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Permalink Reply by JUJU on May 27, 2012 at 2:10am

cool i like the design apart from the spool of wire been on the bracket - if you were to try and do that with pickup wire it would snap under the weight of the spool of wire - when i wind pickups i have the spool of wire sat on the floor on it's end the wire will just uncoil itself off the spool as you wind the wire on the pickup bobbin - there is no need for the spool of copper wire to turn - i also have one of them little mechanical counters on my winder but there pretty hard to get hold of !

juju :)

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on May 27, 2012 at 2:25am

Exactly right re the spool...I made my first counter from a speedometer on a exercise bike and my second from a $1 eBay pedometer..

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Permalink Reply by Brian Hunt on May 27, 2012 at 8:25am

Yeah, this design is not specifically for guitar pickups, but was intended for things like radio coils. However, there are some pretty good ideas here that I thought could go towards designing a guitar pickup winder.

My own winder uses a wooden box design with two brass bearings for the shaft with two circular disks to mount pickup cores and I use a very large o-ring for the belt drive. I use a harbor freight router speed control to adjust how fast the winder turns rather than a pedal from a sewing machine. My counter is a modified digital pedometer from Walmart with a magnetic reed switch stolen from a cheep window sash burglar alarm. I maintain tension by hand with my fingers. But I thought this might help someone dream up something for themselves and the banjo article in this issue is very good, including a form to make your own wooden banjo rings.

all the best.

Brian Hunt.

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on May 27, 2012 at 10:39am

Good find! This would be a good start on a pickup winder, with some modifications as others have noted. I made my own pulley (larger than the one shown) to get it to the right turning speed.

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