Hong Kong 'buckers

[FrankieTbird]

What happened to the Hong Kong 'buckers on eBay?  Are they all gone?

[4stringer77]

Purely conjecture, but maybe Epiphone needs them all exclusively for the new Embassies and Thunderbirds coming this summer.

[Dave W]

The seller in the thread that started in late 2015 was eyguitarpartsforyou , their eBay store is completely empty right now, but their website shows them in stock
http://www.eyguitarmusic.com/Thunderbird-Bass-Pickup-Vintage-Style-for-GibsonChromeNickel_p_2287.html

Also, they were discussed in an earlier thread, this was the link, IIRC these are the exact same pickups
http://www.customworldguitarparts.com/default/pickups-pickup-parts/vintage-thunderbird-bass-pickup-chrome-for-gibson-8k-ohm.html

[FrankieTbird]

Thanks Dave, I may pick up a few more.

[Alanko]

I bought mine directly from the Eyparts website. Any confirmation that these are the pickups in the new Epiphones? Mine were surprisingly microphonic. Is that all part of the mojo?

[dadagoboi]

I bought mine directly from the Eyparts website. Any confirmation that these are the pickups in the new Epiphones? Mine were surprisingly microphonic. Is that all part of the mojo?

Yeah, seems some are microphonic just like some were back in the day...as mentioned by JAE in an interview where he described having bought all the discontinued TBirds he could get from Mannys, mainly for the pickups/bridges and having to discard some of the pups because they were microphonic.  Apparently he didn't know there's a remedy for that.

The potting could be spotty back then...good to see someone is carrying on the tradition!

[Alanko]

I did wonder if I could have fixed mine my taping over the mounting holes on one side, placing that side down, then syringing epoxy into the pickups that way. From the gut shots on the Ey website they would need to consume a lot of wax to be potted, no?

The pickups seemed to have an inherent metallic ring to them, that i figured was from them being microphonic.

[dadagoboi]

I did wonder if I could have fixed mine my taping over the mounting holes on one side, placing that side down, then syringing epoxy into the pickups that way. From the gut shots on the Ey website they would need to consume a lot of wax to be potted, no?

The pickups seemed to have an inherent metallic ring to them, that i figured was from them being microphonic.

It's a lot easier to pot the individual coils before loading them in the covers.  There's no need to fill everything with wax, much less epoxy.

[Dave W]

I bought mine directly from the Eyparts website. Any confirmation that these are the pickups in the new Epiphones? Mine were surprisingly microphonic. Is that all part of the mojo?

No confirmation. AFAIK it was just an educated guess. For all we know, Epi could be making their own, in-house.

[Alanko]

It's a lot easier to pot the individual coils before loading them in the covers.  There's no need to fill everything with wax, much less epoxy.

I never popped the covers on mine, let alone liberate either coil. I'm a bit of a pleb as I like the stock pickups on Epiphone Thunderbirds, and they are a plastic box filled with epoxy. I had some good luck liberating the pickup from the cover on those, and it was just another smaller black box inside a bigger one.

[dadagoboi]

No confirmation. AFAIK it was just an educated guess. For all we know, Epi could be making their own, in-house.

There could be other factories winding them.

My experience in China:

If somebody is making ANYTHING and appears to be profitable others will attempt the same thing, with varying success and quality.  Some of the copies can be pretty hilarious, some better than the originals.

Thunderbird style covers, bobbins, and magnets are now easy to source.  Bottom plates are very low tech.

Once the latest Epi TBirds come on the market, there will be others making similar pickups in China.  My guess is it's already happening.

CAVEAT EMPTOR, as always!

[Dave W]

There could be other factories winding them.

My experience in China:

If somebody is making ANYTHING and appears to be profitable others will attempt the same thing, with varying success and quality.  Some of the copies can be pretty hilarious, some better than the originals.

Thunderbird style covers, bobbins, and magnets are now easy to source.  Bottom plates are very low tech.

Once the latest Epi TBirds come on the market, there will be others making similar pickups in China.  My guess is it's already happening.

CAVEAT EMPTOR, as always!

You could be right. OTOH Gibson now owns two Chinese factories producing Epis. Would they sink money into their own factories and still buy pickups from a third party vendor? Maybe, maybe not.

If the  new Epis are a sales success, we'll see even more TBird copies as well as pickups.

[dadagoboi]

You could be right. OTOH Gibson now owns two Chinese factories producing Epis. Would they sink money into their own factories and still buy pickups from a third party vendor? Maybe, maybe not.

If the  new Epis are a sales success, we'll see even more TBird copies as well as pickups.

FWIW:
At least SOME of those pickups come from Heilongjiang which is very close to the Epi factory.  An Australian on TB recently had a problem with a set having the wrong polarity and cancelling each other.  The supplier claimed to have produced hundreds for Gibson with no problem... 

[Highlander]

Ah-so... ld...