Has Anyone Made Their Own Pickups?

[poptartpower]

I'd like to one day try making my own pickups. Stew Mac sells a partial kit. The marketing description makes it seem simple. Just assemble and wind.

Has anyone tried something like this before? I'd like to hear your experiences.

Thanks!

-- Boris

[Juntunen Guitars]

I'd like to one day try making my own pickups. Stew Mac sells a partial kit. The marketing description makes it seem simple. Just assemble and wind.

Has anyone tried something like this before? I'd like to hear your experiences.

Thanks!

-- Boris

I asked about this a while back and most of my answers were to just figure it out. The basic idea is simple just assemble and wind but then you have to think about f-spaced pickups and that sort of thing. Then you need to figure out what type of sound you want and how many windings you will need (several thousand at least)

I am not a master at pickups and I haven't built one yet but that is what I have gathered so far.

[Dave_B]

Have you tried the pickup making forum? You might have better luck there.

[SwedishLuthier]

I wind and sell pickups. I'm on the pickups winders forum, but I regularly post here. On the PMF there are several very experienced winders, but the level of the discussion might be quite high and there are less chance to get your noob questions answered there. Juntunen: Sorry if I missed your questions about winding, I try to help the best I can...

The SM kits are not partial Kits, they include all hardware parts needed. All kits except for the HB and the Strat kits even include the covers. Just add magnet wire of your choice. The wire differs from what the sonic goal of the wind (more on wire later) is so to include that means that they would need to have maybe four different kits avaliable... The SM kits are good quality and the price is OK if you only need parts for a few pickups. What type of pickups do you want to wind and what do you strive for, sonically? If you explain that it is easier to help.

Generally there is a much more to consider when winding a HB compared to a SC. The SC only consists of magnets, wire and fiber flatwork. You can alter the magnet type, the wire type and the way and how much wire you add. "They way" you add the wire? that means if you place every new turn av wire closely to the one before of if the wire is place on the bobbin in a more random way (scatter winding). The Scatter affects the capacitance of the pickup and the scatter is supposed to lessen the treble attenuation. In real life, if and winding (or more correctly, hand guiding) the wire more or less everything is scatter winding. So then there are the wire type. SM sells Poly Solderon wire. That means you don't need to scrape of the insulation of the wire, just solder and it will melt away. There are two more types of insulation that is commonly used: Heavy Formvar (HF) and Plain Enamel (PE). HF is the thickest insulation and produces a slightly thicker soil compares to the other two types (wider coil, wider sensing area of the string, bassier sound). Then there are the dielectric constant of the different types of insulation. I have used all three types and I don't know if it is the difference in the dielectric constant or anything else, but they do sound different. The difference is not big and if is really hard to describe. Generally I say that PE produces a slightly "drier" sound, PolySol is "smooth" and HF have a slight "scoop" in the sound (maybe because of the altered shape of the coil) . All things above is extremely subjective and anyone else might describe things differently.

OK, so how about HBs? More parts = More things to alter. A different brand of pole screws produce a different sound. And the same thing applies to the slugs, the keeper bar, the base plate and the cover. If you add to that the possibility to alter the magnet wire you got an endless stream of sonic possibilities. And here the discussion often ends up in: You need to try all aspects to learn what sounds good and what sound not so good. But if you use the SM kit you can produce nice sounding pickups. Or at least it will not be the parts used that makes a pickup sound bad...

OK a bit of rant, but if you specify what you need to know I might be able to help.

[poptartpower]

I wind and sell pickups. I'm on the pickups winders forum, but I regularly post here. On the PMF there are several very experienced winders, but the level of the discussion might be quite high and there are less chance to get your noob questions answered there. Juntunen: Sorry if I missed your questions about winding, I try to help the best I can...

The SM kits are not partial Kits, they include all hardware parts needed. All kits except for the HB and the Strat kits even include the covers. Just add magnet wire of your choice. The wire differs from what the sonic goal of the wind (more on wire later) is so to include that means that they would need to have maybe four different kits avaliable... The SM kits are good quality and the price is OK if you only need parts for a few pickups. What type of pickups do you want to wind and what do you strive for, sonically? If you explain that it is easier to help.

Generally there is a much more to consider when winding a HB compared to a SC. The SC only consists of magnets, wire and fiber flatwork. You can alter the magnet type, the wire type and the way and how much wire you add. "They way" you add the wire? that means if you place every new turn av wire closely to the one before of if the wire is place on the bobbin in a more random way (scatter winding). The Scatter affects the capacitance of the pickup and the scatter is supposed to lessen the treble attenuation. In real life, if and winding (or more correctly, hand guiding) the wire more or less everything is scatter winding. So then there are the wire type. SM sells Poly Solderon wire. That means you don't need to scrape of the insulation of the wire, just solder and it will melt away. There are two more types of insulation that is commonly used: Heavy Formvar (HF) and Plain Enamel (PE). HF is the thickest insulation and produces a slightly thicker soil compares to the other two types (wider coil, wider sensing area of the string, bassier sound). Then there are the dielectric constant of the different types of insulation. I have used all three types and I don't know if it is the difference in the dielectric constant or anything else, but they do sound different. The difference is not big and if is really hard to describe. Generally I say that PE produces a slightly "drier" sound, PolySol is "smooth" and HF have a slight "scoop" in the sound (maybe because of the altered shape of the coil) . All things above is extremely subjective and anyone else might describe things differently.

OK, so how about HBs? More parts = More things to alter. A different brand of pole screws produce a different sound. And the same thing applies to the slugs, the keeper bar, the base plate and the cover. If you add to that the possibility to alter the magnet wire you got an endless stream of sonic possibilities. And here the discussion often ends up in: You need to try all aspects to learn what sounds good and what sound not so good. But if you use the SM kit you can produce nice sounding pickups. Or at least it will not be the parts used that makes a pickup sound bad...

