green wax on Dimarzio ?

Benye

Benye

New member
Hi..

i disassembled my DP 205 Steve morse neck, and i found at the bottom like a green wax, but feels like gel/jelly. any1 knows what that is ? is it a gel epoxy ?

also i read somewhere, a pickup maker combining alnico rods on one coil, and bar magnet on the other coil of humbucker. who's that buddy ? how's the sound,anybody tried ?

Thuanks
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

can't help you on the first one.

the dualtone by steven kersting has a coil with alnico polepieces and the other with a bar magnet. not too sure if there's another like that.

www.skguitar.com
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

Steven Kersting..! that's him. thanks 4 the answer.

trying to make DP205 with bar and rods united.

wondering if it would be a phase problem..
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

There are plenty of guys doing that. Our own Jester700 does it with stock pickups, and Ibanez has a duo tone pickup that combines a single coil stack (rod magnets) with a bar magnet humbucker coil.

The green stuff could be anything. If it's a mild, muted green it could even be something that chemically picked up color from a tarnishing brass baseplate. Steve Morse used to put a bathtub caulk type material around his neck pickup, to avoid any wobbling and low woofing feedback. Maybe there's something like that implemented internally on those signature pickups, but I doubt it. Dimarzio uses a thick, sticky wax pot, whereas Duncan uses a dryer wax, that feels more like candle wax when it hardens, and is less likely to flow and attract debris and/or coloration. Dimarzio also uses caulk type material to adhere their bobbins to eachother, and sometimes to create a base for the bobbins and magnet. I've seen that in greyish-clear, crystal clear, and white (yellows with age)
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

Benye said:
i disassembled my DP 205 Steve morse neck, and i found at the bottom like a green wax, but feels like gel/jelly. any1 knows what that is ? is it a gel epoxy ?
Click to expand...
My Air Zone had the same material under the bobbins, I don't know what exactly it is. As Frankfalbo says, it could have something to do with the brass baseplate, as the wax in my Bluesbucker, which had a nickel baseplate, was white, not green.
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

Thanks Frankfalbo,...the magnet on Steve Morse neck model doesnt have direct contact with the baseplate, there's a black bar-magnet-like plastic underneath to support the magnet. and the greenish gel hold the black plastic like a glue !
there's no maple/plastic spacer on either side. they're all replaced by that green gel.

i even have to use a knife to remove it. now all the green monster's gone, and i want to re-assembly, can i use putty epoxy instead ? i want the toughest one, i doubt a parafin or bees wax could hold the sides real tight.
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

It sounds like they just had a batch of green silicone adhesive, just like the clear and cream/white they usually use. The adhesive is not really necessary, but if you're concerned about the coils tipping down and away from eachother, I would put in spacers on the outsides of the coils. It's the same size spacer used on a regular humbucker, only flipped on it's side. That should be the exact height as the magnet/spacer assembly, and prop up the bobbins from the outsides. In order for any epoxy to stick, you'd need to really clean the wax off of everything. Or, if you want to be like Dimarzio, you can get a small tube of bathtub caulk, or silicone adhesive.
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

Careful, that green stuff could be used to help maintain the air gap in the "Airbuckers", Air Zone, Air Norton. Is the Steve Morse neck model an Airbucker?
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

frankfalbo said:
It sounds like they just had a batch of green silicone adhesive, just like the clear and cream/white they usually use. The adhesive is not really necessary, but if you're concerned about the coils tipping down and away from eachother, I would put in spacers on the outsides of the coils. It's the same size spacer used on a regular humbucker, only flipped on it's side. That should be the exact height as the magnet/spacer assembly, and prop up the bobbins from the outsides. In order for any epoxy to stick, you'd need to really clean the wax off of everything. Or, if you want to be like Dimarzio, you can get a small tube of bathtub caulk, or silicone adhesive.
Click to expand...

actually, the 4 baseplate screws hold it well. Just like u said, it's no really necessary. I havent got any spacer, and im too lazy to make one :) , i'll try the bathtub caulk then.
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

ErikH said:
Careful, that green stuff could be used to help maintain the air gap in the "Airbuckers", Air Zone, Air Norton. Is the Steve Morse neck model an Airbucker?
Click to expand...

too late, i guess :laugh2:
im not sure if it's an Airbucker , but when my firts attempt disassembly, i noticed the hex screw is not really contact with the magnet. the green stuff slightly space it.

Is that how Airbuckers works ?
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

Benye said:
too late, i guess :laugh2:
im not sure if it's an Airbucker , but when my firts attempt disassembly, i noticed the hex screw is not really contact with the magnet. the green stuff slightly space it.

Is that how Airbuckers works ?
Click to expand...

