How Exactly Are Rail Humbucker Made?

[NinjaTaiken]

Two very thin coils with rails on them and no or one big spacer on the bottom?

Anyone got some instructions or a diagram of a single coil sized humbucker?

Plus, where do I get the materials? the rails and whatever that is?

[marksound]

Stewart MacDonald

[NinjaTaiken]

Stewmac has nor instructions nor materials for single sized humbuckers.

Edited December 16, 2005 by NinjaTaiken

[Mattia]

I've never seen anyone 'do' single coil sized, parallel coil (two next to each other) blade type buckers. I'd guess it's possible, and the basic concept would be similar. There was a discussion not long ago on the MIMF where a few people said they'd made stacked buckers (coils over each other) that worked.

[NinjaTaiken]

I've never seen anyone 'do' single coil sized, parallel coil (two next to each other) blade type buckers. I'd guess it's possible, and the basic concept would be similar. There was a discussion not long ago on the MIMF where a few people said they'd made stacked buckers (coils over each other) that worked.

←

Yeah, but I'm don't want minibuckers, I want single coil size humbuckers, Seymour Duncan style. Can't find any schematics anywhere ):.

[Samba Pa Ti]

its exactely the same as a humbucker with 4 conductor wiring (for splitting)

just make 2 rails wind em fit them into a single coil (homemade) shell and wire as a humbucker (end of one rail winding joined to the start of the other)

[Mattia]

I've never seen anyone 'do' single coil sized, parallel coil (two next to each other) blade type buckers. I'd guess it's possible, and the basic concept would be similar. There was a discussion not long ago on the MIMF where a few people said they'd made stacked buckers (coils over each other) that worked.

←

Yeah, but I'm don't want minibuckers, I want single coil size humbuckers, Seymour Duncan style. Can't find any schematics anywhere ):.

←

Stacked would be single coil. Standard dimension coils, just one on top of the other. You don't get the 'two blade' look, but it is humbucking.

And nope, no schematics. Pickup schematics are rare beasts anyway; only the most common ones are out there (strat, tele, humbucker, P-90, P-bass, Jazz Bass) and easy to find.

[NinjaTaiken]

I've never seen anyone 'do' single coil sized, parallel coil (two next to each other) blade type buckers. I'd guess it's possible, and the basic concept would be similar. There was a discussion not long ago on the MIMF where a few people said they'd made stacked buckers (coils over each other) that worked.

←

Yeah, but I'm don't want minibuckers, I want single coil size humbuckers, Seymour Duncan style. Can't find any schematics anywhere ):.

←

So, instead of polepieces you got rails inside the bobbin?

And very thin bobbins?

[NinjaTaiken]

I've never seen anyone 'do' single coil sized, parallel coil (two next to each other) blade type buckers. I'd guess it's possible, and the basic concept would be similar. There was a discussion not long ago on the MIMF where a few people said they'd made stacked buckers (coils over each other) that worked.

←

Yeah, but I'm don't want minibuckers, I want single coil size humbuckers, Seymour Duncan style. Can't find any schematics anywhere ):.

←

Stacked would be single coil. Standard dimension coils, just one on top of the other. You don't get the 'two blade' look, but it is humbucking.

And nope, no schematics. Pickup schematics are rare beasts anyway; only the most common ones are out there (strat, tele, humbucker, P-90, P-bass, Jazz Bass) and easy to find.

←

Yes, I know, but I'm still looking for information about railbuckers.

Anyway, about the stacked ones, it would be taller unless its smaller bobbins, right?

[Samba Pa Ti]

the rails are the pole pieces its just a piece of metal with a magent behind hit and you can use magnets if you want they are just hard to shape. thats why rails/pole pieces/screws are used to carry the magnetic field

maybe ebaying a cheap rail bucker and taking it to bits :O would be a good idea

Edited December 17, 2005 by Samba Pa Ti

[NinjaTaiken]

the rails are the pole pieces its just a piece of metal with a magent behind hit and you can use magnets if you want they are just hard to shape. thats why rails/pole pieces/screws are used to carry the magnetic field

maybe ebaying a cheap rail bucker and taking it to bits :O would be a good idea

←

So it's like a normal humbucker, bar magnet and all, but instead of polepieces you got a barpiece with a blade looking thingie on top? So technically, I could make single coil sized pickups with normal polepieces, only they'd be too big...

Meh, screw it.

[Samba Pa Ti]

yes afaik its just 2 bits of steel with a bar magnet in between (so each side makes it a different polarity) simple enough to make the only hard bit is soldering the coils together (end of one to the start of the next)

[crafty]

This really shouldn't be that difficult, as far as pickup-building goes.

Buy some pieces of Forbon from Stew-Mac like you would use for single-coil pickups. Get a piece of steel and cut, grind, and shape it into two blades for your coils.

