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Permalink Reply by South Paw,Davey on June 16, 2012 at 4:43am

Have a look in groups you will find what you need.

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Permalink Reply by bill on June 16, 2012 at 4:44am

will do thanks

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Permalink Reply by the anonymous pick on June 16, 2012 at 5:01am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQkRVgLDgho

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Permalink Reply by Brian Hunt on June 19, 2012 at 6:58pm

When you open them up, you will have two coil windings in there, one stacked on top of the other. After you have removed the steel core plates from the transformer you will have two coils stacked on top of each other. You will want to use the coil with the smaller diameter wire. You will need to cut the coil with the thicker wire away from the smaller coil without damaging the coil you plan to use. You will need to either put a magnet/magnets in the middle of the coil or you will need to put some iron or mild steel as a core with a magnet underneath the coil touching and thereby magnetizing the steel core.

I did two of these that I wired as one single coil for the recycled guitar contest. I used square stock for the steel cores and hard drive magnets. They have a really powerful sound that makes the hair stand up on my arms when I play this one.

Hope that helps.

Brian Hunt.

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Permalink Reply by the anonymous pick on June 19, 2012 at 7:57pm

hot dam  brian ,  that is a sweeeeeeet  guit !

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on June 19, 2012 at 9:29pm

yeah Brian, real nice..

but i regret i disagree with some of what you say..

you do not NEED TO remove the steel core plates, although they make the whole thing ,more bulky, it'll function just fine with those left on there, and you can in fact stick a magnet or two on the bottom and use that steel as your 'pole pieces' removing this steel is often a fiddly and slightly dangerous job, its real easy to get blood on it. its also tremendously frustrating, if you wanna experiment with your own capacity for patience so you may as well have a crack at winding imho..

similarly, you do not NEED TO cut off the secondary coil, you can for sure, but you can leave it there, wire it in series or para with the other, in or out of phase, or just leave it out of the circuit without cutting it off...

there are plenty of other places you can find nice coils Bill, if you ever blow up a sander or a drill, jig saw, hair clippers, many many devices of this nature have a big stinkin coil in em just waiting for someone to rock out on em, dont thow this stuff away, bust it open for a surprise

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Permalink Reply by Brian Hunt on June 19, 2012 at 9:56pm

Thanks for the compliments on the guitar guys. I really enjoy this particular guitar. I have it tuned to an open D and it is a lot of fun to play with or without a slide. I just wish I could play it as well as it deserves. There were some amazing builds in that 2011 contest. Every once and awhile I reread that one just for the number of great ideas found in it.

HI Phrygian Kid,

I really don't think we have a disagreement. You are correct, I just posted the way most people including myself seem to do this hack. Everything you posted will work as well though I would hate to try to mount a pickup that would be that tall. If I had left everything in place and just added magnets the pickups would have been sticking out of both the front and the back of that guitar. I also agree with you about some nice coils in unusual places and that you should always keep your eyes open to the possibilities. I currently have a couple of transformers out of some old microwaves I intend to turn into a welder sometime down the road.

all the best.

Brian.

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on June 19, 2012 at 10:04pm

yeah mate all good.  your guitar is really really nice btw..

im just putting it there so folks understand, you can spend a couple hours on it like you did for sure.  you can also have one working in a couple minutes if you choose :) 

some wall warts are much slimmer than others.  cell phone chargers for example work pretty good and can be quite slender.  you can also experiment with the orientation of the coil, it neednt necessarily orient like we are all used to seeing on a strat

ps can you link us the page youre talking about? im guessing it was some other forum ?

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Permalink Reply by Brian Hunt on June 19, 2012 at 10:23pm

Once again we are still in agreement. The sharing of information is one of the things I love about the cigar box guitar culture.

Since we are sharing information, I must add that one of the most disappointing thing about wall warts is when you open one up and there are no transformer coils, instead you have a bridge rectifier created with diodes, capacitors and resistors. I always throw those boards into an electronic parts box and hope to find a use for them down the road.

Thanks again for the compliment on the guitar. I need to get around to posting some videos so people can actually hear some of my builds. I am just a little gun shy about letting people see and hear my amateur chops. The learning curve for playing has been somewhat steep in my case despite regular practice.Though I quite enjoy building and playing guitars, cigar box or otherwise.

My next planned project is going to be a telecaster and then I want to start a classical guitar but first I need to finish up some resonator cigar box guitars I am in the middle of.

I hope what has been posted here helps others in their experiments for DIY pickups from found copper wound coils. I know it was quite exciting for me the first time I got a working pickup going from found parts. Right now I am waiting for some magnets to get here that I ordered from ebay so I can start experimenting with some DIY wound pickups I have some ideas for.

: )

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on June 19, 2012 at 10:40pm

please join my solid body club sir :)

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/group/solidbody-city?xg_source=activity

if you need any help with winding im at your service, ive done a few

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Permalink Reply by Brian Hunt on June 20, 2012 at 6:10am

Thanks. I will be happy to join your club and if I have any problems with the pickups I will shoot some questions your way.

Brian.

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Permalink Reply by bill on June 20, 2012 at 6:55am

Brian thanks for your info, and the righteous git pic.  as i said above i would love to see this post grow and grow with ideas, failed ideas or questions from other people.  i have had alot of fun over the past few days trying them all out, so much so i've started tearing apart a mixer a about 20 wal warts and taking a circular saw apart but thats becomig difficult.  lol

 

thanks again

bill

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