Aging pickups?

[hamerican gigolo]

I was just wondering if anyone could give any tips about how to age a set of p.u.'s for a relic tele

style guitar? Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated.

[seeker]

I was just wondering if anyone could give any tips about how to age a set of p.u.'s for a relic tele

style guitar? Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated.

I know a few ways, but take it you want them to work after the aging process?

[azatplayer]

Could give them to my 4 year old nephew for about 7 minutes?

[hamerican gigolo]

I'm sorry but i asked this ? in all seriousness & all i get back are smartassed comments.

So much for the so-called " experts "...

[Bennyboy-UK]

Hiya,

are you looking to cosmetically age the pickups or to give them the equivilant of 40 years hard action in someones no.1 guitar?

Cheers,

Ben.

[moparmagic]

ive seen people use brown permanate marker to age the pole peices, and theres places where you can buy reliced covers around the web

[JGale]

Say..babee, live 'round here?"

[Punkavenger]

Dude, your question is rather vague. Do want to age the magnets or just age (cosmetically) the metal bits? Or plastic bits? Humbuckers? Single coils? Covered /uncovered?

Nickle? Chrome, Gold?

You can age humbucker metal covers by hitting them with some fine steel wool and dipping them in acid. Or suspending them over a plastic container of acid so just the fumes do the work. Or spraying the acid on with a spray bottle

USE GLOVES AND GOGGLES!

Experiment! There are different products out there for aging metal. Try looking in a well stocked professional type art supply store. Coffee and tea are also useful for a brownish tint.

You can also google "aging tele hardware" like I did and come up with cool stuff like this

http://www.relicdeluxe.com/hardware_tremolo_bridge.asp

GOOD LUCK!

[Armitage]

By the way... the aged magnets thing is a myth. While under special circumstances magnets can lose some of their juice (being dropped, set by a motor etc)... it takes fifty years to lose 2% under normal conditions.

[Bennyboy-UK]

I think there was a bit of a craze a few years back for weakening pickup magnets, the term was 'dun stunning' or something like that - anyone remember what I'm talking about? Was it a Seymour Duncan process that was documented? It was around reducing output and increasing note articulation and hence 'tone' in line with vintage instruments of the day. (however, some of the fabled tones from the past (50s, 60's etc) were played at the time with relatively new instruments so the wisdom in knackering newish pickups is slightly tenuous!- plus all the usual variables - lower gain amps, fat strings, all that stuff, ignoring whatever 40 years has done to a vintage axe played today - settling further seasoning and drying of the timber etc).

You can in theory reduce the magnetism of metallic permanent Ferro magnets - so your typical fender sc slugs for example - by physically striking or heating (to their Curie temperature) them to reduce the proportion of aligned dipoles in the slug. In alnico magnets the alloy is composed of aluminium, nickel and cobalt, so you would likely remove the magnetIsm of one of the metals prior to another, so theoretically could have some control over the demagnetising process.

It's abit messy and imprecise, plus some fairly major pickup surgery would likely be required, and there's good scope for buggering up a whole pickup - I can't recomend it, I smashed up the pole pieces of one of 3 single similar coils in a knock off years ago to see if I could do it - impact method - punch and small hammer. I don't think it was worth the effort myself! But then it was a sh*te guitar with equally sh*te parts.

If it was me being set a task, I'd look up the original specs of an old tele pickup of the kind you are after for the sound you want -,resistance, magnet type, wind number and thickness of wire and cross ref versus what you can buy as a retro fit, then just do the cosmetic work as per above.

I don't know if that is any help at all or not, and doubtless I'm sure my science bit will be set straight By proper experts (hopefully!)

hope it is helpful tho!

Ben

[Armitage]

Here's a great article by Lindy Frailin on old PAFs...

http://www.flyingvintage.com/gcmag/PAF.html

Myth "3) PAFs sound better because the magnets have weakened - Guitar magazines articles in the past have reported that the ageing of the magnets over 40 years has changed them and produced a better sounding PAF. However, magnet manufacturers report that these Alnico magnets only lose 0.2 - 2.0 % of their strength over 100 years. It's not weakened magnets. Beck, Clapton, Page, Gibbons and the other PAF guitar players made a bunch of great music with these instruments in the late 1960s when the pickups were only 10 years old. If the ageing story made sense, 1970s Gibson humbucker pickups should sound wonderful with 20+ years of ageing, but they still exhibit less warmth with more high-end than PAFs."

And here's another great on where Seymour Duncan interviews Seth Lover says all PAFs were machine wound (except prototypes and a few repairs).

http://home.provide.net/~cfh/seth.html

"SWD: I read an article that someone said earlier humbuckers sounded the way they do because they were wound by hand and the newer ones were different because they were wound by machine.

Seth Lover: I can’t recall that anybody wound any by hand except people who were repairing. I wound sometimes, and if an old pickup was sent back in and they didn’t have a machine for winding it then it would be rewound by hand."

[Mickb]

for the neck cover you could use fine waterproof abrasive paper, this dulls down the finish, you can scratch it up a bit too if you like.. I would have suggested steel wool but if the cover is already fitted you will end up with your pickup looking very hairy...

If cover isn't fitted you can drop it in a container with some rusty nuts and bolts and give it a shake , then use the steel wool, you'll want to clean it up good before refitting so you don't get bits of shit in the windings..

One thing to watch for with both neck and bridge is that you don't catch the thin magnet wire that runs from the coil to the eyelets/leads, break the start one and you are up for a rewind.

For bridge, you can use a permanent marker to blacken the poles, then give them a going over with some rough ( 600 grade? ) abrasive paper, this will remove some of the permenant marker too and it looks good once you get it right,

I also use nitro lacquer to very slightly dampen the string wrap and the top of the pickup, whilst it's still damp I drop dust, fluff etc on to it till it looks suitably old and fooked..rub it in a bit if you like?...but again, be very careful of the wire..

This is my way of doing things...no doubt there's other ways too..

I have a good few old strat pickups here, none of them have magnets that are fully charged, whether this has been from the factory or through age? who knows, but they all read a very similar gauss,

[hamerican gigolo]

First of all i would like to apologize,i sometimes get a little too out of sorts. All i want to do is

cosmetically age a set of p.u.'s that i have just purchased for a parts tele. It basically looks

like Vince Gill's '53.

Thanks for all the replies.

[Punkavenger]

post pics for more exact advice