For those of you wanting to build a winder for making your own pickups, here is a nice design idea from 1962.
When I saw this, I knew I needed to share it.
Have fun.
Brian Hunt.
Full Magazine can be found here. The article starts on page #194. There is also a nice article on building a banjo on page #158.
Replies
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.
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.
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 :)