Changing out coil mounting screws on the baseplate?

[Bowtomecha]

I have my humbucker apart and only noticed just now how the baseplate and the screws that hold the coils onto it are all nonferrous. This has me thinking, would swapping out those 4 screws for ferrous ones change the inductance, kind of like how dimarzio adds iron slugs to some of its pickups?

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Changing out coil mounting screws on the baseplate?

I've never seen any of those screws that were NOT ferrous. The baseplates are usually brass or nickel, but all the screws I've seen are steel.

 

[Masta' C]

Re: Changing out coil mounting screws on the baseplate?

OP, the mass of typical coil mounting screws is fairly low. Placing ferrous metal between poles will yield a difference, but DiMarzio's "Virtual Vintage" technology relies on larger slugs with much greater mass than those screws. The slugs are also placed between the 4 center pole pieces on each coil, rather than at the ends like typical humbucker mounting screws are.

This thread shows some people recreating the "virtual vintage" tech, but on DiMarzio bobbins which already had accommodation for the VV slugs: LINK

But, you bring up an interesting point. Swapping those screws around could be a fun way to micro-tweak your pickup!

 

[Discharged]

Re: Changing out coil mounting screws on the baseplate?

Throbak.com made a video about this very subject.

Looking at this video is time well spent, if you ask me.

/Peter

 

[Masta' C]

Re: Changing out coil mounting screws on the baseplate?

Care to provide a link to the video?

 

[freefrog]

Re: Changing out coil mounting screws on the baseplate?

I have my humbucker apart and only noticed just now how the baseplate and the screws that hold the coils onto it are all nonferrous. This has me thinking, would swapping out those 4 screws for ferrous ones change the inductance, kind of like how dimarzio adds iron slugs to some of its pickups?

Yes, ferrous screws to hold the bobbins rise the inductance. Yes, as mentioned by Peter, Throbak did an interesting vid about that (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q36b5ElF1OE there's also a discussion in the pickups makers forum on musicelectronics.com but I don't remember its tittle). And yes, it's a way among others to "fine tune" the tone of a humbucker. But as said by masta'c and as illustrated by Jon Gundry, the difference is not huge (although I've obtained once the required resonance from a prototype humbucker thanks to this trick). The steel baseplate of a Tri-Sonic makes a MUCH greater difference. FWIW.

 

[Bowtomecha]

Re: Changing out coil mounting screws on the baseplate?

From that video, the steel had a noticeable difference. I have steel screws from another old humbucker I think I’ll play with.