Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hi all!

I have a few sets of vintage HS magnets that I would like re-magnetized.

Does anyone know someone who does this type of work?

Thanks!

Jason Lollar. http://www.lollarguitars.com/mm5/merchant.mvc

Thanks much Ken! Jason is out until next Tuesday. I'll let you know how it works out.

Tony, I have some very strong magnets (out of an old IBM mainframe hard drive) that I do this with and it remagnetizes very nicely.

John's HDD magnet trick works a treat, I do it this way myself now (got my magnets from an eBay seller who'd disassembled some old disc drives). But if you don't have any to hand, or can't get hold of any but have a bass cab lying around you might try this, which is what I used to do before John's more elegant solution http://www.rickresource.com/phpBB3/view ... ne#p347319

I left mine on overnight and they charged up plenty strong

Regards,
Steve.

Thanks much guys!

Steve, I do have a bass cab with a speaker that the HS's will fit onto. I'll give it a go.

Well alright!!!

I put a set of weak HS's on the speaker magnet. After two hours, they're now able to pick up a small adjustable wrench, which earlier they were unable to!

I'm planning to keep them on for another couple of hours.

Is it possible to overcharge these magnets?

It IS, from what I'm told. You should get yourself a magnetism gauge, which I'm sure you could find at your usual online used gear auction sites. ;^) From what I'm told, 50-60 gauss is a good strong level without overdoing it. The magnetic saturation threshold of an HS magnet can vary, depending on it's density. Most HS mags have a pretty consistent make-up to the density of the steel, but my '68 HS mags are a little "airy" and seem to top-out at around 48 gauss, even when exposed to a charger for 2-3x the amount of time as the other sets I've had charged. However, that 48 gauss is PLENTY strong to get that HS PU's signal in good balance with the toaster.

There's also the issue of polarity and string vibration to consider. I wonder if there's a risk to disturbing a HS magnet's established N-S polarity (by attaching them to a 15" speaker magnet, or IBM magnets, what-have-you,) which I hear can mess up the magnet irreparably - could be an old bass-player's tale, too, but it would be good to have a definitive answer. Another thing to be careful with in consideration to over-charging - making the pull too strong could hamper the vibration of the strings.

These subjects are raised here in this earlier thread on HS magnetizing:

Remagnetising Horseshoes

I'd be interested in seeing what a gauss meter reading says in regards to this process - before and after charging using the speaker method.

there was a '66 fireglo 4001-s i was interested in, around 1986 in toronto. it had a '70's higain in the neck but the horseshoe pickup had a small sliver of "helper" rubber magnet under the coil between it and the shoes, as if it was sliced off a typical treble higain. this was possibly to boost the horseshoe up to the level of the highgain...i don't know. the coil also had cross slot flat screw poles. made drawings of the pickup coil. lost track of the guy, therefore losing track of the bass. possible rose morris ?

i always wondered if each side of the horseshoe had a different polarity ???

BAD RONBO, KiLLeR DWaRfS wrote:i always wondered if each side of the horseshoe had a different polarity ???

Every pair I've encountered has been matched. Most HS mag sets have the same polarity, too, except for one pair I had that was reversed, which had no affect on it's functionality, of course.

The cut sliver of a compressed particle magnet is a cool idea for boosting the output of an HS mag; kudos to the guy who thought of that trick! I guess he made it thin enough so that the gap spacing wasn't too compromised.

Curious that the '66 bass you saw had a high-gain in the neck pos. Safe guess that someone switched out the toaster earlier on?

The HS bobbin of that '66 sounds common for that year. Common, but not exclusive. I'm guessing that '66 was the year that RIC started using the wide pan-head screws for poles - I think I've seen some '66 basses with the raised-lip bobbin with P-90 poles introduced in '64 for the RM basses. Maybe the difference in these two bobbin designs is what sets apart the RM's from the "domestics" of that year.

My '68 4001 MG has the pan-head screws as well. They were used up until about '71 as the HS went through it's transformation to the high-gain design which didn't settle on the reduced size bobbin and the plug heads until about '73-'74.

'68 HS bobbin:

what i meant was the polarity of one shoe. does it have a north and south ? and the pan head screw was cross slotted like a plus sign.

Yes, each shoe has a north and south, usually both are the same polarity.

And a Philips style pan-head for a pole piece - new one on me!

Mark,

Great pic of that green bobbin. That's a great reference photo!

Polarity wise the top/visible side is North and the bottom underneath the bobbin is South. I think a couple of hours spent attached to a speaker magnet would be enough, mine didn't seem to gain any appreciable extra strength when left on for the rest of the night, and that was when charging up from as near as dammit zero but I figured there was nothing to lose by leaving them overnight anyway.

I don't think (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that you can overcharge the shoes, I think there's a limit to how much gauss any piece of metal will take. That said, there may be an optimum gauss level below that maximum where the pickup sounds best...but "sounds best" is of course subjective.

And here's a slightly off topic tip - if ever anyone ever needs to store the shoes when off the bass for any length of time, flip one over and allow the two shoes to pull together. I.e. in normal "installed" position both the shoes like-poles are facing each other and opposing, so flip one over so that the poles attract, allow them to come together and they'll act as "keepers" and won't lose gauss. Never force the like-poles together as this will hasten their discharge. (I think that tip came from JH, credit where it's due.)