PAF Pickup Secrets: What Makes a PAF Guitar Pickup a P.A.F. Pickup? Learn The Details!

PAF humbucker guitar pickups. What are the details that make a P.A.F. guitar pickup and a great P.A.F. pickup reproduction? Learn the details that can help you spot a vintage PAF pickup and a great repro. Jon Gundry and Matthew Quail of ThroBak Electronics tell all in this epic video filled with insider P.A.F. pickup facts.
Jon Gundry and Matthew Quail take apart a ThroBak Vintage P.A.F. replica to explain the key construction and cosmetic details that are found in vintage PAF guitar pickups and the best reproductions.
Details covered in the video include.
#1. Details of the P.A.F. pickup cover explained.
#2. How to spot a vintage P.A.F. by looking at the flat back black tape protecting the coils of the guitar pickup.
#3. Close up view and discussion of P.A.F. pickup adjustable pole screws.
Watch this ThroBak video for more details about vintage PAF pole screws. • PAF Pickup Secrets: St...
#4. Details of Brass and Nickel Plated Steel bobbins mounting screws.
Watch this video for more details about P.A.F. bobbin mounting screws. • PAF Pickup Secrets: Br...
#5. P.A.F. pickup start and finish wire placement and color explained.
Watch this video for more details about P.A.F. pickup start wires. • PAF Pickup Secrets: St...
#6. P.A.F. guitar pickup bobbin color variation explained.
#7. P.A.F. humbucker keeper bar explained.
#8. P.A.F. Butyrate bobbin plastic explained. Learn the smell of a vintage P.A.F. bobbin!
#9. Vintage PAF guitar pickup machine coil winding explained.
Follow these links for more ThroBak videos about vintage P.A.F. guitar pickup winders.
• PAF Pickup Secrets: KZ...
• PAF Pickup Secrets: Sl...
• PAF Pickup Secrets: Le...
#10. Learn some of the cosmetic flaws found on vintage P.A.F. bobbins and the best repros.
#11. P.A.F. bobbin and sink marks and flare explained.
#12. PAF bobbin slugs and bullseye pattern explained.
#13. Maple spacer explained.
#14. PAF guitar pickup Alnico bar magnet grades and cosmetics explained.
#15. Alnico pickup magnet charge direction explained.
#16. PAF pickup baseplate construction, materials and cosmetics explained.
#17. Ground wire soldered to baseplate location explained as a means of identifying a vintage PAF guitar pickup.
#18. Vintage style, braided, two conductor wire explained.
#19. Coil turn count and winding machine details further explained.
For more details about vintage P.A.F. pickups visit.:
www.pafhumbucker.com/
ThroBak uses 100% USA made parts in their vintage P.A.F. guitar pickup reproductions.
ThroBak Electronics is a world leader in classic reproduction guitar pickups. To learn more visit.:
www.throbak.com/paf-pickups.html
www.throbak.com/

[@chipsterb4946]

I didn’t think it was possible to out-geek me on technical details of guitar related electronics. You sir have accomplished that.

[@stevesuv]

Yeah Im sick. I know it.But I have helped many guys balance these Shitty 90s and early 2000s LeaPauls.Some are crazy unmatched. We all know it.

[@tubetone74]

Nothing like nerding out on PAF lore.

[@edpitman7035]

I am now even happier that I have several sets of ThroBaks in my guitars. Great work guys 👏👏👏

[@stuarthossack7906]

It's so obvious that you both love the pickups and love making them, so much detail, so many chuckles. Brilliant video, thanks.

[@jfxberns]

You guys are such nerds. I LOVE YOU. Fantastic video, whether you want a real vintage style or you want to understand the properties that go into making the iconic masters, it's very educational.

[@patfurlan]

Barbie hair was magnet wire when I was a kid !!

[@radocool1]

I really enjoyed this detailed explanation of what a vintage PAF humbucker consists of and I thank you for your effort for creating this video. The only things you didn't touch upon were: 1. Magnetic field strength; 2. The mismatched coils

[@These_go_to_eleven_1959]

Mismatched coils is a major part of tone with a pickup. Off see coils have a better top end clarity, more sparkle.

