Changes to one of my 2020 builds

[Simon Barden]

From the Warman site, "Concealed beneath the case are two coils wrapped around carbon steel blades with a powerful ceramic magnet". So the Firebuckers are a blade-style humbucker and not of 'true' Firebird construction. I'd imagine they'd probably sound quite similar to your Firebucker II pickups.

The trem 'ceramic magnet' conceals a whole range of different formula magnets. Unlike alnico, which has the numbering system (which itself has irregularities and only gets you to a rough ball-park area), I'd imagine there are so many different compositions of ceramic/ferrite magnet that a numbering system would be too complicated, so you'd have to go right back to the manufacturer's magnetic property tables for that particular type of magnet. But it's rare you'll ever see those as an end-user. And you normally don't need to know either. "High-quality' is just marketing speak IMO. The qualities you want are dependent upon the application, so what may be a good magnet for one job is inappropriate for another. But the magnet quality is the same.

[McCreed]

Thanks for the ceramic magnet remarks. That all makes sense.
I didn't know if their use of the word "quality" was more to do with consistency of things like magnet materials and gauss.

I should say that the "high quality ceramic magnets" line originated in a reply email from Warman when I contacted them with some questions. It was not in any of their promotional literature that I have seen.

[Simon Barden]

I suppose you could always have a very non-homogenous mix of materials with an uneven magnetic output, but it's going to be quite hard to do.

Reading about it, a lot of magnets are made by first melting the components to form an alloy bar or strip. This then gets crushed into a fine powder, from which the magnets are then pressed and sintered (so first make your material and then convert it into a form that makes it easy to make different shaped magnets).

So I'm not sure how you'd really get a poor quality magnet, especially a ceramic/ferrite one, which is known to have good magnetism retaining properties. You could obviously come up with a mixture that easily lost its magnetism, but that's not the sort of stuff standard guitar magnets are made from.

[dozymuppet]

Well, I accidentally ordered a pair of gold firebuckers for a couple of projects, based on your results, Mick. So there's that.

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

[McCreed]

@ Simon - I know nothing about the manufacture of magnets. I just presumed that there would be good and bad practises or materials affecting the outcomes.

Well, I accidentally ordered a pair of gold firebuckers for a couple of projects, based on your results, Mick. So there's that.

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

Oops! Sorry!
Hopefully you like them as much as I do or I'll feel like a knob...

Did you get the originals or the II's?
I ordered mine back in July, and they took 20 days from the UK to Brisbane.

[Simon Barden]

I’m only a couple of web page reads ahead of you on magnet manufacture!

[dozymuppet]

Did you get the originals or the II's?
I ordered mine back in July, and they took 20 days from the UK to Brisbane.

I ordered the IIs. I wanted something gold for my TL-1 project, and that was the only option. I'll only be using the neck pickup for that project (I'll save the bridge for some indeterminate future project).

20 days sounds reasonable in this day and age. Thanks for the heads up.

[McCreed]

I’m only a couple of web page reads ahead of you on magnet manufacture!

Hah! I've been there before.
I've actually learnt a lot by researching questions posted by others that I didn't know the answer to.

[Simon Barden]

I ordered the IIs. I wanted something gold for my TL-1 project, and that was the only option. I'll only be using the neck pickup for that project (I'll save the bridge for some indeterminate future project).

You can always fit the bridge pickup in the neck if you want a hotter output. I have a friend who fits bridge position SD P-Rails in the neck of all his guitars as he prefers the sound (there are different powerful pickups in the bridge so no output mismatches).

[Simon Barden]

Hah! I've been there before.
I've actually learnt a lot by researching questions posted by others that I didn't know the answer to.

I do it all the time!