Re-Magnetize Horseshoes

[walker]

No problem, Andy. That's from my own '68, taken back when I was in my "exploratory phase" with the bass. I'm not nearly as heavy-handed with the screw driver these days! Those bobbins are pretty precariously constructed. For those who don't know, those screw-pole type bobbins are actually held together by the poles pulling the top & bottom piece against the coil wire. Remove all four screws, you run a great risk of the pieces separating from the coil and destroying the wire. The plastic molded raised-lip bobbins of the '64 RMs on the other hand, have a solid through-middle construction and completely protect the coil wire from the poles as well as eliminate the risk of the bobbin coming apart.

Stephen - great info! Thanks for the tip on magnet storage.

[BAD RONBO, KiLLeR DWaRfS]

mr. basshead wrote...

Polarity wise the top/visible side is North and the bottom underneath the bobbin is South.
Never force the like-poles together as this will hasten their discharge.

if this is true...maybe this is why they eventually die out in the first place as a pickup assembly !

[walker]

That's a damn fine theory you have there, Mr. Ronbo. I'm tempted to have one of the magnets on my '79 lefty 4001S HS set reversed to see what happens. I sure there would still be signal - polarity doesn't affect sound... and maybe the charge would last significantly longer.

Hmmmm, Indeed!

[jps]

Let us know how that goes, Mark. That does, indeed, make sense. I think.

[weemac]

That's a damn fine theory you have there, Mr. Ronbo. I'm tempted to have one of the magnets on my '79 lefty 4001S HS set reversed to see what happens. I sure there would still be signal - polarity doesn't affect sound... and maybe the charge would last significantly longer.

Hmmmm, Indeed!

What you would get is half the coil out of phase with the other and the result will probably be "0"............

[walker]

Good point, Eden, but I wonder if the magnetic properties are absolute enough at all areas of the magnet to equal complete phase cancelation, or if there would be odd coloration to the sound, or if the A & D would be silent, but the E & G still audible to some degree, etc... I'm still tempted to try it just for the heck of it, maybe with an extra set of horseshoes (which I don't currently have.) I think I'll talk to "my magnet guy" Jimmy Coppolo and see what he thinks.

[weemac]

The magnet fields need to be apposed to force the field to go up and circulate the coil from the inside out. If you polarise one shoe the opposite way, the field will then just circulate aroung the outside of the coil and the only thing picked up will be noise...
However the magnets will last a long time.....
The original Horseshoe is a "Damned if you do and damned if you don't" sort of device.

There is another way to Gauss them... Run two rare earth magnets (or magnets off the bottom of cheap strat copy pickups) along the length of the shoes (one each side with the poles the same side up) whilst still in the bass and it kind of creates a gauss between the shoe and the strings. It yeilds a much stronger output that lasts about a year or until the next string change where, it will return to the original weak output. I have found this to be the most successful way to get mine to work, different strings seem to get different results.
Iv'e tried every other method and this seems to be the best one for my bass (I'm sure there are other "horses for courses" )

emac.

[walker]

Interesting - so you're magnetizing the strings as well as the horseshoe mags. Are the strings magnetized strictly in the area between the HS mags, or does that magnetization run a substantial length of the string so that they're louder over the toaster pickup as well?

[BAD RONBO, KiLLeR DWaRfS]

quote by (walker) » Tue Jun 22, 2010 12:45 am:

Good point, Eden, but I wonder if the magnetic properties are absolute enough at all areas of the magnet to equal complete phase cancelation, or if there would be odd coloration to the sound, or if the A & D would be silent, but the E & G still audible to some degree, etc... I'm still tempted to try it just for the heck of it, maybe with an extra set of horseshoes (which I don't currently have.) I think I'll talk to "my magnet guy" Jimmy Coppolo and see what he thinks.

the baddest of ronbos replies...

if this is the case , the experiment would be like mr. brian may's mantle piece guitar with the north /souths randomly inserted all over the place on his pickup coils, yes ? how something made so mindless, turned out to be most famous !

[weemac]

Interesting - so you're magnetizing the strings as well as the horseshoe mags. Are the strings magnetized strictly in the area between the HS mags, or does that magnetization run a substantial length of the string so that they're louder over the toaster pickup as well?

Just around the horse... Don't wave magnets near the toaster, they are fairly resistant but if you rest a rare earth magnet on it it could turn out to be.. well... toasted!

emac.

[opticnerve]

Thanks much for the info guys!!! I did the woofer thing and it worked pretty well. Some of the shoes were pretty weak, and are now able to lift an 8" pair of hand pliers...which weighs 8 ounces!

[stevebasshead]

Excellent, the more living, breathing horseshoes in the world the better

[walker]

Ronbo - interesting about Brian May's pickups. Didn't know he altered those. I would think that putting in a phase reversal switch would have been easier. Is reversed phase the same thing as reversed polarity?

[grazioso]

Ronbo - interesting about Brian May's pickups. Didn't know he altered those. I would think that putting in a phase reversal switch would have been easier. Is reversed phase the same thing as reversed polarity?

i wish that could be done - to switch the polarity. that would be great if it worked that way!
some small fast robotic system that would turn pickup 180 degrees !

[BAD RONBO, KiLLeR DWaRfS]

this was in the brian may issue of guitar player back in '81 or so. after i bought it he explains building it with his dad out of the mantle piece as they had no money to buy a guitar. when they were making the pickups, they forgot about the polarity of the rod magnets and inserted them randomly. he said this caused a "wooshing sound" when he would play it and bend the strings. interesting article, a must read !