[@RodrigoRamirez-eq6gj]

This was absolutely amazing. I certainly enjoyed and appreciated this episode. I work in chemical manufacturing, and I appreciate the importance of having a thorough understanding of the technical aspects of the process in order to obtain a good product. You certainly have done that, and the results speak for themselves.

[@kevinking2468]

I have myself researched in great detail vintage humbucker construction and can tell you that these guys are absolutely spot-on. The only thing I would add is that my preference for magnet selection is Alnico 2 made as they described - The 2 yields beautifully clear note reproduction in my opinion.

[@clemguitar63]

Jon & Matthew, My two favorite Pickup Nerds for all-time! Gentleman, Please understand I say that with utmost Love & Respect for you both! Great content, please continue to produce these informative and very educational videos!

[@joecalandrella3330]

clemguitar63 Joe Calandrella I was just about to say the same thing. Also, I assume the coffee cups contain Jameson’s?

[@clemguitar63]

@@joecalandrella3330 That might explain a few things!

[@jacksonrich6398]

Great, thorough and easy to understand! Thx for sharing all the fine details!! Subscribed 👍!!!

[@Em_Dee_Aitch]

I haven’t even been to your website to see the cost, but I’ve already decided that I’m buying a set. You can thank Emerald City Guitars. 🙂

[@michael.m4361]

Excellent presentation guys. I enjoy learning about this topic. I soon hope to put a pair of your sweet pickups in my guitar.

[@jaycee3613]

Great vid. I’m redoing a Les Paul and needed this step by step.. thanks 🎸😊

[@kurtmarion7645]

Great amount of information. Even more than I had thought about.

[@billgreen4592]

Lol, I was thinking to myself that watching this is like watching paint dry; then I realized that I had watched the whole thing. I must be a pickup nerd.

[@Backinthegame.]

The pole pieces are usually made on a Browne & Sharpe single spindle auto, the marks are from the parting off tool that is used. I know this because I was a Mechanical Engineer and I used to make them.

[@douglortie1494]

High h

[@douglortie1494]

M D My

[@myvintagesunburst7418]

made my head explode .... thanks Jon and Matthew .

[@markwright9352]

Awesome stuff very interesting 👍🏻

[@sargentppeper]

Excellent detail guys! 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼🎸

[@ericdenton6664]

Thank you for your love and passion for guitar and the PAF. I would love to try your pickups. A perfect vintage PAF isn't exactly my 1st choice since I like a hotter overwound humbucker with a bit of scatter to reduce capacitance to yield more higher end harmonics. I do like Alnico 2 magnets. But after years of building, repairing and upgrading guitars and more years spent on stage with a old Marshall amp. I also prefer a potted pickup. I'm currently upgrading my first PRS which sounds ok as is but I know there's so much potential in tap through upgrading the pickups and every electronic component including wire. I appluade your obvious years of research and work and now sharing of your knowledge and experience. That love and passion must show through in your pickups. I bought my 1st aftermarket replacement pickup in 1982 and have installed 100's of pickups in my own guitars as well as customer guitars. Please continue your work. After spending time watching your channel and video's your one of very few boutique pickup makers I trust to know your business top to bottom. I could do without those 2 old farts you reccomend watching demo your products. To much b.s. you need a person that's in touch with a wider market of serious tone chasers. Bravo for a great product.

[@dannyjonze]

love this channel

[@davidkieltyka9]

Great stuff! Love the nitty gritty videos. I’d forgotten about the robot dog in the original Battlestar Gallactica. Frak! (The Ron Moore reboot, 2003-2009, is seriously dark and a great watch.) I really like the Maxon U-1000 (aka Super 70s) pickups. Different thing to PAFs but a cool alternative.

[@youssefkasim7556]

Here from Rhett’s channel.

[@MrCnema]

I Loved it.. I'm into pickup winding now.. my brain is a sponge ... need more info. Nice put together!!