OK a bit of rant, but if you specify what you need to know I might be able to help.

Thanks for the great reply! I understand that there are a lot of variables in play. There's the strength of the magnet, the thickness of the wire, the coating of the wire, and the method of winding among other things. All of those parameters will affect the capacitance, inductance, and impedance which ultimately decide the output. Unfortunately, I don't think we have an equation for "warmth" or "twang".

Winding a coil is no small task. I understand that there can be up to 10000 windings and if it is done by hand then it's easy to lose count. The wire should be under some tension and the method of winding can have a huge effect on the sound. Scatter winding could produce longer windings than ordered windings of the same number (hence the greater capacitance). There would also be different turn-to-turn interactions of the magnetic field interactions. Thicker insulation would space the wire further apart from the neighboring winding and result in slightly longer lengths of total wire used and it would also affect the turn-to-turn interactions. A 0.001" thickness difference may not be much but with 10000 windings it will add up pretty quick!

Personally, I would be winding two humbuckers for my guitar kit (if I am assembling the guitar then I might as well assemble the pickups too). I would like my neck pickup to be soft and warm. It should almost sound like a mellow whistle, especially when distorted. So I imagine there would be a lot of higher frequency attenuation with emphasis on the lower/mid frequencies. The bridge should be brighter but not "twangy" or like a single coil in a Strat. If I want my guitar to sound like someone shaking a ring of keys then I will shake my own keys.

I was curious to see if any amateurs have successfully wound a coil and were satisfied with the result. Were there any "oooops!" moments during the process? Is there a recommended kit? I certainly don't want to buy a pickup to take apart only to rewind. At that point, I might as well just buy the premade pickup.

-- Boris

[RestorationAD]

You are not going to want to tackle winding by hand. Build a simple winder... even if it is a T chucked in your drill press. Without a counter it will be hard to recreate exact pickups.

If it was me and I was only going to do it once... I would buy a stew mac kit, make a fixture for the drill press, and fill the bobbins with 42awg. You can only fit about 5000 winds (give or take 500) on the stew mac bobbins (correct me if I am wrong as I use other suppliers now) so you will end up with a pair of hot PAFs. They will sound pretty good.

http://www.mojotone.com/ has very high quality HB kits.

Best money you will spend on basic winding.

Lollar Pickup Windign Book

You should thank Peter for he is being very generous. Most pickup makers do not share information readily as it is usually hard won through experience and research. The pickup makers forum is a bit hard on noobs but the search function works and there is a world of information on that site. Rick Turner and Jason Lollar post to that forum.

[ansil]

you know people seem to keep downing winding by hand. I have wound around a dozen pickups all with very close tolerances simply by winding them in front of the tv and counting the windings as you go. watched an entire season of smallville this way.

i will ad though its not fun but it passes time

[SwedishLuthier]

I am totally amazed (in a good way) when I hear about people that actually hand wind (as opposed to hand guide like most of us do) a complete pickup. I started with a really simple winder made from an old sawing machine (really simple, double stick tape on the wheel that can be turned by hand when using the machine, I have no idea what it is actually called) and have from that built two more winders. I find it much easier to build a simple winder than doing it buy hand, but as mentioned, still full of awe toward those who actually does it by hand. Cudos to you all!

SM have instructions on winding pickup with a simple hand held drill.

When doing HBs there are one key factor that is often overlooked. Mismatching the coils. In general, tightly speced coils in the same pickup produce a more compact sound with more high end attenuation. For a "clearer" sound with "airier" treble (OK, the descriptions getting worse and worse but I think you get it) you can try to mismatch the coils with 5 to 10%. it will open up the sound. From your description I would wind the neck pickup with quite tight tolerances between the coils, still a bit less than 5000 turns per coil. The bridge I would take as high as possible (might be too much, but thats what I hear when I read your description) for the first coil and then back off considerable (the 5 to 10% mentioned) on the second coil.

I started out with SM kits. They sound OK. But remember that for the first ten or so pickups it will not be the quality of the parts that determine the sound. It will be how you wind it. After some 10-20 pickup you might start to get consistent results, and thats when you should start to worry about parts quality.

[copperhead]

I am totally amazed (in a good way) when I hear about people that actually hand wind (as opposed to hand guide like most of us do) a complete pickup. I started with a really simple winder made from an old sawing machine (really simple, double stick tape on the wheel that can be turned by hand when using the machine, I have no idea what it is actually called) and have from that built two more winders. I find it much easier to build a simple winder than doing it buy hand, but as mentioned, still full of awe toward those who actually does it by hand. Cudos to you all!

SM have instructions on winding pickup with a simple hand held drill.

When doing HBs there are one key factor that is often overlooked. Mismatching the coils. In general, tightly speced coils in the same pickup produce a more compact sound with more high end attenuation. For a "clearer" sound with "airier" treble (OK, the descriptions getting worse and worse but I think you get it) you can try to mismatch the coils with 5 to 10%. it will open up the sound. From your description I would wind the neck pickup with quite tight tolerances between the coils, still a bit less than 5000 turns per coil. The bridge I would take as high as possible (might be too much, but thats what I hear when I read your description) for the first coil and then back off considerable (the 5 to 10% mentioned) on the second coil.

I started out with SM kits. They sound OK. But remember that for the first ten or so pickups it will not be the quality of the parts that determine the sound. It will be how you wind it. After some 10-20 pickup you might start to get consistent results, and thats when you should start to worry about parts quality.

after all that your addicted

I'm going to PWA 3 times a week

"PICKUP WINDERS ANONYMOUS"