Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mel Ristau on February 24, 2014 at 6:32pm

Hey Skeesix, thanks for that. Most helpful. Any thoughts on placement of my pups? (as roughed out in my .pdf drawing) as well as the rating of tone & volume pots for this?

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on February 25, 2014 at 6:55am

If you put it near the neck, it will be bassier. If it's near the bridge, treblier. After you make the pickup, you can use alligator clips to hook it up to a jack, then amp it and hold it over the strings and strum to see what you prefer.

Typically, you would use single coil components, typically 250k pots and a .47 cap.

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Permalink Reply by Mel Ristau on February 26, 2014 at 9:31am

Thanks Skeesix  - I'm putting together my bobbin layout (found some .25 x 1" magnets) and wondering about a couple of dimensions. I have the .25" magnets on .5" centers which starts the inside winding at .25 x 1.25". (That's kind of a given for my fingers.)

Question is how much "lip" is needed on the bobbin for those 8000 windings? And is allowing .5" between inside faces of bobbin good or would .25 or .375 have some advantage. 

Attachments:

• bobbin.gif, 2 KB

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on February 27, 2014 at 7:10am

I would just copy whatever they do for a Strat or Tele pickup. Then wind it, hook it up to amp, and see if you like it. If not, adjust and make another one.

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on February 24, 2014 at 7:11am

it would be almost impossible to sand of a bit of the coating and make a reading mid-winding without breaking it.  Make a pickup that looks about right, and wind it til its full.  when you manage to get that far without breaking the coil, it'll work.

heres a few tips to minimise breakages:

1.  don't expect the big heavy spool of wire to turn on an axle, stand it on its end a few feet directly below your winding mechanism (e.g. on the floor) so that it comes off cleanly.

2 . the spools I work with will only play nicely standing on one of their ends, the other end gives me nothing but trouble.  The end which goes 'up' is the opposite end from the one where the coil was started, i.e. you can see the inside end if the coil, a tiny wire poking out in the inside of the spool, put this down, toward the floor.

3.  start slow.  I use a hacked sewing machine, at the start i used to jam a screwdriver into the end of the speed pedal, governing that pedal so i couldn't push it down much past half way.

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Permalink Reply by Mel Ristau on February 26, 2014 at 8:52am

Thanks to kid of the Anatolian kingdom. My wire should arrive by Friday. Will see how many times I break over the weekend.

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Permalink Reply by Richey Kay on February 26, 2014 at 9:09am

A more accurate measurement is how often you swear! Make sure the surfaces of the bobbin are perfectly smooth. The slightest burr can snag and break the wire.
Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on February 26, 2014 at 1:53pm

thats great advice. Some tape can help with this (around the bobbin, before winding, i.e. inside the coil), but wrap it tight, if it has movement in it, that can lead to microphonics, which is bad...

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Permalink Reply by Richey Kay on February 26, 2014 at 6:44pm

...oh yeah, and you'll also want to pot it in wax... not too difficult.

Hope we're not putting you off here!

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Permalink Reply by Bernie Mango on February 27, 2014 at 3:56pm

It depends on how "hot" you want your pickup--you'll hear that term come up. Hotter means more output. Some of the electric "shredders" like overwound pickups because they put out more (insert crude joke here).
The more windings--the hotter the pickup.

I used to love those high output pickups. In fact, I favored them for many years...until recently.
I went back to medium output humbuckers on my electrics, and ditched the gain machines.
The reason is--those high output pickups slam the amp's input and a bunch of the natural tone gets sucked out.
Medium and vintage output pickups let your amp do the work--and that's crucial. All of my sweet tube amps now sound a whole lot better due to the swaps.

Just go with what works best for you, as stated by others--there is no magic formula.

The less windings you have, the sweeter your amp will sound.

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Permalink Reply by Mel Ristau on February 27, 2014 at 4:08pm

Thanks to all. Very helpful to a nube.

I'll report back when #1 is finished.

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