[@rayprevailer8454]

wow... that was in depth. I herd a story once on Steve Vai where his tech through a defective pickup in the garbage while on tour. Steve had him go back and find it to get repaired because the pickups vary were he was want it repaired verses going through many other’s to get the same rusults.

[@monkeyfinger7949]

Really great forensic analysis of a PAF pickup. This series is fantastic. The attention to detail here is like going to pickup college. If I buy a PAF pickup, I'm buying it from Throbak!

[@Dad-Gad]

I like the fact that the pole pieces follow the highly regarded zig zag pattern 👍

[@chickenlickin3820]

interesting content thank you.

[@justinpaquette224]

Thanks for the great video. One question, what gauge are the start wires?

[@AnthonyBurrito1313]

I am beyond help, I found this thrilling

[@flapjack413]

Dot Matrix from spaceballs is probably the robot with hair that you fellas were thinking of. :) Cool video, definitely learned some details of real PAF's that I wasn't aware of.

[@MJHunt434]

What a great video. I'd be interested to know your process for ageing the covers.

[@ThroBakChannel]

It’s a multistep process but we use a ozone chamber to naturally tarnish the Nickel plating.

[@darrelpennington3489]

Love PAF vintage pups . So much harmonics I believe it changes the string vibrations as well. I have played Les Paul type of guitars for over 30 years. High volume from a decent tube amp with punch & clarity . I must be a dinosaur as well -:) . Wonder what the minimum order is for “ ThroBak” ? Great , educational video thank you . ThroBak “ takes their PAF pups as seriously as I do .

[@shaofu424]

appreciate the information good work those are some sweet guitars behind you subbed kudos \m/\m/ ps i didnt notice if anyone said but "tweeky" (sp?) was the lil robot on 80s tv show buck rogers w gil gerrard and erin grey (wowzers)

[@ResoBridge]

Interesting to see that the keeper bar is not threaded and has what must be at least some air gap in the holes between it and the pole screws. That doesn't leave a lot of supporting thread through the baseplate. I have taken a few humbucker pickups apart and only remember seeing a threaded keeper bar with clearance holes in the base plate. I'm assuming that even if the two coils are wound absolutely identically the different dimensions and steels used for the slugs and pole screws would mean that the two wound bobbins, with poles and screws fitted, would have different inductances. And I believe, since the magnetic permeability of steel varies with frequency, the two coils will have frequency dependent differences in inductance.

[@recordman555]

Very cool - great lesson, you guys! I've been around electric guitars for MANY years, but just recently got into the specifics of pickups. Please, tell me - does the bobbin material affect the pickup in any way? For example - PVC bobbin, ABS bobbin, carbon fibre bobbin, wood bobbin, fibre-resin bobbin . . . ? [?]

[@stevenflint6171]

Have you been able to do an analysis of Duane Allman's pickups? I heard that he had a favorite set of '57 PAF's that he took out of a gold top of that year and traded it for a '59 sunburst which he put the 57 PAF's in. That's supposedly his Live at the Fillmore guitar. He used an early SG Les Paul with PAF's for slide at that show. The gold top was used on the Layla album with Clapton. Duane's playing and his tone are my favorite and I've been chasing it for decades. Is there a ThroBak Duane pickup? Also does ThroBak make the original volume and tone pots and wiring harness with real bumblebee caps? I wonder if the pickup selector switch also affects the tone.

[@martinsmith4123]

Bang on 🤘🤘🤘

[@monkeyfinger7949]

Something I have learned over time, and it took me a while to figure out even though I am a DIY guy since my youth. The pickups under discussion here were designed in an era to work with all the amps of those eras. The amp input designs of the time which derived from Fender amps respond differently than today's amps designed around higher output pickups. It's important to remember that the famous music of the time (like today) was created by skilled musicians and recording engineers - the pickup had little to do with it. There is no holy grail pickup or effect box - only holy grail musicians.

[@theAxehound]

So many questions answered!! I still have a few though. Did they use one P90 magnet. Is it the same length, size.. etc? ..And is that the same wire as a P90? ...and, and why slugs on one bobbin and screws on the other?

