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Does Pole staggering matter?

This ones one those things that crops up every so often, and i dont think anyone really has a straight answer, so i figured i'd try and explain what pole staggering is, and whilst i probably cant say "this is better then that!", atleast your slightly better informed.

Why does it exist?

So, traditionally? a single coil pickup comes with staggered poles - specifically, the E and A poles (17.5mm long poles) are shorter then the D ang G poles (18mm) , the B pole (16.5mm) is shorter again, and the high E (17mm) is slightly higher. Its very common, and is an idea thats been around since the very first Stratocaster, and exists purely to "balance" the strings, because the wound strings are "quieter" then the unwound (because they constain less steel within those nickel wraps essentially) and with the 7 1/4" radius necks of the 50s, the strings sat further away from the pickup compared to more modern, flatter radius' necks.(old guitars had worse actions, basically)

Interestingly, on the very first Strat single coil models, the staggering was different, with a 17.5mm being used on the G string, which caused the wound Gs of the time to be slightly too quiet, and that was phased out in 1956 for the "normal" staggering we see pretty much everywhere nowadays.

However - that change in 56, is interesting - because, really, it was done to account for wound G strings... which are a bit of a rarity nowadays (with "unwound Gs" becoming common in the 70s), so why has the idea of staggering not evolved further?

Now, this is going to get a little more into the psychology of guitars rather then the science of pickups, and i dont have all the answers on this front, but if we take this information with a pinch of salt, it does make some sense - and it all boils down to the unavoidable truth of guitar parts in general.

"Pickups with staggered poles have been used, from 1954 until (on the whole) this morning, to make all the music we listen to"

And knowing that? We're basically at a weird point where we've got to admit "all we've ever heard" is music played on the Stratocaster, with pickups that had staggered poles. Its the sound we like. Nowadays, its actually a slight imbalance in the strings, but its something we've grown to love.

Sure, the staggering might have been designed for wound Gs, which we no longer use, sure, necks are, on the whole, flatter then they were in 1957, and allow us to get a much lower action, and the idea of a staggered pole doesn't make a great deal of sense any more, because we're not fighting the same problems we'd have faced the fifties.... but, that doesn't change the fact that our favourite new band, formed in 2019, who play guitars from that year, are all STILL playing pickups with staggered poles. Its just standard practise now, so, dont fight the tide - staggering is the norm, so stick with it, it might be wrong, but its sounds right!

The Exception
Flat necks!

Whilst i can sit here and say "staggering is wrong, but its the wrong we know" - it is still, on the whole, quite helpful! With either a 7 1/4" or a 9 1/2" radius neck being the standard on most models, the only thing thats "wrong", usually, is the G string - theres still enough of a curve in the neck to get the strings sitting far enough away from the pickups face to warrent having staggered poles.

But - when we get away from that? When we get into the world of 12" and 14" and Compound radius necks? We actually come out the other side of the problem. We're not capable of getting the strings so "flat" across the face of the pickup, that staggering is actually causing more of an inbalance in string volume then correcting it.

so, if your playing a guitar with a flatter radius neck - avoid staggering! (its also not a bad idea if your making a HSS or HSH setup either, because no one adjusts the poles on their humbuckers in the same way) - Non-staggered poles will give you more consistent results.

In summary
Warts and all replicas? vintage re-issues? Meet your hero guitars? Where your working with 7 1/4" radius necks? Those of us stubborn enough to still be buying wound Gs? Go for staggering!

Modern guitars based on old designs? 9 1/2" radius? 7 1/4" radius but not using wound Gs? Normal guitars? Your still wanting staggering!

Ultra flat necks? HSH and HSS setups? Super low action? Your probably going to want non-staggered.

Warranty & Returns

In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have to write this section up, and, I really wish I didn’t have to, but, if I’m being honest and transparent about how pickups work, for better or worse, it’s probably worth being honest and open your rights as a consumer too, and maybe give a little insight into how we actually build pickups.

How we do it

Pickups, at our end of things – are “Custom made” – I cannot stress this enough. When you click the “Add To Cart” button, there is no pickup on the shelf, no bucket of pre-terminated bobbins or half complete pickups. It is made, entirely, from scratch using the parts we have available.

This means, if you order a Bourbon city, or a Hot Iron, or a Texas Blue, it is wound FOR YOU. It is being built to the specifications you have stipulated in the drop-down menus, even the most “normal” design, is still, essentially, built to order.

That entails our pickers collecting the parts from stores, delivering them to the winders, who then get the copper on there, and then the wound coils going to the techs to solder, terminate, test, polish, wax pot, clean, retest… you get the idea.

This is all done “in house” and, obviously, there is a queue, which is first in first out, so pickups will NEVER be shipped same day. Realistically, it takes about 2 weeks, but we do get busier at the beginning/end and middle of the month, so that can have a knock on effect.

And this is all being done, by hand, on a VERY small scale. At maximum, we can produce about 6 pickups a day.

It works wonderfully frankly, because we can make, pretty much, anything you can dream up, and keeping it small scale, means we have an exceptionally high attention to detail with each pickup sold.

Returns

So we have an item, when all is said and done, that didn’t exist until you purchased it, that has cost a lot of man hours to actually manufacture, and has been manufactured to your exact specifications.

As such, pickups come under the remit of “custom work” as laid out under the our terms and conditions, and as outlined in the UK governments distance selling regulations.

