CuNiFe Repro WRHB Photos
- Thread starter Telenator
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OzziePete
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I can recall rading your journey into this pickup.....at the time theCuNiFe magnets were near impossible to come by and you were looking at other ways of getting the sound . Obviously you found some CuNiFe? :icon_thumright:
Yes! I found a stash of 1/4" diameter CuNiFe rod that had been passed along from a company that had gone out of business. Took two years to find it and I now have enough for 30 pickups. The number you see on the bottom of that pickup is 007 of 030.
It cost a small fortune to have just 30 sets of parts manufactured to make these pickups but they sound absolutely incredible!
It cost a small fortune to have just 30 sets of parts manufactured to make these pickups but they sound absolutely incredible!
rockskate4x
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two words: curtis novak
But those pickups look great. I am glad that you got some authentic material to work with. I've been GASing for a tele deluxe or a jazzblaster for a while now and I'm glad there are people like you making good reproductions now even if I can't afford these projects right now.
But those pickups look great. I am glad that you got some authentic material to work with. I've been GASing for a tele deluxe or a jazzblaster for a while now and I'm glad there are people like you making good reproductions now even if I can't afford these projects right now.
CuNiFe, Copper Nickel Ferrite, is an alloy that has both favorable magnetic properties and is malleable for machining.
If you were to take an alnico magnet and attempt to thread it like a screw, the magnet would shatter. CuNiFe is malleable enough that it can be threaded on a lathe or even roll threaded if the quantity were high enough.
What makes CuNiFe so rare in the guitar pickup application is that when a magnet material is annealed, the manufacturer does this last step under very high magnetism to orient the magnetic field. If you were to take a block of CuNiFe and simply cut threaded rods out of it, the parts would not work as magnets becasue they were never annealed and oriented properly. CuNiFe is around, put to find any in rod form that was manufactured properly is extremely rare.
The sonic properties of CuNiFe are somewhat unique as well. It's the only pickup I've seen that sounds best with 1 meg pots. The pickups have an awesome clarity like no others making them unique.
Some people really dig it.
Souns clips: Click on the ones that say "CuNiFe" http://www.soundclick.com/WRHB
If you were to take an alnico magnet and attempt to thread it like a screw, the magnet would shatter. CuNiFe is malleable enough that it can be threaded on a lathe or even roll threaded if the quantity were high enough.
What makes CuNiFe so rare in the guitar pickup application is that when a magnet material is annealed, the manufacturer does this last step under very high magnetism to orient the magnetic field. If you were to take a block of CuNiFe and simply cut threaded rods out of it, the parts would not work as magnets becasue they were never annealed and oriented properly. CuNiFe is around, put to find any in rod form that was manufactured properly is extremely rare.
The sonic properties of CuNiFe are somewhat unique as well. It's the only pickup I've seen that sounds best with 1 meg pots. The pickups have an awesome clarity like no others making them unique.
Some people really dig it.
Souns clips: Click on the ones that say "CuNiFe" http://www.soundclick.com/WRHB
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