[@TheChadPad]

Y'all are the shit. Keep it up!

[@paulcalmond]

1:03:11: "Was that exciting ?" "Yes" Laughter He lies so well !

[@LPCustom3]

Isn’t the white inner cloth layer Celanese?

[@beatleme2]

People gave those up for the T-tops ...most rock songs used T-tops...hint: make some remke T-tops again i bet they would sell ....short A5 mag non-potted under 8k and same wound coils much like an un-potted 490R but using short A5 instead of A2 comes close ..Throwbak to me Sounds way better than the burstbuckers and really like an old PAF ...and the Attention to detail and Q.C is of utmost importance like how old alnico Altec and JBL speakers were made … back then the neck was the same for the bridge also till i think the 80's I've read, which should come into play also not talked about, but yeah...

[@bryanwilliams3665]

T Top Bridge Pickup is the Jimmy Page Pickup . He had 7 of them on Stage in Zeppelin. 1 in the Bridge of his #1 , 4 in his Double Neck and 2 in his 69 Goldtop (Painted Cardinal Red)

[@These_go_to_eleven_1959]

@@bryanwilliams3665 Funny story about Page. There was this guy playing Led zeppelin tunes and Page solo's and sounded dead nuts on to the original so i asked what pickup he had in his Les paul and was shocked when he said a Gibson 490R with a short A5 magnet swap! Best page tone i heard.

[@MyOtherNick]

So, what is the difference in the magnets.. there are a2, A3,A4 and A5 but what effect does it have on the tone? And what about long and short magnets?

[@jakevoutilainen3455]

Thank you very much for the good presentation. Just one question. I understand Fender was using continuous cast copper (ccc) wire in their 50`s pickup coils. Was Gibson doing the same? If so, would you agree, that in order to produce genuine PAF pickup today you need to have an identical type of coil wire. We know that, when Fender started to use drawn copper wire in the early 60`s, and their pickups started to sound more brittle.

[@ThroBakChannel]

NOS 42 AWG Plain Enamel wire and NOS 42 AWG Heavy Formvar wire sound identical to current production wire when the ohms per foot and wire diameter are matched within the 42 AWG tolerance.

[@bobyk87]

The enlarged pole screw holes in the base found on many modern pickups are bad: poles do not get naturally grounded. The ideal is to have a tight thread that makes also a good electrical connection. This crappy assembly happens for example in current Gibson P90s so if you want to get noise down you have to find some tricky way to ground the poles.

[@Joe-mz6dc]

Damn now I have to buy some. 😆

[@spankeyguitars8457]

Great info!, trying to watch all these because they are very interesting to us laymen. Just curious about PAF sticker or watermarks. We all know the black sticker started it all and gibson still uses it, but then they transitioned to embossed pat. numbers and ink date stamped. Then in the late 70's and early 80's (tim shaw era) the pickups had a silver sticker reading "pat. appl for" along with embossed pat number. Do you think those ones were wound on your kz-115 machine?

[@ThroBakChannel]

No I don’t.

[@spankeyguitars8457]

@@ThroBakChannel ok thanks for the reply, because I have set that have the silver sticker but no date on them. Anyway, I'm glad throbak were able to revive the old winders and keep them going.

[@wesleymorris1]

Heres a good ? For you guys, the paf sticker, the gold part of the sticker, does it have brass foil , ive noticed that from a real paf, that it gets a green tarnish from that part of the sticker.

[@American_Jeeper]

Blick (not a typo) Chart Tape, which is a flatback tape, and Kiss i-gloo Premium Strip Lash Adhesive (for fake eyelashes) would reproduce the original PAF flatback tape look.

