silvertonessuckbutigotone Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 (edited) I am building a pickup at the moment and I'm just beginning it right now so I'm at the point where I'm ready to make some bobbins. My pickup is gonna be pink so its been kind of hard to find materials. The best stuff I could find was a pink plastic bowl. The plastic is VERY thin, I cut out tops for the bobbins out of the obttom of the bowl and sanded them to shape and smoothe and stuff, and it just hit me. What if the plastic is too thin for wax saturating/potting? My main question is how hot does the wax get durring potting? If I know that, then I can test it to see if it melts in that temperature. Another I dea I had was to use a different colored and thicker material for the actual bobbin and then adhering the pink plastic to that. So basically my questions are 1. How hot does wax get durring potting? 2. If it's too hot can I adhere the pink stuff to thicker material? How should I attach them? Edited December 30, 2004 by silvertonessuckbutigotone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannoG Posted January 1, 2005 Report Share Posted January 1, 2005 Potting wax should be about 140-145 degrees F. Any hotter and you have a major fire hazard. When you do your test leave the plastic in for a while. To have the wax penetrate well you need to have it sit in the wax for several minutes. I know that the serious PU builders leave them in for 10-15 minutes and use small vacuum to help displace the air in the coil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniboy Posted January 2, 2005 Report Share Posted January 2, 2005 i suggest getting actual bobbins and use a pink bobbing topper from brian calvert. its only $2 a pop. beats having a pickup imploding on you. my 0.02, dani Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle Cavanaugh Posted January 2, 2005 Report Share Posted January 2, 2005 (edited) Well, my technical school has a plastic injection molding machine and they have pink polyethylene,and that melts at about 400 degrees, it's probably what your bowl is made out of. However, I'd do what the other guy said and buy premade bobbins and put pink toppers on them. BTW, as for using a vacuum, it will allow for the wax to melt at a signifigantly lower temperature as well as making sure no air gaps are left. Air gaps allow for microphonics to happen. I've seen a vacuum chamber used to boil water, but when taken out, it was ice cold! I'm starting to wonder if I could make an enclosure where I can plug my shop vac on to it... The idea tickles my brain! Edited January 2, 2005 by Kyle Cavanaugh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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