Any pickup winders on here - I'm in too!

[rogb]

Giving amp building a rest for awhile, just tweaking and playing, likewise guitar assembly and finishing, guitars coming out of every closet

I thought I would turn my attention to pickup winding. Now I have bougha few booteek pickups recently, and for some magnets and wire, they are very expensive indeed.

So with some inspiration from TDPRI forum, where there are quite a few winders, I built a winder, ordered some parts from StewMac and set about it.

One thing I learned - overwinding is a great temptation and will not always produce the best sound.

A great help in getting the Gauss reading from magnets is the Spin Doctor Gauss Meter, made right in the USA. You can read each pole precisely, which is really useful.

My favourite pup so far is the #1 I wound! Tele bridge, A5 rods, 42AWG, 8.34K, 4.14 Henries, wax potted. In my alder/maple G bender, it does it all and rocks out well too
I have just ordered a load more parts from Mojotone, StewMac and MWS wire cos this is seriously addictive.

[cbass]

Cool nice setup!

[Structo]

Looks like fun!

When are you guys going to start making your own strings?

[KellyBass]

Great job on the winder! Very cool!

My teenage son has been winding strat style single coils for a couple of months now. Interesting results on a few. When he first started out (i let him make his own mistakes) he WAY underwound a few. The resulting output was quite low...in the 4.6k to 5.2k range. The tone of the guitar changed quite a lot...and not in a bad way. Also, my express style amp suddenly became much more pedal friendly! Interesting. I hope to explore this some more.

[summitcity]

I have wound a few pickups. I built my winder from an ovule drill. I made a speed controller and digital counter from kits. It works well. I have an ould fender lead I'm thinking about making a new pick guard and winding a couple hot single coils for it. If I find some time. Your stuff looks nice. I use a potpourri crock to wax. I haven't done any single coils yet just humbuckers and I have repaired a fe pickups for friends.

[rogb]

Thanks for the replies guys, good to hear what others are up to.
Here is a shot of the Spin Doctor in action. That is the reading from my #2 Tele bridge, A3, 9.9K, 43AWG - kind of a take on a Broadcaster, bright, punchy with plenty of twang. Similar values to my favourite boutique pickup.

With regards to "hot" winds for single coils, all I can say is I have mostly stripped them back and started again. There seems to be a critical point where you lose the guitar/amp character in the quest for output.
My favourite boutique Tele neck measures 6.6K, 1.72 Henries with 1,000 Gauss A5s. Low output but sounds stellar in a swamp ash/maple Tele. A lot of guitar character comes through. Maybe just a point to bear in mind

[Paultergeist]

Giving amp building a rest for awhile, just tweaking and playing, likewise guitar assembly and finishing, guitars coming out of every closet....

Along similar lines, I have (5) self-built tube amps at home......but I am mostly playing nylon-string acoustic guitars these days. I really enjoy the amp-building, but I am just not *using* these amps in a real-worl playing capacity. I was thinking about swtiching over to building my own effects 'cause at least it would be cheaper and they take up a lot less space......

I built a winder, ordered some parts from StewMac and set about it.

Wow. I think that is very impressive. I had always assumed that mechanical pick-up winders would be very expensive and too complex for most DIY-ers. I think it is really cool that you built your own winder!

Will you be posting any sound-clips of the final pick-up designs?

[rogb]

Giving amp building a rest for awhile, just tweaking and playing, likewise guitar assembly and finishing, guitars coming out of every closet....

Along similar lines, I have (5) self-built tube amps at home......but I am mostly playing nylon-string acoustic guitars these days. I really enjoy the amp-building, but I am just not *using* these amps in a real-worl playing capacity. I was thinking about swtiching over to building my own effects 'cause at least it would be cheaper and they take up a lot less space......

I built a winder, ordered some parts from StewMac and set about it.

Wow. I think that is very impressive. I had always assumed that mechanical pick-up winders would be very expensive and too complex for most DIY-ers. I think it is really cool that you built your own winder!

Will you be posting any sound-clips of the final pick-up designs?