This means, in short, pickups are none returnable, and none refundable.
I understand, in this day and age, that may seem quite the hard-nosed approach, but, sadly, there’s no wiggle room in this. Once a pickup is wound, there’s no going back. It belongs to you. There is no “I’ll test it to see if I like it” or “I’ll return it if I don’t like the colour!”.

Warranty

All Axesrus pickups come with a “relaxed lifetime” warranty as far as I’m concerned. I’m never going to ask you to register the purchase, stop offering support 12 months after purchase or limit support to the initial customer in the case of second-hand stuff. We are incredibly proud of the pickups we produce, and I’ll help out wherever I can.

However, its worth laying out what I’d consider “realistic” expectations as to what we will cover as part of a warranty.

Repairs and replacements
Whilst we will not accept pickups as return for refund under any circumstances, we reserve the right to repair or replace any pickup that develops a manufacturing fault within a reasonable time frame.

I won’t put a scale on that time frame, but I will say, its at our discretion. If you’re lucky enough to have some of the VERY early hand wound stuff we made, and we (stupidly) thought we could do it at £20 a pickup, and the coil wires snapped after 10 years? I’m probably not in a position to repair or replace it free of charge, you know? You’ve had your fun; you’ve got your money’s worth!

On the flip side of that – if you’ve bought a £200 humbucker 2 years ago, and it’s developed a fault? You’d better believe Axes is bending over backwards to get it repaired and get you up and running again.

I’ll say this too, we won’t hang you out to dry – if that £20 pickup can be repaired, even if we’re not doing it as part of the warranty, we will offer to repair it at a reasonable price.

Damage vs. Fault
Pickups are delicate creatures I’m afraid. Nature of the beast I suppose, they were never designed, all those years ago, to be “presented” outside of a guitar, so go in knowing this, pickups can be damaged. Either in transit, whilst in storage, or during install.
It is VERY difficult to know how a pickup has developed a fault, so most of the time, we will go into all warranty claims with the mindset that “it’s a manufacturing fault”, frankly, because it keeps everyone happy, avoids any awkward conversations as to “who’s done what” and, normally, repairing damage done during install is the same work as repairing a manufacturing fault either way. Worst case, we might have a delicate email exchange about who’s covering the postage, but that’s about as bad as it gets.

However, we will take this approach only when a pickup, which is showing damage, is only showing minimal damage. I appreciate everyone makes mistakes.

Pickups that have been heavily damaged, have seen heavy wear and tear, or have been intentionally broken in an effort to raise a warranty claim, will see not be repaired, or replaced. Neither free of charge or “for a fee”

Lead times and cancellations
We do publish the lead times on all of our custom build work, and there is very little we can do to decrease the time it takes to actually manufacture this stuff I’m afraid, short of jumping you to the front of the queue (which is never fair, and we won’t do it)

Be aware that once an order is placed, work beings on your build, and as such, you’ve entered into the contract, and there is no backing out. Coils can often be wound within the hour or the order being placed, but they will sit in the work queue due to a back log at terminating/testing/cleaning.
Modifications
There are, occasionally, situations where someone buys a pickup, installs it, plays it for a while, and then might want something a little different down the line. Maybe a different magnet, or a cover fitting, or a new hookup wire fitting.

I am happy to carry out this work, and, normally, regardless of the “time since purchase”, this will be done simply for the cost of parts and postage.

However, the “depth” of these modifications, and if we’re willing/capable of carrying them out, is at the discretion of Axesrus. We’re happy to discuss this on a case-to-case basis, but go in eyes open, that its unlikely to be part of the warranty.

“Warranty with initial purchase”
I’m not a stickler when it comes to this stuff, but I will say, we do have to draw the line somewhere, so, strictly speaking, this “relaxed warranty” is, officially, limited to the original purchaser of the product.

That said, I’m not a robot, nor am I a fool. I’m aware that sometimes, a pickup is moved on relatively quickly, or is bought by a 3rd party for someone else, so, in these cases, lets just be sensible about it. I’ll carry forward a “true” warranty on a pickup for 12 months after the initial purchase, regardless of who is contacting me in regards to any issue.

However, I will need to know who the initial customer was. Even if it’s just their name and a rough date of purchase.

This goes for technical support too – I’ve no problems offering support on Axesrus products, regardless of “time since purchase”, but I will ask for some proof that they are in fact, Axesrus products.

Modifications to second hand parts, will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis too.

Changes in specification/tolerances
Over the years, we’ve had a few “interesting” conversations regarding pickup specifications, especially when it comes to returns and warranty.

The published specs of our pickups, are published with a “within tolerance” subtext, based off of the readings from our testing equipment.

There will, always, be variation between one pickup and the next, and whilst we endeavor to keep those readings within the tolerances stated, they do occasionally wander outside of the 10% we stipulate as “acceptable” – this is usually due to temperature fluctuation, or specification changes outside of our control (wire diameter, alloy composition etc.) – any resulting change in readings based on these factors, will result in an updated technical spec on the website, but, as you can imagine, the first we know about an unforeseen spec change, is when the pickups come off the winder.

We do not consider these “out of spec” accidents to be cause for a warranty claim I’m afraid, and we endeavor to keep on top of them so the information we’re giving you at point of purchase, is as accurate as possible.

Warranty postage
Repairs or replacement postage cost, outside of an initial 14 day period, is at your cost. I appreciate, in some situations, that this is prohibitive (especially when shipping outside of the UK).