a Monty's set despite there being no vaild demos to speak of. This pickup sounds very interesting indeed. I didn'y notice a product in your range which was specifically a PAF replica, so this will be of interest!

My closest 59 PAF replica to date (and I do quite a few PAF style pickups) has been the Beano, but in order for that to compete with ... shall we say 'another British company that packs a punch' I have had to make a few compromises sourcing some of the parts. That produced a pickup that stood toe to toe with the main players in quality and sounded great ... but I wanted to see just how far I could go in making an all out carbon copy ... one that the employees at a certain factory in 1959 would have probably not been able to tell from one they made. So out went the last of the modern materials ... in came parts that, while they are a bit of a bitch to work with, are 'right'. 

Danielsguitars

Thanks for the kind words @earwighoney much appreciated

Here's one about to get fired up tomorrow, wired oop pafs for a bit of greeny flavour, one piece eastern maple looks lovely imo

If you want to have a bash on something ash give me a shout

 

OilCityPickups

Danielsguitars said:

Thanks for the kind words @earwighoney much appreciated

Here's one about to get fired up tomorrow, wired oop pafs for a bit of greeny flavour, one piece eastern maple looks lovely imo

If you want to have a bash on something ash give me a shout

 

Looks pretty mate ... I'll drop you a PM over the next few days ... an interesting project might ensue :-)

poopot

@OilCityPickups and @Danielsguitars do it!... will be happy to do a demo for you both!... if I come back from holibobs that is!...

OilCityPickups

poopot said:

@OilCityPickups and @Danielsguitars do it!... will be happy to do a demo for you both!... if I come back from holibobs that is!...

Sounds interesting :-)

Danielsguitars

What magnets are you using ash if it's not too top secret, it's something I'm personally interested in 

OilCityPickups

Danielsguitars said:

What magnets are you using ash if it's not too top secret, it's something I'm personally interested in 

As you probably know, there is a lot of debate about what magnets Gibson did or didn't use. The simple answer to that was they used whatever was cheapest at any particular time. You can find original PAFs with alnico 2,3,4 and five. That's all pretty common knowledge. It's very rare to find earlier PAFs with alnico 5 (though there were some) and equally alnico 3 is quite uncommon. The most regularly used magnets appear to have been rough cast alnico 2 and alnico 4.

There is some rubbish talked about the factory deliberately fitting A2 in the neck and A4 in the bridge to 'balance the outputs' ... Given that Gibson only wound one type of humbucker and that it was not built 'handed' for specific fitting in the bridge or neck I think that's a pile of hogwash ... and is not confirmed by any of the PAFs I've had access to. Given that the DC resistances of PAFs vary from around 7.2k to over 8k, and its equally likely that you can find a 'hotter' one in the neck than in the bridge ... any attempt at factory 'matching' seems wishful thinking.

The best PAFs I have tried have all been rough cast alnico 4 and that's what the 'Last Word' is built using.

mrkb

Interesting overview.
is there a way to tell if a magnet is Alnico 5, 4 or 2 without some sort of chemical analysis method?

Danielsguitars

OilCityPickups said:

Danielsguitars said:

What magnets are you using ash if it's not too top secret, it's something I'm personally interested in 

As you probably know, there is a lot of debate about what magnets Gibson did or didn't use. The simple answer to that was they used whatever was cheapest at any particular time. You can find original PAFs with alnico 2,3,4 and five. That's all pretty common knowledge. It's very rare to find earlier PAFs with alnico 5 (though there were some) and equally alnico 3 is quite uncommon. The most regularly used magnets appear to have been rough cast alnico 2 and alnico 4.

There is some rubbish talked about the factory deliberately fitting A2 in the neck and A4 in the bridge to 'balance the outputs' ... Given that Gibson only wound one type of humbucker and that it was not built 'handed' for specific fitting in the bridge or neck I think that's a pile of hogwash ... and is not confirmed by any of the PAFs I've had access to. Given that the DC resistances of PAFs vary from around 7.2k to over 8k, and its equally likely that you can find a 'hotter' one in the neck than in the bridge ... any attempt at factory 'matching' seems wishful thinking.

The best PAFs I have tried have all been rough cast alnico 4 and that's what the 'Last Word' is built using.

Thanks Ash, roughly what outputs are going with the a4 magnets 

I agree 100% about Gibson being a factory and they used whatever was available and cheaper etc, there's no way they messed around balancing pickup sets, they got lucky, i think some necks are higher output than bridges from what I've read

This is pretty much my view on bursts themselves with regards to woods etc, it's not all honduran and brazilian either, the thought of them saying we need these woods is laughable imo, african and cocobolo has been found on some, you can't tell what it is without the leaf or bark, especially when it's aged

OilCityPickups

I find around 7.6k to be the sweet spot. Much lower and the bridge pickup sounds lifeless and weedy, higher and the mids in the neck position clog up and start to sound too adenoidal. There is of course some variability in the wire's resistance per foot ... even in these modern, computer controlled days. There was much more in the 50s!

Much you see written about bursts is pure folk lore ... written by people who want to be viewed as 'experts' but simply are re wording other peoples hearsay.

OilCityPickups

mrkb said:

Interesting overview.
is there a way to tell if a magnet is Alnico 5, 4 or 2 without some sort of chemical analysis method?

The most reliable method short of destructive testing (which of course wouldn't endear me to PAF owners) is using a Gauss meter.

Danielsguitars

OilCityPickups said:

Much you see written about bursts is pure folk lore ... written by people who want to be viewed as 'experts' but simply are re wording other peoples hearsay.

Never a truer word said about experts, i never listened to them, i make my own mind up after building and comparing, i do get to see a 58 which helped and a great guy in the states helped me alot, yukki at pgv was good too

Another thing is I've never seen any of these people when they started out showing a real burst, the bartlett plan thing annoyed me hugely as they're a rip off of a cato plan based on a 54

Smoke and mirrors come to mind, it's big business for some

I've got an a4 bridge around 7.9k and an a5 neck about 7k and that sounds really good to me in one of mine now

I quite like an a2 bridge too, does depends on the guitar as well 

OilCityPickups

Danielsguitars said:

OilCityPickups said:

Much you see written about bursts is pure folk lore ... written by people who want to be viewed as 'experts' but simply are re wording other peoples hearsay.

Never a truer word said about experts, i never listened to them, i make my own mind up after building and comparing, i do get to see a 58 which helped and a great guy in the states helped me alot, yukki at pgv was good too

Another thing is I've never seen any of these people when they started out showing a real burst, the bartlett plan thing annoyed me hugely as they're a rip off of a cato plan based on a 54

Smoke and mirrors come to mind, it's big business for some

I've got an a4 bridge around 7.9k and an a5 neck about 7k and that sounds really good to me in one of mine now

I quite like an a2 bridge too, does depends on the guitar as well 

All pickup winders think they wind the best PAF ... what they mean is they wind the best PAF to their ears and tastes ... I've heard ones so thin and brittle they are almost painful ... and ones that are so clogged in the neck that they are the sonic equivalent of treacle pudding with added treacle. The best ones fall towards the middle of that spectrum ... that goes for vintage ones and reproductions.