[@aureliobrighton1871]

Amazing ... it reminds me of old Formula 1 days .. engineers and mechanics would give a name to each scratch on the tooth of a gear . the driver just whirls them into hellfire jumps out at the pits and lights a cigarette with a grin :)

[@stevesuv]

I love what you guys are doing. First, I know how to solder in wiring shematics. I know how to install treble bleed circuits. I collect vintage caps. I know how to balance pots.....,example your neck p/u is muddy. Use the higher value pots on the muddy p/us,the lower on the bright p/us. Sometimes they just do not want to balance. My ? to you two Masters is...Without touching wiring, and you just flip the neck p/u around so the screws are closer to the bridge. Will that brighten the neck up without changing phase. All you are doing is really moving the pick up closer to the bridge. Never touched the wiring..Will that brighten a neck p/u?

[@ThroBakChannel]

It will slightly brighten the tone without changing the phase.

[@stevesuv]

@@ThroBakChannel Thanks guys

[@kennycube5126]

Uh Oh! I think you're getting Buck Rodgers and Battlestar Galactica mixed up! Unforgivable😀

[@goneflying140]

Hi Jon. This was a very interesting video. I now believe I could authenticate a vintage PAF by myself. I have aquestion... You have your parts custom made, as in the slugs, pole screws, base plates and bobbins. Do you have the AlNiCo magnets custom made, and do you magnet wire that is commercially available, or do you have your magnet wire custom made too?

[@ThroBakChannel]

All ThroBak Alnico magnets are custom made for us in the USA. We buy magnet wire 200lbs. at a time to assure we get the spec.range we need to duplicate vintage magnet wire tolerance specs..

[@goneflying140]

@@ThroBakChannel Wow, that's awesome Jon. You really have this down.

[@LPCustom3]

Does it matter which side of the bar is on the base plate, I’ve noticed that one side is ground smooth and one side is rough

[@ThroBakChannel]

I prefer to have the smooth side on the baseplate but I’m not sure it matters.

[@soapboxearth2]

Would one of these old pafs be good for a ukulele im building? Or should.i just leave it in my granfathers guitar and buy my own pickup?

[@ThroBakChannel]

They will not work with a nylon string instrument.

[@CNCTEMATIC]

So, I bought a vintage PAF pickup. It was expensive, but I wasn't sure. So I followed all the steps in your great video, and guess what! It's authentic! Yay! So anyway, how do I go about putting it back together now?

[@TheForce_Productions]

See the good side, now you'll can say over there "I destroyed an authentic PAF just because I was boring". ✌😎🎸

[@themitchielpricer]

what was the ohms on that paf pick up..nobody ever says i heard 15ohms

[@CNCTEMATIC]

@@themitchielpricer This was a joke comment. anyway pafs are usually around 6 to 8 ohms

[@southboundguitar]

@@CNCTEMATIC 6 to 8 ohms?!?!?! That's like a quarter inch of wire. I think you meant 6-8K ohms.

[@theoutbacktoneshack]

Is there an average turn count for earlier P.A.F. coils?

[@These_go_to_eleven_1959]

5000 per coil on avg.

[@skullheadwater9839]

I would love to buy some of your pickups, but I can't afford them. Have you ever thought of doing a budget version? I realize some of the stuff in your pickups would be more expensive. but what if you did some with more generic nickel covers, magnets and pole pieces etc.

[@ThroBakChannel]

Thanks for the comment. We focus on making the best P.A.F. reproduction we possibly can and pricing reflects our cost to do that. Changing to generic or non vintage correct components would comprise the tone and esthetic away from the vintage specs.. We have no plans to do a budget set of pickups.

[@noysdn4001]

Wish we had internet back in the day, I destroyed my 1976 gibbon custom pickup and make them a single coil. Now all I have left is just one pickup cover 😅

[@smkh2890]

PAF! sounds exotic! then i found out it means Patent Applied For! Apparently it takes a few decades to get a patent approved!!

[@mariowidmann4705]

Is NOS Wire Important for old PAF tone?

[@plexilespaul1956]

I think so. From my experience

[@petelucchini1168]

OK now I'm gonna go off and play my Heritage H150..

