Square pole pieces?

[Synesthesia]

I am winding some retro inspired pickups. I really want to try for the old teisco look and have square pole pieces. Anyone know where I can find square pole magnets? I know I could use square bar stock and couple it with a magnet but my poles arent laid out in a straight line so I cant use a standard bar magnet. Unfortunately I cant find alnico disc magnets either (my thought being, I could use small alnico disc magnets to couple with each pole).
Anyone got any suggestions?

 

[AxRookie]

I did a search for "old teisco pickups" because I have never seen square pole pieces before but I couldn't find a picture of the square pole pieces, do you have one or a link to them, I've got to see this for myself! lol

 

[Synesthesia]

I did a search for "old teisco pickups" because I have never seen square pole pieces before but I couldn't find a picture of the square pole pieces, do you have one or a link to them, I've got to see this for myself! lol

 

[Winspear]

Seems easy enough to find stuff like this? https://www.first4magnets.com/recta...m-magnet-0-5kg-pull-p3565#ps_0_3671|ps_1_2244

 

[Synesthesia]

Seems easy enough to find stuff like this? https://www.first4magnets.com/recta...m-magnet-0-5kg-pull-p3565#ps_0_3671|ps_1_2244

Unfortunately not. I may try something like that if I can't find anything else but those are neodymium magnets. I am looking for alnico magnets. I would like to stay more true to the original materials and thats likely what they used at that time.

 

[DeanGordonGuitars]

Teisco 100% likely used them because its cheaper at the time. Cant comment on sound I doubt there is much to hear difference wise vs round.

 

[LiveOVErdrive]

I would use steel with neo magnets on the bottom. To get lower gauss, put a thin spacer between the magnets and the pole pieces. I think that's how dimarzio does their ceramic "airbuckers".

The only potential flaw in this is that if those tiesco pickups used alnico pole pieces, the inductance of the pickup might be a little off because of the different core material. But the windings will affect that too, so... Eh.

 

[Synesthesia]

Teisco 100% likely used them because its cheaper at the time. Cant comment on sound I doubt there is much to hear difference wise vs round.

Probably so. But I really want to achieve the aesthetic. I also plan to (just for fun) use standard magnet slugs of a comparable size on another pickup and see if I notice any difference in sound. My gut reaction is that I won't. But it'll be fun to learn.

 

[Synesthesia]

I would use steel with neo magnets on the bottom. To get lower gauss, put a thin spacer between the magnets and the pole pieces. I think that's how dimarzio does their ceramic "airbuckers".

The only potential flaw in this is that if those tiesco pickups used alnico pole pieces, the inductance of the pickup might be a little off because of the different core material. But the windings will affect that too, so... Eh.

This is a good suggestion. Thanks! There is certainly tons of neodymium disc magnets out there of all sorts of sizes so I may be able to tweak the magnet strength by trying various sizes too.
I'm pretty sure the old examples were alnico, so for me, thats preferable. But this may be a good alternative for me.
And I'm not worried about matching the winding count or anything. I'm not trying to do an exact recreation of them. More like a faithful continuation.

 

[Kashmir]

In those old Teisco pickups the polepieces weren't the magnets. They were plain old steel with a magnet on bottom similar to a P90. What you're looking for is 1215 or 1018 steel bar 3/16 diameter. A small search found this company, if you call them they might be willing to sell you a foot or two.

With that for your polepieces you could totally use an alnico bar magnet and build exactly what you're looking for!

 

[JimF]

A piece of thin plastic as a bobbin topper with square holes cut in, over whatever shape magnet you can find in the correct spec?...

 

[Deegatron]

In those old Teisco pickups the polepieces weren't the magnets. They were plain old steel with a magnet on bottom similar to a P90. What you're looking for is 1215 or 1018 steel bar 3/16 diameter. A small search found this company, if you call them they might be willing to sell you a foot or two.

With that for your polepieces you could totally use an alnico bar magnet and build exactly what you're looking for!

Out of curiosity, why 1215 or 1018? I've used standard bar stock from metal supermarket on a pickup before and it worked great, not sure exactly what grade it was. what's the advantage of the two you specified?

 

[Kashmir]

Out of curiosity, why 1215 or 1018? I've used standard bar stock from metal supermarket on a pickup before and it worked great, not sure exactly what grade it was. what's the advantage of the two you specified?

I recommend 1215 and 1018 because both are the traditional alloys of steel for polepieces. Both grades are widely available, have good magnetic properties, easy to work with, and are cheap! (Probably being cheap is the biggest reason) The steel you picked up might have been 1018.

Most alloy or carbon steels would work fine for polepieces, there are even a few magnetic alloys of stainless steel

 

[Synesthesia]

In those old Teisco pickups the polepieces weren't the magnets. They were plain old steel with a magnet on bottom similar to a P90. What you're looking for is 1215 or 1018 steel bar 3/16 diameter. A small search found this company, if you call them they might be willing to sell you a foot or two.

With that for your polepieces you could totally use an alnico bar magnet and build exactly what you're looking for!

Probably so. Thanks for the suggestion!
Unfortunately my poles arent aligned in a straight line. So a bar magnet won't work. I'll try to find some alnico disc magnets and then I can still do steel poles