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Comment by Eric Townsend on August 24, 2011 at 2:50pm

Go for it man, what's the worst that could happen...just don't fill the bobbin to bursting..maybe just try the 'stop and check' method I used...

I built a very effective winder from my drill and a grinder disk bit fitted with a stiff smooth disk I made -- got it so it was centered and didn't' wobble when spinning -- got that thing spinnin' fast !! -- I tried to keep count by general guessing as I ramped up the tempo of 10, 20, 30, 40...100...etc...but it was cranking so fast I gave up counting and just focussed on keeping the wire in the bobbin...

 

I'm guessing 5,000 winds? since I'd made an educated guess between a P-90 and a Strat coil when measuring and building the bobbin for the 3-string size, I finally just thought  ' I'll fill the bobbin to a point, stop, carefully sand away a little enamel, check the ohms with a multimeter, varnish the wire and continue winding...

 I first measured about 5 ohms...should've stopped there...but I was shooting for 6.2 for this first one as a base tester...I luckily hit 6.2 right as the bobbin filled to max...(I even snapped teh wire when first testing , but read that you can carefully splice the wire together and keep ging..I actually got a tiny bit of solder melted and dragged the splice through the solder so coudl barely see the splice...I shot the splice with spray varnish and kept going...seems to have worked just fine!

 

For counting real numbers:  If you have 45 bucks laying around, they sell killer digital pulse readers at some electronics stores -- you'd just put a piece of white tape on your pkup winding disk, then mount and set up the digital-laser reader to point at the tape as it passes when winding...it counts each pass of the tape or mark.  genius...but I don't have the cash for the counter so that'll have to be a luxury at some point.

 

I'd found a nice half done 4-pound roll from a surplus yard...charged me 12 bucks for 2 pounds!  Most rolls were beat to heck, torn and gouged or of heavier gauge -- old stuff from like 1963 to 1985 -- but I finally climbed a giant dark dangerous shelve in the warehouse and I found one clean left-over roll of 42awg enamel coated... so maybe check out any metal/electrical surplus yards near you. might be worth it.

Comment by Mike Willmouth on August 24, 2011 at 2:09pm

It looks really good.  How do you know how many turns of wire you need?  I have thought about building my own pickup, but I just don't enough about the amount of winding that would be needed for a 3 or 4 string pickup.