SoundAt11
New member
I'm a big fan of this series and have had a few Stag Mags and "The Mags" (flat Alnico 5 version that pre-dates the Stag Mag). I have an old MG-J Stag Mag that is pretty worn and decided to open it and and old MG-M "The Mag" to take a look.
Some findings:
4 maple spacers are what separates the coils from the baseplate. There are no other magnets, metal keeper bars, or anything. Here is a photo of the inside of "The Mag", which looks identical to the Stag Mag except for the rod length.
Both Coils are humbucker slug coils (I believe they use the JB wind, as the output is nearly the same and I believe one of the SD employees mentioned that here one time)
It uses 187 diameter rod magnets. Humbucker slugs are 189. Once you popped out magnets a few times and the wax is rubbed off, good luck keeping the magnets in place: the wax is key part in holding the rods in place.
The magnets are short (around a 1/3" to 1/2"), which is near impossible to find in a magnetized rod magnet. Usually, the magnets you can buy online are around 5/8" long. If you decide to do some magnet swapping, you'll need to flip the spacers upright so you have some additional height for the rods. "The Mag" has the spacers upright too and is a very tall humbucker as a result.
One coil is magnetically North and the other is magnetically South. On the Stag Mag/The Mag pickups, one coil attracts and one coil repels.
*bonus*
You could theoretically convert this humbucker to an all slug 'bucker by putting in 12 slugs (or Invander caps) and a magnet. I tried this and because of the coil wiring, one coil attracts and one repels my "test" bar magnet.
For the Stag Mag, my ultimate plan is to:
eliminate the magnet stagger by pushing them down even with the top of the coil.
swapping out a row of the Alnico 2 rods for Alnico 5 rods (so one coil is A5 and the other is A2).
Anyway, these are very cool pickups and are completely overlooked. I hope some other people might pick one up, play it, and start tweaking them!
Some findings:
4 maple spacers are what separates the coils from the baseplate. There are no other magnets, metal keeper bars, or anything. Here is a photo of the inside of "The Mag", which looks identical to the Stag Mag except for the rod length.
Both Coils are humbucker slug coils (I believe they use the JB wind, as the output is nearly the same and I believe one of the SD employees mentioned that here one time)
It uses 187 diameter rod magnets. Humbucker slugs are 189. Once you popped out magnets a few times and the wax is rubbed off, good luck keeping the magnets in place: the wax is key part in holding the rods in place.
The magnets are short (around a 1/3" to 1/2"), which is near impossible to find in a magnetized rod magnet. Usually, the magnets you can buy online are around 5/8" long. If you decide to do some magnet swapping, you'll need to flip the spacers upright so you have some additional height for the rods. "The Mag" has the spacers upright too and is a very tall humbucker as a result.
One coil is magnetically North and the other is magnetically South. On the Stag Mag/The Mag pickups, one coil attracts and one coil repels.
*bonus*
You could theoretically convert this humbucker to an all slug 'bucker by putting in 12 slugs (or Invander caps) and a magnet. I tried this and because of the coil wiring, one coil attracts and one repels my "test" bar magnet.
For the Stag Mag, my ultimate plan is to:
eliminate the magnet stagger by pushing them down even with the top of the coil.
swapping out a row of the Alnico 2 rods for Alnico 5 rods (so one coil is A5 and the other is A2).
Anyway, these are very cool pickups and are completely overlooked. I hope some other people might pick one up, play it, and start tweaking them!
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