Bobbin Material - Tell me more...

[lreese]

Calling DreX...

Make us a graph!

[GoldenVulture]

Woodn't wood give it a more organic sound. Maybe we can sell it to Duhrex that way. Different resonant peaks with different woods, no grounding or shorting issues. No capacitance or induction anomalies and graph it all up. Innovation and improvement, this should appeal to duhrex.

[ExplorersRock]

You guys are right, I need graphs, charts! Where is DreX when you need him! Frank is just some guy we ran into on a forum, but we all know DreX is the real authority here!



Anyone wanna guess why I posted this here instead of SDUGF? :rolleyes:

[frankfalbo]

I can make you a list:

1. Shut
   
2. Up
   

Some of the graphite/graphtech materials are conductive and that's a negative.

Wood is a different issue because it's got to be plasticized anyway. So it's impregnated with some kind of resin. If not it would chip and shear. But also if not it would have really terrible expansion/contraction rates and the pores could cut the wires if they expanded/lifted with moisture. So the result of a stabilized wood bobbin is probably similar to a plastic material.

Aside from butyrate and glass filled nylon, it has been my experience that a typical pickup company would not vary the bobbin material for certain "standard" models aside from using butyrate for vintage accuracy, and whatever their normal material is for everything else. But aside from vintage reverence, most companies probably are choosing bobbin materials based on the look of the finished pickup, the shine, the resilience, cost, etc.

Companies have been known to change their bobbin material over time. Dimarzio has, and MJ has confirmed in public (so it's not private information) that Duncan started with butyrate, went to nylon, then to polycarbonate, maybe with some weird transition periods in between. Most of that happened early on, so if you're holding a used Duncan chances are high that it's polycarbonate, statistically speaking.

Sometimes companies change just to save money, sometimes to improve the look, sometimes just because they buy their bobbins from some pre-existing source and they change suppliers. Lots of "boutique" guys just use whatever Allparts sells them, and maybe switch to Mojotone at some point, or whatever. It's really a very small difference in sound.

[LesStrat]

You take all the fun out of it.

[GoldenVulture]

Woodn't wood give it a more organic sound. Maybe we can sell it to Duhrex that way. Different resonant peaks with different woods, no grounding or shorting issues. No capacitance or induction anomalies and graph it all up. Innovation and improvement, this should appeal to duhrex.

Wood is a different issue because it's got to be plasticized anyway. So it's impregnated with some kind of resin. If not it would chip and shear. But also if not it would have really terrible expansion/contraction rates and the pores could cut the wires if they expanded/lifted with moisture. So the result of a stabilized wood bobbin is probably similar to a plastic material.

Thank you for such a detailed response Frank. I was really just jestingly considering a pile of crap to tell to Duhrex. It seems this type of bobbin just wood not do. No organic tones from this. Maybe I could forget all that expansion and stuff and suggest it to him anyway.:toast:

[idsnowdog]

Thank you for such a detailed response Frank. I was really just jestingly considering a pile of crap to tell to Duhrex. It seems this type of bobbin just wood not do. No organic tones from this. Maybe I could forget all that expansion and stuff and suggest it to him anyway.:toast:

But what about hemp fiber bobbins with a candied bourbon glaze? Otherwise known as slugs flambe.

[GoldenVulture]

Hand wound hemp fibre bobbins with organic glue... natures answer to carbon fibre.
" A fine blend between the organic and electronic when you wind your pup with one of these bobbins "

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Any one rember some one at SD asking why you couldn't use electro magnets in a pup ? Naivete creates some extrordinary questions.