Keeper Bar on PAF pick up

[elmagico]

Hi Everybody!
I am new here (first sorry about my english) and looking forward to start making pick ups and testing. I have tons of questions but first that pops in my mind is keeper bar on PAF-style humbucker pick up.

What kind of overall effect/difference have you noticed on keeper bar material compound etc. ,while playing or testing the PAF pick up sound/measurement?

Thanks

[gckelloch]

As I recall from relevant measurements I've seen, the Guass of PAF screws is a bit higher than the slugs, and the properties of the baseplate don't make much difference at all to the sound.

My guess is anything with lower permeability than the Steel of a standard keeper bar would just reduce the Gauss at the screw heads without having any other significant effect. I think the inductance of a slug core coil of equal winds, tension, and wire gauge would be higher due to the total mass of the Iron slugs vs the screws, so the contribution of the screw core coil to the output would just be lessened if the keeper bar permeability is lowered.

The pickup would likely just sound a bit more like a single-aperture pickup. Raising the screws could somewhat balance the output, but the tone from the screw coil should then contribute stronger higher harmonics. A piece of electrical tape between the standard Steel keeper and the magnet might accomplish the same thing. It should just sound a bit brighter/more detailed.