Good to hear from you, yeah I am going to unload some of my 5 builds too. First will be my 5w Dumble/SE 86 Special as designed by Mat on here and further modded by me, then my AB763 Deluxe style with 2 separated channels
then the #102 50w "RF" combo.
The only amps I play all the time are my 2nd Gen 100w Dumble style and 50w JCM800 clone - cover ALL the bases with these
If you want to build a winder I can put up a detailed thread on here, it's really easy and I can tell you all the parts, not that there's many

As for clips, my feeling is that they are generally a waste of time, they either put you off if they are recorded badly or lead you up the wrong path as to voicing. How a pickup sounds from one guitar to another will be so very different. I pay little attention to the clips on pickup builders websites, I'm afraid

[dorrisant]

I've been buried in pickup winding here lately... Glad to see kindred spirits!
I bought a winder from a guy here in the US... also bought a pair of the Gauss meters you are using. I love seeing the look on people's faces when they ask what pickups are they playing...

Tony

[rogb]

I've been buried in pickup winding here lately... Glad to see kindred spirits!
I bought a winder from a guy here in the US... also bought a pair of the Gauss meters you are using. I love seeing the look on people's faces when they ask what pickups are they playing...

Tony

I have been using my G bender Tele as a mule and every time I play it out with my very first wind in, I get asked about how I get such a great sound! Pure accident is the answer, but as everything is measured I am able to duplicate it within reason

[Paultergeist]

rogb,

Thank you for the kind reply. You are probably right about the sound-clip thing; it rarely sounds the same by the time one is hearing a recording posted over the internet.

We have some similarities in our resepctive amp stables:

Me:

22W Dumble clone built from a Brown Note kit. Great-sounding circuit (terrible company, but that's another story).

18W Marshall deriviative -- the one with the TMB tone stack. GDS output iron, SoZos, Celestian speaker, pretty much a parts build.

AB763 Fender black-face circuit. 2 x 10 Webers. Cabinet and chassis from a Weber kit, but everything else was more boutique. All the iron is Mercury -- I don't know how much of a difference the Mercury iron might have made, but it sounds nice (also expensive). My heaviest combo, and -- not coincidentally -- the least played.

5F2A (Fender tweed "Champ") 1 x 12. I went really compact on this, with a solid pine cabinet and an alnico speaker (light weight). The lightest combo I own, and also the most played. I guess I am just lazy about lugging around heavy amps. Another parts build.

And now a Rocket-inspired build.......I have a disease.......

Thanks also for the kind offer to provide some guidance regarding the pick-up winding. Maybe once I have the current project finalized and dialed-in....and the *bug* starts biting me again.......heh heh heh....

Cheers!

[Zippy]

Nice to see this action going on. I was rewinding pickups in Texas in the mid '70s while an undergrad in EE at UT. You guys are making some really nice winding rigs. That gauss meter is way cool.

Two comments:

Don't get too hung up in making the prettiest layers of windings imaginable - a little scatter can be your friend.

If you want to experiment with overwind, it's simple enough (that doesn't always mean "easy" ) to take a tap off to one side, so you can compare the effect of the overwind with your reference formula on the same pickup, with the same magnets, in the exact same position with regard to pickup height.

OK, three comments... Don't forget that pickup height is also a variable when adjusting magnet strength and number of windings.

Enjoy! And thanks again for sharing this news. It's got some old juices flowing, even tho' I know better than to get back into this diversion.

[rogb]

Thank you all so much for chiming in! Great to hear all your different experiences.

As to the AB763, mine is Mercury too. It really does sound (and feel good).
But really my favourite BY FAR is the 2nd Gen Hybrid 100w and Thiele cab. It is everything I need in an amp and I am so grateful to TAG for being able to build it. I have got my G Major set up finally now that my huge pedal board and JCM800 can almost be left behind for doing Hendrix/Floyd tunes. (Univibe/delay/verb)

[dorrisant]

I've been buried in pickup winding here lately... Glad to see kindred spirits!
I bought a winder from a guy here in the US... also bought a pair of the Gauss meters you are using. I love seeing the look on people's faces when they ask what pickups are they playing...

Tony

[Winder]

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