What size poles are in the Apache set?

[Tonewolf]

Are they the .21" like the old Fenders or are they .195"?  For me, the larger the poles the better.

[HJM]

.195" in my set!

[Tonewolf]

I'd love to hear somthing SRVish done with them.

[Tonewolf]

Whould the .21 sound different and how?

[Tim]

We use 4.9mm cut to either a '54 stagger or '56 stagger, the larger 5mm diameter spreads the magnetism out a touch further and doesn't sound as nice to my ears.
The Alnico, although labelled as Alnico III is actually a recreation of the original low Aluminium content Alnico that Fender were able to get after the war.It's closer to AIII than anything but I can't refer to it as generic Alnico as in the US that's a product called Alcomax which is nothing like what we use in guitar p/ups.

[Tonewolf]

I learned something today - Thank You!

[B3]

Hi,
I don't know where the .21 measurement comes from. I have many old Fender pickups from Broadcasters and lapsteels onwards and none of them measure that big! So, I wouldn't agree that .21 is like the old Fenders.

[Tellboy]

the larger 5mm diameter spreads the magnetism out a touch further and doesn't sound as nice to my ears.
The Alnico, although labelled as Alnico III is actually

After a (too) long break I gigged at the weekend with some friends. Although I had been gagging to try my Gibsons with BKPs I took my Tele as I guessed it would be more appropriate for their style of music. This is fitted with Rio Grande pickups - a Muy Grande bridge and a Vintage Tallboy neck. The Muy has huge diameter pole pieces and is fairly high output (8.4k).

I had two problems - firstly a bad case of "Stratitis" where the bottom E string was virtually untunable due to the strong magnetic field causing wierd vibrations in the string (ghost notes?) - cured by dropping the pickup further away from the strings.

Secondly, the Muy has a fairly standard Tele sound for the first 2/3rds of the volume control. Higher than this the sounds starts to thicken up quite nicely but seems to loose definition and the "Tele" sound. (I played most of the evening with the guitar volume backed off)

So in this case I would say big is not better - I had intended to put a Boss set on this guitar but decided to put RiffRaffs on my SG first.

Anybody else had these sort of problems?

[Tellboy]

Anybody else had these sort of problems?

Err...obviously not Tellboy  :o . They're either NFI or got no sympathy with you for using a guitar without BKPs. :roll:

[Tim]

I've experimented with 6mm diameter poles like the Rio's but have always found the results to be poor.......indistinct tone and tuning problems.
On a bass it's a different matter but it's not for me on guitar p/ups!