178 posts
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Post by mototech on Jul 7, 2016 8:10:09 GMT
I have ordered a set of IronGear pickups for a Partscaster I built a while ago, Texas Loco for the bridge & Pig Iron for middle & neck. They get brilliant reviews & are ridiculously cheap, anybody here have personal experience of them? I have a set of Wilkinson MWHS for sale in the appropriate section.
Brian
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178 posts
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Post by mototech on Jul 7, 2016 9:51:18 GMT
I beg to differ defjef, we are talking about quality pickups here, when you look at the price of many other pickups, they are fantastic value. I looked at the Ironstone & having read reviews of both, decided to go for Irongear. Ironstone silver pickups are a steal at the money, cant be much profit in them for him.
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DefJef
THBC Moderator
Due to musical differences I've decided I can't work with myself any more.
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Post by DefJef on Jul 7, 2016 10:29:27 GMT
In the end it's all a toss up in the air, isn't it. It also depends on what your other gear is too. I don't think I've read a worthwhile bad review of either brands. Neither are made in the UK, just designed and finished here (though how much 'designing' has to go into a item that is well over half a century old is anyone's guess). You hear so much nonsense about pickups that you just have to try 'em and see. Certainly a reliable, standardised production line is paramount so that if you like a range once you'll like 'em again. That was the trouble with my Chinese pickguard. Apart from the magnets being Alnico 5 there is no other guarantee of production standards and even then you have no idea how magnetised the magnets are.
I settled on Ironstone firstly because the price seemed worth a gamble and secondly because what I got was a huge amount of help selecting and matching to a pickup I already had and thirdly because all that help led to exactly what I was looking for. If they ARE making any profit it just goes to show how cheaply the Far East is churning these out.
Here's what Tony Partridge of Ironstone says about his production methods (copied from a post he put up on a Yamaha Pacifica forum).
"Hi All, I am Tony Partridge, owner of ironstone Pickups based in Rutland, England’s smallest county. Having had many very happy Pacifica customers install my pickups, I just wanted to clarify the admin comment about Ironstone.
He / she quite correctly identifies the inherent cost of building pickups from scratch here in the UK.
So I set out on a different path. The main time consuming task of winding is indeed done to my specifications in the Far East , along with other items such as sourcing covers (S.Korea for example). But I then take that raw wound bobbin and (depending on pickup style);
Hand set the pole pieces,
Wax pot the pickups,
Tape bind them,
Complete the wiring work,
Full QA and bench test.
So each and every pickup I sell has been hand finished and individually tested by myself.
I can then pass that lower cost base to customers along with a mass of totally free technical information on the website. So I don’t claim to sell 100% British made pickups. And I can charge very reasonable prices accordingly.
Cheers,
Tony"
Personally, I'm glad that companies like Ironstone, Irongear, Artec, Wilkinson, Bugera and Joyo are around to save us a wad of cash... as long as the British currency doesn't crumble to dust.
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3,968 posts
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Post by salteedog on Jul 8, 2016 6:39:07 GMT
I agree. The 'full QA and bench test' is where the value add is.
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325 posts
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Post by wildturkey on Jul 8, 2016 23:13:48 GMT
I put a blues engine in the neck and a Steel foundry in the bridge of my Billy Bo build ,Im very impressed with them, The blues engine compares very well with the Dunsan slash sig neck pickup in my les paul standard ,the steel foundry still sounds like a hot telecaster but really rocks. For a pick and mix they go very well together
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79 posts
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Post by rockbadger on Aug 6, 2016 7:15:50 GMT
I disliked the pickup's on my Vintage PRS copy. Switched them out for irongear alchemist 90s - and it massively transformed the sound for the good. Not like for like pickups but they were really expressive and balanced the wood sound much nicer.
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178 posts
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Post by mototech on Sept 29, 2016 7:11:29 GMT
I now have a pair of Irongear Blues Engines & an Allparts wiring kit for my Epiphone Les Paul Studio. Should make a good guitar sound great, if I ever get the time to fit them!
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