Yup. You just un-airbuckered the pickup. Put some stuff back in there to maintain that gap.
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

what's the advantages/disadvantages of Airbucker ?

what's the drawback having the screw touching the magnet directly ?
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

Direct from DiMarzio's site on what Airbuckers are:


What are Airbuckers?

Airbuckers are full-sized humbuckers that contain a gap or space between the magnet and the polepieces. The distance is quite small, and may be filled with nothing but air or by some non-magnetic material. The purpose of the gap is to lessen the magnetic field over the pickup, which in turn lets the string vibrate more freely. This results in a purer, more open sound and improved sustain.

The other purpose of the “air” design is to reliably reproduce the performance of vintage humbuckers (1950s and 60s), many of which contain magnets weakened by age and mishandling. Weakened or "aged" magnets are inherently unstable, and therefore cause unpredictable performance. Airbuckers utilize stable, full-strength magnets, yet the magnetic field is the same as produced by an "aged" magnet, thus offering the performance advantage without the unpredictability.
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

The SM neck is too old of a design to be an Airbucker. Plus, the poles in the SM are fat threaded slugs like the SuperD/SuperII, and those use a large amount of that caulking material underneath, far more than other Dimarzios. In fact, PAF style Dimarzios don't really use that silicone underneath on regular screw/slug or small diameter allen pole humbuckers.

It's entirely possible the magnet doesn't completely fill the space between them, but it probably wasn't the intention of that pickup to be an airbucker. That pickup has been around since before any of the Airbuckers were introduced, and every Airbucker is a screw/slug or allen pole style pickup, where using a regular sized magnet creates a gap basically equal to the reduction in diameter from a slug pole to a screw pole. The slug poles are cut down to screw diameter below the bobbin.

The SM neck is extremely overwound, but has a low output however. Which would incinuate something of a weak magnetic field, or perhaps an air gap. But if so, it would have been one of the first to be airbuckered, or perhaps even how they stumbled on the concept. I've seen Super D style pickups that don't have solid magnet contact, and it's strictly a tolerance issue. Plus the threads on the poles prevent a perfect contact anyway, because it's thread-to-magnet.
 
Last edited:
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

From the construction though, it sounds exactly like an airbucker because that is how they are done. But your points are valid. When did the SM come out?
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

ErikH said:
Careful, that green stuff could be used to help maintain the air gap in the "Airbuckers", Air Zone, Air Norton.
Click to expand...
In the Air Zone it's the four plastic rings around the poles and slugs that keep the magnet away from them, not the green stuff.
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

Peter Antal said:
In the Air Zone it's four plastic rings around the poles and slugs that keep the magnet away from them, not the green stuff.
Click to expand...

Ah, Ok. I didn't recall seeing the rings last I saw one opened up. I did see that green stuff though. Thanks for clarifying.
 
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

It's in the early 90's catalogs, and I think even the 80's. The 92 cat I have here has none of the airbuckers listed, and no reference to the patent.

The airbuckers aren't done that way, though. They are done with physical spacers, either fiber/hardboard versions of a PAF spacer, or two white nylon washers (cut from tubing) around two of the poles on each side. Airbuckers do get a lot of gunk in there, but it's their potting wax that collects around all the anatomy and doesn't drain off, not this silicone adhesive stuff.

Technically it's not possible to have an airbucker with two rows of fat allen poles and a regular magnet. The regular sized magnet would make contact with the poles. But within tolerance, there can be some adhesive between the poles and the magnet. Also it may just appear that way, because it's filing in all the spaces, and the only part that cuts through the adhesive to the magnet is the thin thread lines. So unless the SM used a narrower magnet than every other humbucker Dimarzio made, it wouldn't be an airbucker by design.

Edit: If you saw the green stuff inside an airbucker, it's possible they're using it as an adhesive on those, too. I just have only seen wax inside there, and when it's green, it's not the color of the adhesive, it's where the potting wax has picked up green from the brass baseplate. I'm looking inside of an Air Classic that had rusted poles. It has "brass turned green" coloration on all the parts where wax has built up. The wax is clear on the surface but if you keep scraping, the wax becomes green tinted. It's that way where the wax collected by the 4-conductor cable, too, so it's not magnet adhesive.
 
Last edited:
Re: green wax on Dimarzio ?

The Airbuckers came out in '95 so there ya go.

Like said, I didn't recall seeing the rings but not saying they weren't there, just didn't see them. I wasn't the one doing the surgery and it was a photo essay anyway so they may have been removed by whoever did it prior to taking the photo or I just thought it was wax.

The love that technology. I have an Air Zone in my Strat and it's amazing how it responds. It quickly became one of my favorites (I know, blasphemy, right? :laugh2:).

Thanks for the clarifications. I stand corrected.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top