Phil Mailloux Posted December 27, 2004 Report Share Posted December 27, 2004 Here's my pickup winder, why pay 350$ for a stewmac winder when you can do the same with spare pieces The small lacquer roller with a wire bobbin stuffed in it is called a "wire feeder" Here's a picture of the winder at work. and here's a picture of my homemade MusicMan bass humbucker made with it. Any comments? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizard_King Posted December 27, 2004 Report Share Posted December 27, 2004 Doesn't look bad at all. I'm thinking of making one myself. Where did you come across those big slugs? Know of any website that sells magnets for pickups? Nice job by the way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle Cavanaugh Posted December 27, 2004 Report Share Posted December 27, 2004 Is that a fishing rod you used?!?!?! Makes perfect sense! I'm currently using an old sewing machine, some plywood, and Jason Lawlor's "Complete Guide to Building Your Own Pickup Winder" to build a winder. I'm also going to build a 4-digit decade counter triggered by a magnetic reed switch and have a magnet attached the thing holding the bobbin on so it can count how many winds I've made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizard_King Posted December 27, 2004 Report Share Posted December 27, 2004 I thought it looked like an old hand drill, maybe I'm wrong though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Mailloux Posted December 27, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 27, 2004 It's a hand drill. I also have Jason's book but i'm too lazy to go fishing around for parts for the rewinder. This was simpler and does the same job, all with parts lying around the house. The magnets are alnico5 rods of 9mm (3/8") diameter, I got them through www.Intemag.com, I sent them an e-mail to buy magnets from them and they sent me back the e-mail of their distributor here in the Netherlands, pretty cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Mailloux Posted December 27, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 27, 2004 I'm also going to build a 4-digit decade counter triggered by a magnetic reed switch and have a magnet attached the thing holding the bobbin on so it can count how many winds I've made. I looked into finding a counter for winding purposes but had a really hard time finding one so I decided to wind to resistance. I knew I wanted a resistance of 10K for the humbucker so I wound each coil to 5K. I just went at it for a while with the first coil. Everytime I turned the handle of the drill 100 times I would make a mark on a piece of paper. With one turn of the drill handle, the nose turned somewhere between 3.8 to 4.2 turns. I made 1400 turns of the handle (about 6000 turns on the coil)on the first coil when I decided that should be enough. The coil ended up with 6.71K. So I made a calculation to see about how many turns i'd need to end up with 5K on the second coil and wound about 1000 turns of the handle. Also, towards the end of the last coil I stopped once in a while and sanded a bit of the wire magnet to take off the poly and checked the resistance of the coil with a multimeter by putting one tip of the multimeter on the beginning wire of the coil and the other tip on the piece of wire that was stripped of the insulation. After doing that I sprayed lacquer on the wire to give it a new coat of insulation as recommended in Jason's book and went on with winding. That coil ended with 5K. I then de-wound the first coil by using this. Again, I looked for spare parts in the house and took a roll of tape that I taped on my drill's sanding attachment with double-sided tape. I taped the bobbin on my lacquer roller to the side of the wire bobbin with double-sided tape too. I unwound maybe 400-500 turns of the handle in less than 5 minutes. The wire would break once in a while because of the speed I went but it was a matter of only taping the wire on it again and going on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigdguitars Posted December 27, 2004 Report Share Posted December 27, 2004 just make sure you stand up every couple of mins so your back does not lockup... I unwound a couple of pickups like that once and I hurt for days.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Sorbera Posted December 27, 2004 Report Share Posted December 27, 2004 that looks like fun. Do yall know where I might find some info on how to build a pickup to get a specific sound(ie how to wind for bright or vintage or modern or whatever!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvertonessuckbutigotone Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 (edited) you can build an easy counter with a calculator. This is from john fishers website. Open up the calculator and find where the equals button would press, the solder two wires to it and connect that to a reed switch neer the bobbin holder, and then put a magnet on the bobbin holder. Edited December 30, 2004 by silvertonessuckbutigotone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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