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Making pickups

In the rather fine website instructables.com there are some instructions on how to make pickups.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-A-Guitar-Pickup/

It's got this clever bit where they use a sewing machine to wind the wire round. I have never made a pickup before and I'm wondering if there is anyone who has used a method similar to this one and can advise me on its feasibility. Or if there is anyone who knows lots about pickups who could tell me whether this method is any good or not.

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Permalink Reply by Shelley on May 28, 2009 at 3:06pm

I love instructables! Thanks for this...i'm soooo making one!

Permalink Reply by Fergus Morris on May 29, 2009 at 1:13am

Shelley said:

I love instructables! Thanks for this...i'm soooo making one!

It's really clever isn't it! I was just wondering if anyone knows how well it actually works. I definitely want to try it some time i the future.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Lawton on May 29, 2009 at 2:36am

Yep - that's a pretty good example of one way to make a pickup, and probably quite easy for a beginner to follow.
I'm not too sure about using a sewing machine as a winder. Some people even use an electric drill, but I think that is far too fast ! You are using very fine wire - 22 guage - and it will easily break if you ae not very carefull. I use an old record player which, running at 33 or 45 r.p.m., is nice and slow and gentle on the wire. Easy to control the feed from the spool the wire comes on to your pickup.
They also mentioned about 'potting' the pickup coils in wax after making it. What I do instead, an old idea way back from my amateur radio days of making radio tuning coils, is to pause after each layer of coil winding and paint over with some clear paint/lacquer/varnish. The idea is to hold all the turns in place so they do not become 'microphonic'.
Like the article says, ai to fill the bobbins with turns of wire. I usually reckon on getting some where around 5000 turns on a pickup, but anything between 3000 and 8000 will work but sound a bit different.
The easiest thing to test a pickup with, before you fir it into a guitar, is to use a tuning fork.

Permalink Reply by Fergus Morris on May 29, 2009 at 3:16am

I think using record player is a great idea, though I suppose I could turn the sewing machine speed down (they can go really slow) or use an old hand driven one. Thank you so much for your extremly useful advice! What sound differences do you get for having more winds, is it like more winds makes it bassier or what?
Thanks

Kevin Lawton said:

Yep - that's a pretty good example of one way to make a pickup, and probably quite easy for a beginner to follow.
I'm not too sure about using a sewing machine as a winder. Some people even use an electric drill, but I think that is far too fast ! You are using very fine wire - 22 guage - and it will easily break if you ae not very carefull. I use an old record player which, running at 33 or 45 r.p.m., is nice and slow and gentle on the wire. Easy to control the feed from the spool the wire comes on to your pickup.
They also mentioned about 'potting' the pickup coils in wax after making it. What I do instead, an old idea way back from my amateur radio days of making radio tuning coils, is to pause after each layer of coil winding and paint over with some clear paint/lacquer/varnish. The idea is to hold all the turns in place so they do not become 'microphonic'.
Like the article says, ai to fill the bobbins with turns of wire. I usually reckon on getting some where around 5000 turns on a pickup, but anything between 3000 and 8000 will work but sound a bit different.
The easiest thing to test a pickup with, before you fir it into a guitar, is to use a tuning fork.

Permalink Reply by Steve Becker on June 15, 2009 at 9:23am

I just got done making my first pickup. You can see the pics of it in the photo section. I ordered three 3/16" x 3/4" neodymium magnets from K&J Magnetics online, and got some magnet wire from Radioshack. It's 30 guage, but it does seem to work. I went to a flea market and found one of those old style hand crank drills, the kind with the geared wheel on the side. I mounted a sanding disk to it and clamped it in my bench vise. The cool thing is that there's a big metal washer recessed in the disk, so no foam tape is needed, the magnets hold it firmly in place! I used Kevin Lawton's idea of using varnish every 100 wraps to keep the coil from vibrating. I finished it off with a few wraps of teflon tape (the kind used for pipe threads) to protect the coil. I tested it by holding it up to my guitar, and it seems to work pretty good! Now I just have to figure out the best way to mount it in my CGB. I do think for my next build I will try to get 42AWG wire instead. I only got 700 wraps with the 30AWG.

Permalink Reply by Wade on June 27, 2009 at 4:05am

My first wound pickup made from 4 stacked craft store ceramic magnets, scrap wood, and recycled copper wire from a discarded printer.

Permalink Reply by Steve Becker on June 27, 2009 at 7:37am

Feels good making something useful from junk, doesn't it? How does it sound?

Wade said:

My first wound pickup made from 4 stacked craft store ceramic magnets, scrap wood, and recycled copper wire from a discarded printer.

Permalink Reply by Wade on June 27, 2009 at 11:22am

The wire was tough to get out and I ended up having to throw half the kinked and knotted coil away. I got about 750 winds on it. It sounds really nice and clean on my diddley bow, because of the low number of winds(I guess). I cranked up my amp to ten and the sound was still pretty much the same clean sound. Since I wasn't sure if I would get any sound, I'm proud of how it turned out .

Permalink Reply by JUJU on June 27, 2009 at 11:33am

Nice job Wade , it's very pleasing to make wind and then here your own pickup aint it , bet your gonna have to make some more now hey !
juju. :-)

Wade said:

The wire was tough to get out and I ended up having to throw half the kinked and knotted coil away. I got about 750 winds on it. It sounds really nice and clean on my diddley bow, because of the low number of winds(I guess). I cranked up my amp to ten and the sound was still pretty much the same clean sound. Since I wasn't sure if I would get any sound, I'm proud of how it turned out .

Permalink Reply by Wade on June 30, 2009 at 3:56pm

The entire process of building is exciting to me. I was never in the boy scouts, but I compare building cbg's to the anticipation a kid would have building and racing one of those little pine derby cars they used to make in scouts.

I have some more copper and an old sewing machine that I might try using as a winder. I want to make a 3 pole pickup next.

Permalink Reply by Mark on July 20, 2009 at 8:53am

I have some neodymium magnets, which I took out of an old broken hard disk drive. They seem very powerful and I'm wondering if they're actually too strong. I know you want enough field stength to give your pickups a reasonable output but I've read that if the pull of the magnet on the string is too strong you can have problems (choking?)

Steve Becker said:

I just got done making my first pickup. You can see the pics of it in the photo section. I ordered three 3/16" x 3/4" neodymium magnets from K&J Magnetics online, and got some magnet wire from Radioshack.

Permalink Reply by Wade on July 23, 2009 at 3:07am

What size are the magnets, Kevin?

Junk Box Instruments said:

I have some neodymium magnets, which I took out of an old broken hard disk drive. They seem very powerful and I'm wondering if they're actually too strong. I know you want enough field stength to give your pickups a reasonable output but I've read that if the pull of the magnet on the string is too strong you can have problems (choking?)

Steve Becker said:
I just got done making my first pickup. You can see the pics of it in the photo section. I ordered three 3/16" x 3/4" neodymium magnets from K&J Magnetics online, and got some magnet wire from Radioshack.