[@somebodyelseuk]

When is a PAF not a PAF? When it's been rewound, perhaps? There was a time when a repairer was just that and his job was to get it working and not be weighed down by the detail - Peter Green's neck pickup being a perfect example. I knew a guy back in the '80s who'd had a PAF rewound and it came back sounding very ordinary. Okay, today you'd take that pickup to be repaired by someone like yourself, Tim Mills, Matt Gleeson, Wolfgang Mann etc., but for anyone pondering a genuine PAF that's been rewound, if you can't confirm who did the work, buy a good repro instead, or you may end up witha very expensive paperweight.

[@LPCustom3]

Duncan “Antiquities’ baseplates are Not threaded...

[@markjones3514]

I have a PAF-from a friends old '58 ES-it worked in an old Strat-I had Van Halenized it in '77....and do you consider a trade? -you can benefit from it. I'd like some new ones you make. I've gone thru your specs-mine is original. Tape, is correct-round +squared hole, PAF sticker, smell on bobbin, is as u describe too...can send pics-Are you interested? M.Owen.

[@ThroBakChannel]

You can contact us through the ThroBak website.

[@guitaristinseattle]

Would these make my 335 sound better?

[@ThroBakChannel]

They sound great in an ES-335!

[@puppatweena]

I know it was in the name of science, but man I could have cried watching you destroy a perfectly good pickup.

[@sarahwaters1103]

van halen (1st four albums!) and foghat! and nugent hey baby! sound super-awesome! . . but so does east bay rays hum-strat! . . and my japanese from 1985! hum-strat! . . bright hums! . . dark hums have a place too . . t-tops

[@ResoBridge]

What is the point of un-oriented Alnico 5? Is this a modern fabrication? My assumption is that in the early days, magnet makers were trying to make a stronger more efficient magnet. That is why there are different magnet alloys, with the increments in alloy numbers indicating the improvement over time, and the alloy for Alnico 5 was developed, along with the the idea of applying an orienting field during the casting process, to make the strongest magnet material available at that point in time. Alnico 5 was developed as an oriented magnet material (anisotropic) and will take a stronger charge in one direction than it will in the other. So (at least in that time period) why would anyone ever bother casting an Alnico 5 alloy without applying the orienting field? If you wanted a weaker magnet the isotropic alloys could be used of Alnico 1, 3, 2 or 4. As far as I know only the alloys of Alnico 5 and above are manufactured as anisotropic (with field applied). Does isotropic Alnico 5 really exist? If it does, is it still stronger than 1,3,2 and 4, with the advantage that it doesn't matter which way round you charge it?

[@ThroBakChannel]

Unoriented A5 appears in vintage PAF pickups and may or may not have been intentional. The charge of Unoriented A5 is about the same as A2. Tonally unoriented A5 has some of the compressed attack of A2 but with more mids. Oriented A5 has a faster attack and a more focused fundamental tone in comparison.

[@bobbarcus8310]

Does a PAF pick up sound better after its ages for 30 yrs or does it sound weaker

[@ThroBakChannel]

A 1 year old PAF and a 30 year old PAF will sound the same if not exposed to anything that would damage it or change the magnet charge.

[@Arfonfree]

I think you're paying more attention to the details than Gibson did!

[@ThroBakChannel]

We are. The difference is we take what were random variables under Gibson and control the so we can use these variables to make the full variety of vintage P.A.F. tones in a repeatable manner. This way ThroBak can have multiple P.A.F. models to cover a wide variety of tones.

[@valueofnothing2487]

This is kind of ridiculous. It shouldn't take a hour to describe what is important : most are wound to ~7.5k resistance, with a total inductance of around 4.5H will do it (leaving a Gauss of 300-400G). I thought you were going to show what the specs are for a variety of pickups in the period - this would confirm what I only dimly remember which is the shock I discovered when they were all over the place - leading to the inescapable conclusion that 'PAF" barely means anything at all! At least within the bounds of standard pickup design.

[@tigerstripe3820]

00-45 what PAF pickups makes pickup PAF.. PAF pickup makes pickup PAF pickups do..PAF pickups?👍 👐Say that again?

[@Paul-hn1wo]

Well guys, you'd be much better off just doing some PAF demo's and letting us hear your different models of your PAF's. You're boring so just let us hear them and ask questions,