What's The Deal With The Lollar Book?

[cherokee6]

I've noticed a frenzy on ebay with Jason Lollar's pickup winding book. People are now stupid enough to pay $200 for it now. It was about $85 -$90 a few months ago. I can't believe so many people are selling it. I wonder if a few are bogus copies. I noticed one seller listing the book twice. On another git site, Jason was certainly concerned about copyright infringement by a guy who was selling cd copies, yet he's still unwilling to republish the book!! He cited that he would get a flood of emails when it was published and would take him a year for the emails to slow down to a trickle. He also gets a lot of emails as to whether he'll republish or not. I'm sorry, but I'm not paying $200 for it. It can't be worth that much. With my luck, I'd buy it to get what info I needed, put it back on ebay to recoup my investment and the market will have died!

[Sambo]

Maybe Mr Lollar is worried people will stop buying his pickups if they all start making their own?

S

[psw]

Lollar's book is rare and one of the few, if only, on it's subject...it wasn't that cheap when you could buy it really...but, yes, that is way too much...

The main part of the book concerns the building of his winder design. This uses a sewing machine motor to spin the bobbin, and a unique "transversing system" that pulls the wire from side to side, made with cams, push rods and powered by a separate oscillating fan motor and gear box. All very DIY!

Many people have made their own, there are a few threads on here and plenty of others if you want to do some research. A simple way to start is by using a drill or drill press for instance and guiding the wire by hand (what most people do anyway) for a simpler approach.

Check out this fantastic site showing a number of machines and other ways to deal with things like counters...http://designed2wind.alphalink.com.au/

Other stuff in the book have drawings of bobbins and their construction, potting, magnets and such. Most of this too can be found elsewhere.

The book is good though and his work pioneering in many ways. It depends on what you want to do as far as making pickups is concerned and how sophisticated you need to get to get the results you want.

A pickup is a pretty simple device. You have thousands of turns of very fine wire (finding supplies is harder than building the machine in many ways) on an odd shaped bobbin (not round, so the tension is constantly varying). So, you need something that runs very true that can turn the bobbin and a means to keep some tension on the wire and guide it...and something to count the number of winds.

If you seek out, you will find winders that are ridiculously basic made from sewing machine motors and hand fed that made all the classic early fender pickups....the original winder was still in use at G&L...so it can't be a bad approach.

Good luck, and avoid the book at this stage...at least at that price... pete

[Mr Alex]

It's all about supply and demand.

I seem to remember him saying in a mag somewhere that the market got flooded with sub standard pickups after he put the book out. And he got about 20 stupid questions for every copy he sold.

[cherokee6]

Yes, he got many many emails over it. He still does and as I mentioned gets lots of requests to republish, yet won't do it. I may have figured out a way to acquire a copy a lot cheaper. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for the links, I've looked at many and am designing my own winder. They're pretty simple and I've counters along with magnetic switches to go with it. Just need some uninterruped time to do it! If the book is mostly about the winder then I really don't need it. I do have a copy of Erno Zwaan's book : Animal Magnetism. The first half of which is about building pickups and the second half about building a bass. It's pretty good. Also the Kisekae site has alot of formulas for many mainstream pickups.

[rhoads56]

There is a new pickup winding book coming out soon, maybe six months. Save your money. Thats all i can tell you

[GodBlessTexas]

There is a new pickup winding book coming out soon, maybe six months. Save your money. Thats all i can tell you

Good to hear. Someone had a copy here, but I don't think I ever got a price out of them when they were looking to sell.

[SwedishLuthier]

The Lollar book is highly over rated. Use Stewmacs info instead. Their Hand held drill winder is much easier to make for your first pickups. Check out SKguitars for much more understanding about what makes a pickup sound like they do. That is something Lollar is only touching briefly in his book.

Can you give us some more info on this new book? Like were it will be available so we know were to look

EDIT: If someone whant it I can make some CAD drawings/PDFs of the bobins for the most common pickups. That is the most valuable part of Lollars book. Anyone interested? PM me

Edited February 15, 2007 by SwedishLuthier

[cherokee6]

That would be great! I'm interested! I called the library of Congress and they have a copy of the book. When I visit my brother in Va. I may drop by. The only problem is that the libraries are copyright paranoid and may not let you copy anything. Frankly some of this copyright nonsense is getting out of hand. I'll keep you posted. I have a feeling Swedish Luthier is right; I think I'll be disappointed as I probably have all the info contained in the book.