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The Slug 101 Vintage PAF Pickup Winder
A one of a kind Gibson made and designed machine, the "Slug 101" has been sitting dormant, in a state of disrepair, for decades in the old Gibson Kalamazoo Parsons street facility. Until now! In 2008 ThroBak Electronics purchased this historic PAF slug coil winder to once again bring it back to it's rightful role as PAF coil winding tone machine. There is no other machine like the Slug 101. Designed and hand made in the 50's by a Gibson pattern maker to wind PAF slug bobbins, this machine is the holy grail of PAF coil winders. It's existence was speculated over for years. Previously only known as "the small 4 bobbin winder," it's existence was the stuff of mystery and myth. But, once more, the Slug 101 lives again!
The pickups made with the Slug 101 are exceptional, as is the machine is itself. The Slug 101 was used by Gibson to wind slug coils for PAF and Pat # humbuckers whenever the need arose to put it to use. Due to the slow winding and set-up speed of the Slug 101 there are proportionally fewer PAF's with Slug 101 coils in them. But PAF's that do contain these special coils have a clarity and focus that is imparted by the unique winding pattern of the Slug 101. Radically different than the Leesona 102, the winding pattern of the Slug 101 is a function of the one of a kind, hand made traverse and tensioning mechanism of this exceptional machine. I have blacked out a portion of the unique traverse mechanism I want to keep secret. A little mystery never hurt when it comes to PAF mojo.
How I happened upon the Slug 101
In January 2008 I visited Heritage Guitar Inc. which occupies the old Gibson Parsons Street factory building in Kalamazoo. The purpose of the trip was to pick up a custom order guitar. Prior to the visit I asked Bill Paige if they still had any old Gibson pickup winding machines on the premises. When I arrived at the historic Parsons Street building Bill graciously showed me the Slug 101. My jaw dropped, I immediately recognized its importance. Other former Gibson employees at Heritage confirmed the historical significance of this machine. In June 2008 I purchased the Slug 101 and picked it up from the old Gibson factory building in Kalamazoo now occupied by Heritage Guitar Inc.. The Slug 101 was conceived and born in the old Gibson Kalamazoo building and resided there for half a century. Restored to it's former glory the Slug 101 is back to making incredible sounding PAF style pickups in the ThroBak Electronics facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The Coils
Over the years many myths have grown along with the lengend of PAF's. Perhaps largest myth is that PAF coils or the "best" PAF coils were hand wound. In fact all production PAF coils were machine wound on a very small number of machines. The few machines that wound PAF's each put their own tonal signature on PAF's. A tonal signature that is the result of winding patterns and coil shapes that can only be accurately reproduced by machine. These machines made a wide variety of coil shapes and as a result produced the wide variety tonal colors that we associate with vintage PAF's. These shapes varied with the machine model and with small differences in operator set-up. At ThroBak we take all the tonal possibilities that these machines are capable of and combine them to produce the ThroBak Authentic Series of pickups.
Above are photos of original PAF coils and coils made on the vintage ThroBak Leesona 102 and Slug 101 PAF pickup winder models. All are very tightly wound solid coils. They are just a small sample of the variety of coil shapes that can be made on these two vintage PAF winder models. Click the thumnails and look closely at the variations in winding pattern. The turn per layer count for each machine has not changed but the coil shapes and wire scatter differ radically. Contrary to machine winding critics, coils wound on these vintage machines show a complex wire scatter driven by the quirks unique to these machines. They do not show the orderly distribution of wire exhibited by modern computer controlled winders. None of these winding patterns can be accurately duplicated by hand. Some of these shapes can be approximated by hand winding but the internal wire distribution of the hand wound coil will be radically different from the correct machine wound PAF coil. Differences that effect the final tone of the assembled PAF pickup. These machine wound coil shapes are in fact the signature winding patterns and tonal signatures of the vintage machines that were put to use in winding PAF's.
The Wire
All ThroBak Vintage Authentic Limited Series PAF's and Vintage Authentic rewinds use NOS vintage correct plain enamel wire. This wire is no longer being made. ThroBak has a large 200lb. stash of this vintage wire. However due to it's scarcity it is reserved only for the Limited Series PAF's and Vintage rewinds. So when it's gone it's gone. I hope to successfully beg a wire manufacturer to make 42 AWG magnet wire to these NOS specifications but successfully getting a wire maker to do it is a long shot.
The Vintage Authentic Standard Series uses current production 42 AWG plain enamel wire. Although not the same as the NOS 42 AWG wire it does make wonderful sounding PAF style pickups.
The ThroBak stock pile of NOS 42 AWG plain enamel wire covers all of the varieties of tolerances, min. to nom., that are found within 42 AWG. Because of this we can match just about every possible wire combination when it comes to vintage rewinds. Plus this wide variety of wire lets us cover all the tonal bases when it comes to the ThroBak Vintage Authentic Limited Series of PAF's.
Just as with the vintage wire the NOS wire in the ThroBak stash has the color variances that are found within the 42AWG tolerance. The color changes can go from jet black, maroon to a very light maroon to brown. The photo here illustrates the range of wire colors from the same era and manufacturer of ThroBak's NOS 42AWG plain enamel wire stock.
The Magnets
Just as with vintage PAF magnets ThroBak Vintage Authentic series magnets have the oxidation layer in tact on the outer surface. This oxidation is a resistive layer that effects the inductance of the pickup which in turn effects the tone. Some PAF magnets did not have the pole edge ground smooth but instead had the oxidation layer from the sand casting left in tact, still further effecting the tone. This is just one other detail that we have duplicated with the ThroBak Authentic Series line of magnets. All ThroBak magnets are special ordered to our specifications from the manufactures. We are constantly searching for and analyzing great sounding vintage magnets so we can work with our suppliers to deliver as accurate a PAF style magnet as possible.