Cut out six pieces of Forbon. As diagrammed in my rough exploded illustration, build two coil forms with the blades and two pieces of Forbon each. Wind the coils opposite each other. Connect the two coils together at the top and bottom with the Forbon and place the magnet between the two blades. The magnet will be held in place by the blades, but I'd still pot the whole thing with wax to make sure it stays put. Wire the coils up like a humbucker and voila, instant mini-blade 'bucker.

Edited December 18, 2005 by crafty

[Samba Pa Ti]

yes thats what i was thinking

this will be usefull

http://europa.spaceports.com/~fishbake/buck/humbuck2.htm

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/3900/bladehb2hn.jpg

[NinjaTaiken]

Shouldn't there be a core? Like in normal humbucker bobbins?

or maybe I could just make a bobbin with walls, stick in the blades and fill it with wax or epoxy or whatever to use as a core?

[Samba Pa Ti]

the blades/rails are the core

Edited December 18, 2005 by Samba Pa Ti

[NinjaTaiken]

So I wind the wire around the blade? wouldn't it make the coil shape a bit wierd? Or maybe it would just contribute size-wise?

Winding square like that oughta make the wire a bit more susceptible to breakge right?

[Samba Pa Ti]

tape the corners shouldnt break then

[GregP]

To get high-output performance, single-coil-sized humbuckers are typically wound with very fine wire. A machine has the consistency and precision to do it, but I'm not sure about doing it by hand.

Of course, you can either:

a ) give it a try, you have nothing to lose!

b ) use 'normal'-sized wire but just expect different output levels and sound in advance. You might be pleasantly surprised!

To a previous question, though, yes you can use normal polepieces. Lots of SC-sized humbuckers, like the Seymour Duncan "Little '59" do this.

Greg

[NinjaTaiken]

To get high-output performance, single-coil-sized humbuckers are typically wound with very fine wire.  A machine has the consistency and precision to do it, but I'm not sure about doing it by hand.

Of course, you can either:

a ) give it a try, you have nothing to lose!

b ) use 'normal'-sized wire but just expect different output levels and sound in advance.  You might be pleasantly surprised!

To a previous question, though, yes you can use normal polepieces.  Lots of SC-sized humbuckers, like the Seymour Duncan "Little '59" do this.

Greg

←

Yeah, I figured because it's a helluva thin coil I need more winds. The resistance should still be pretty low shouldn't it? How much res do I need typically?

Plus, how thin of a wire? Could 44AWG do? Uh, 44 is thinner than 42 right? It's backwards isnt it? 41 is thick?

[Mattia]

Yeah, I figured because it's a helluva thin coil I need more winds. The resistance should still be pretty low shouldn't it? How much res do I need typically?

Plus, how thin of a wire? Could 44AWG do? Uh, 44 is thinner than 42 right? It's backwards isnt it? 41 is thick?

←

No clue on the resistances, but I'd guess you'd want the same kind of figures as you get from a regular humbucker (what, 4-7k per coil? I'm sort of guessing here..).

And yes, higher gauge = thinner wire. But 41 still isn't 'thick' by any traditional meaning of that word ;-)

[NinjaTaiken]

Yeah, I figured because it's a helluva thin coil I need more winds. The resistance should still be pretty low shouldn't it? How much res do I need typically?

Plus, how thin of a wire? Could 44AWG do? Uh, 44 is thinner than 42 right? It's backwards isnt it? 41 is thick?

←

No clue on the resistances, but I'd guess you'd want the same kind of figures as you get from a regular humbucker (what, 4-7k per coil? I'm sort of guessing here..).

And yes, higher gauge = thinner wire. But 41 still isn't 'thick' by any traditional meaning of that word ;-)

←

Thicker, that is. (:

The resistance is 11.78k bridge position and 9.86k for neck position. So how much resistance would I get for 2000 winds per coil with 44 gauge?

Where exactly does the magnet go again? Is it the big orange thing in the schematic?

Edited December 19, 2005 by NinjaTaiken

[Samba Pa Ti]

yes thats it i have no clue on the resistance only way is to guess it untill you have half of the number you are after then do another the same amount of turns

[Mattia]

Magnets go under the whole lot. Look at a diagram for a humbucker (StewMacs) and ignore the fact it's twice as wide as you're shooting for.

[crafty]

Yeah, I should've labeled that picture

The big orange block is the magnet. You'll have to make the blades tall enough to stick through the four layers of Forbon, plus enough to hold the magnet in place on the bottom.

You can probably get away with using 43 AWG wire like on a Tele neck pickup. Keep in mind that single-coil sized 'bucker bobbins are TALLER than standard bobbins, so you should be able to put enough wire on 'em to get a fairly good resistance on both coils.

For 12k resistance, wind both coils to 6k resistance--probably about 5000-7000 winds.