Source for US-made bar magnets?

Anficht

Anficht

New member
Trying to avoid the Asian stuff - anyone got a source for US made bar magnets?
Just looking for the standard A2, A3, A4 and A5 rough cast in good quality.

Thanks
 
Well something that is reasonably priced and doesn't require me to purchase magnets in bulk quantities.
 
I forgot ReWind also has US magnets custom made but similar prices. It's not my field but I think the US companies that manufacture magnets are geared toward doing it on a massive industrial scale. Even 10,000 magnets sized 2.5" x 1/2" x 1/8" for guitars is barely worth their time to do a production run. These are companies that make huge magnets for motors and other heavy equipment that generate way more revenue per unit. This used to come up back when people were first trying to recreated CuNiFe wide range humbuckers. You'd hear crazy stuff like a custom magnet pour starts at 25,000 USD minimum back 10-15 years ago.

Just realized your location says Greece...Google tells me Q Pickups offers some US individual bar magnets at quote reasonable price in Euros not counting VAT.
 
jeremy said:
curious why you say dimarzio uses import mags?
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This is not a fact, just my opinion. I may be wrong on this.
However, they make a big noise how the PAF 59 neck and bridge uses only US made materials, including the magnets - so going by that logic - to me it implies that the other pickups don't use US-made parts.

"All materials are made in the U.S.A. to the tolerances of the best of the 1959 pickups."

This plus also the fact that I've modded quite a few of their pickups - and they seem to use cheaper looking and feeling components than the Duncan's I took apart.​
 
I don't feel like DiMarzios are significantly less quality than Duncans, personally. At least the ones I've had seem to be on par. They're just different pickups that have a different design.

What makes you say they're cheaper looking and feeling?

The one say that I will say is the stamping/branding on the baseplate is more basic. But that's just really cosmetic, and has no effect on tone or sturdiness. Most Gibson pickups (at least the ones that are more expensive) or boutique pickups don't even have stamped baseplates. Other than that, I don't see/feel anything wrong/cheap about them, but like you said, that's just my opinion.
 
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I'd say the perception of cheapness is like this. What's DiMarzio most known for? The Super Distortion. The defining characteristics are (cream) plastic bobbins with no cover, hex screws, ceramic magnet, and brass baseplate. All of those things are literally the cheapest option. There's an interview with Larry D somewhere he talks about it was whatever materials he could source locally in NYC in the early 70's.

Now to me that 's a type of MacGyver genius to make the best thing out of what you have, as opposed to I'm going to design the perfect product from the ground up. But today there's a half dozen places online anyone can buy german nickel silver baseplates and covers, 10 varieties of AlNico magnets, specialized steel grades of slugs and polepieces, oh and automated pickup winding machines. So there's a huge industry of boutique small scale winders.

Then when some entity wants to make the cheapest mass produced humbucker possible, its ceramic magnet and brass baseplate. Brass and ceramic both have technical limitations. Brass produces eddy currents which attenuate highs and ceramics over accentuate them. If the pickup designer doesn't know how to balance and compensate for those things, it can produce a very poor sounding pickup.

It's a negative association with actual poor quality products using similar materials.
 
You know, from the cheapest of cheap pickups, to the most expensive of expensive (around $300)...over 45 years of guitar playing, swapping etc, I have never had a pickup crap out on me because of the materials, or construction or anything.

As for US vs Asian magnets, I would venture that an A5 magnet is an A5 magnet, wherever you get it. Might be some variation in size, shape, strength, etc. It is not unusual for some products to be tolerance sorted or binned, however.

Take pots. Typical 500k pot might be +/- 50k. But you can order 'binned' that are 500k +/- 10k or whatever.

Still, except in exceptional cases I'd guess a charged A5 bar is a charged A5 bar regardless of country of origin, unless you really paid more for a specific charge - however they measure that.

All American-Made is usually just a marketing deal to get you to pay more
A5 from Asia = 12 cents in bulk.
A5 from US = 14 cents in bulk, but you get charged an extra 5 dollars because of that.

Suddenly you are paying an extra $250 for a $50 pickup that cost an extra 42 cents to produce.
 
Aceman said:
As for US vs Asian magnets, I would venture that an A5 magnet is an A5 magnet, wherever you get it. Might be some variation in size, shape, strength, etc. It is not unusual for some products to be tolerance sorted or binned, however.
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I think this is it and where the marketing gurus comes in. The official international spec for A5 is about 50% total Aluminum, Nickel, and Cobalt. The rest mostly being Iron. Well I think maybe in the US people are cynical that lot of "filler" is used to cheapen products. Various individuals and institutions turn that into FUD that some other company/competitor/country is making an inferior product with junk inside to save money.
 
switchman said:
I think this is it and where the marketing gurus comes in. The official international spec for A5 is about 50% total Aluminum, Nickel, and Cobalt. The rest mostly being Iron. Well I think maybe in the US people are cynical that lot of "filler" is used to cheapen products. Various individuals and institutions turn that into FUD that some other company/competitor/country is making an inferior product with junk inside to save money.
Click to expand...

This may in fact be the American company
 
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