Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

With typical humbuckers you see people swapping ceramics for A2s or A5s, a bit more buzz about A3s lately. Instead of drilling out a Higain and glueing in new alnicos could you just put a new bar across the bottom, and keep the adjustment pins?

rickendelic wrote:With typical humbuckers you see people swapping ceramics for A2s or A5s, a bit more buzz about A3s lately. Instead of drilling out a Higain and glueing in new alnicos could you just put a new bar across the bottom, and keep the adjustment pins?

Yes. Use a single edge razor to CAREFULLY separate the plastic magnet from the bottom of the coil form then glue the new alnico bar magnet of choice to the bottom. Work all around the edge of the plastic magnet and be careful not to slip and cut the coil wire that is right next to the magnet on the one side. Keep the polarity of the new magnet the same as the old one you take off.

One problem with that approach is the difference in how alnico magnets charge vs how ceramics charge. Alnicos charge along their edge, and ceramics charge along their face. This is why the alnico magnets are mounted sideways in a PAF or P90, and in the RIC hi-gain the ceramic magnets are mounted with the face touching the pole pieces. It will work if you use an alnico mounted the same way, but it will not be nearly as strong of a magnetic field as if you mounted the magnet so that the side of the alnico magnet was touching one side of the pole pieces, however doing this is problematic as in most alnico magnets won't fit under the pickup when doing this.....

Greg