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Permalink Reply by Wade on July 29, 2014 at 6:46pm

Lots of great help here. I would also check the height of the pickup. Not sure exact specs but I would guess the pickup should be a 16th of an inch under string when fretting the highest frets would be a good place to start.

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Permalink Reply by Richey Kay on July 29, 2014 at 6:50pm

Agreed, the action does look mega high for a fretted build. Once you get your pickup sorted if would be a good idea to lower the bridge a tad.

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on July 29, 2014 at 8:58pm

Lowering the bridge won't help..the basic design set out in the instructions is really poor - the neck doesn't go through as a neckstick and the heel end of the neck is shown as being simply butted and screwed to the end of the box with a woodscrew into the endgrain, so it's bound to just pull up under string tension. It's a real shame, but there's so much wrong with the instructions. I wished I'd managed to do the article for Makezine, and I'd assumed they'd get a competent reputable builder to do this instead of me...but unfortunately it looks riddled with stuff that's bound to cause problems for the rookie builder.

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Permalink Reply by Richey Kay on July 29, 2014 at 9:39pm

Wow, just saw the neck attachment bit. Ouch!

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on July 29, 2014 at 11:29pm

While there are some good insightful answers here, there is also a couple of good wild goose chases.
There is nothing wrong with your circuit, as you correctly surmised from the beginning. Although the way the writer had you wire the volume control is different from how most do them there is nothing wrong with it, and you do indeed appear to have it working.

That's the good news.
The bad news is that chicken bone John is correct, your coil is seriously underwound. This can be combated with stronger magnets and/or by moving its magnetic field closer to the strings.
Experiment .... Raise the pickup until it is very close to the strings. You can do this (at least temporarily) without physically moving it by just snapping something steel onto top of those screw pole pieces there, the magnet will secure it on there nicely (try a nail).. If this immediately makes the signal hotter then I'd say open it up, stick another magnet the same on bottom of each pole, doubling the inductance, raise the coil as best you can and call your problem solved. :)

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Permalink Reply by John Sawyer on August 1, 2014 at 9:51pm

I've partially wound a couple of pups for testing purposes and then decided it wasn't worth the effort...  It's a cool thing to do, but a ton of setup work.

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Permalink Reply by ReturnToSender on August 6, 2014 at 1:25am

I thought the same thing until I decided to go ultra simple. I clamp my hand drill to an end table. I chuck the center pickup screw in the drill. Set the spool of wire on the floor so that it spools off the end and wrap it a few times by hand around the bobbin, then slowly tighten another clamp around the drill trigger so that it picks up speed, using my other hand to guide and tension the wire. I get that thing cranking and wrap 42AWG wire to 7-10K in less than 20 minutes. You could substitute a friend to run the drill and eliminate the clamps, which would simplify setup even further, though a second shop stool and a beer would then be required.

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Permalink Reply by JL on August 6, 2014 at 1:33am

ReturnToSender...I do the same thing to refill my weekwacker spool, LOL

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Permalink Reply by Rob (Uker) Porras on August 4, 2014 at 8:20am

I've never wound a pick up before, so maybe this is a silly question. How does the strength of the magnet factor into the output of the pick up?

It looks like you used screws for magnets. How did you magnetize them?

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 4, 2014 at 9:45am

Check the Make Magazine link above; she attached 4 Nd round magnets to the back of the screws. Her pup output is weak, due to 1) 22 AWG wire; normal mag pups use 42 AWG (larger number equals smaller diameter), 2) only 40 ft of 22 AWG, resulting in maybe 100-200 wraps, where normal mag pups have anywhere from 2000 to 8000 or more wraps, and 3) relatively small circular Nd magnets. All of these combined result in weak output. Smaller diameter wire and substantially increased numbers of wraps could mitigate this behavior.

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Permalink Reply by ReturnToSender on August 6, 2014 at 1:57am

In my limited experience, the stronger the magnet, the "sharper" the output. Weak magnets seem to have a warmer, more mellow tone, while the rare earth magnets have a very strong attack, crunchier, more punchy sound. The magnetism also affects the strings, so too strong a magnet too close to the stings will cause problems, but too weak a magnet too far from the strings will have a weak output. I usually just stick the magnets on the bottom of the screws. Lately I've been breaking up hard drive magnets and sticking on the little pieces, if you get the polarity right, they work just fine.

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Permalink Reply by Amanda Potter on August 9, 2014 at 11:45am

Hey everyone. Thank you for the great responses and suggestions. I finally got a chance to get back to work on this guitar, so I wanted to share a follow up. 

I tried using some larger/stronger magnets (.47 in neogymium discs) on the bottoms of the posts and held the strings really really close to the pick-up when testing. I tried putting a metal screw across the top to bring the string closer (what I had on hand), but the pull of the magnets wasn't sufficient to hold it there.

On the pick-up with the heavier gauge wire (22), I managed to get a very faint sound with everything turned way, way up on the amp. On the pick-up with 42 gauge wire, I got a slightly stronger sound, but only when I literally touched the pick-up to the strings (I was holding it, so maybe not being mounted makes it weaker?). 

So yay! Sound! Kinda.

I've got the magnets lined up and alternating which polarity is pointing up (i.e. + - + -). Is that going to cause  problem? I tried getting all 4 polarities pointing in the same direction, but then the magnets just shove each other away, which obviously isn't going to work out.

Since I'm still not happy with the volume, I'm going to try re-winding the pick-up one more time with the finer gauge wire and a lot more of it. I was wondering which of the pick-up "frames" I've built (below) might be better. The biggest difference (I think) is how far apart the posts are. Any thoughts?

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