This winter, I'd like to learn how to wind my own pickups. I fell down the rabbit hole of watching YT vids on the subject, and I'm kinda tired of chasing different pickups to find the tone/bite/response/etc/whatever I'm looking for without spending serious money to try the boutique stuff. Plus, it looks like something I'd enjoy.
So... any tips you might have for a guy getting going would be appreciated.
Where do you prefer to source the bobbins, mags, wire, etc.?
Did you build your own winder, buy one, repurpose a sewing machine?
Recommendations for a tensioner?
I'm not looking to sell any pickups, or get into that business any farther than just experimenting for my own purposes - at least for a good while.
Thanks in advance!
Pickup Winding Advice Requested
I'm hoping so. We might eventually get enough winders in here to have a dedicated forum section.
"What is this place? Where am I?"
Not a cheap hobby to get started in. Say you buy 1/2 lb of wire, able to wind a few humbuckers. More expensive the smaller the spool of wire. Say you break the wire inside the bobbin, and have to scrap it. Sometimes you can unwind and try to save the wire but often i just get a razor blade and cut it all off. Bobbins, slugs, screws, baseplate, keeper bar, spacer, bobbin screws, lead out wire, magnets, tape. Maybe a chrome cover, maybe expensive nickel silver baseplate and/or cover. What size bobbin? 49.2mm PAF old school dimensions? You want the bobbin made of Butyrate? Extra $$$.
Winder, go homemade if you want to save money. Then you need a counter. If you want a lot less aggravation, buy a premade winder. Some are expensive. Others are cheap junk or good but overpriced. Wax pot comes in handy.
If you lack hobbies and want to wind for a dozen or so guitars and learn along the way, i say go for it. My recommendation would be to stick to 1 type of pickup and wind about 50 of them until you get the idea,then switch to another style of pickup and learn all about winding them.
Don't know if me trying to discourage you is working yet. On the other hand build a winder, buy a $19 set of humbuckers, rip the wire off, rewind. That way you only need to buy wire and not try to source all the other components.
EDIT: First winder was a homemade, i bought a entire setup from a guy who was married with kids, he had no time left. I paid $800 for a trunk full of stuff, few 5lb spools of wire, sheets of forbon, magnets, flatwork, a professional magnetizer worth $600, a professional Bell gauss meter worth $1000, bags of half started/bad pickups and a bunch of other stuff. I have since given that winder away here, bought a Shatten style winder from Ebay $200 (which was put together inside like crap with piles of hot glue) works but i don't use it now, spent $900 on a CNC winder which i love and has repeatability that no hand winder could come close to. Had a hard time trying to source all the parts for P90's but am finally set on that. Best place for strat flatwork and some humbucker parts is AddictionFX
http://www.addiction-fx.com/
Winder, go homemade if you want to save money. Then you need a counter. If you want a lot less aggravation, buy a premade winder. Some are expensive. Others are cheap junk or good but overpriced. Wax pot comes in handy.
If you lack hobbies and want to wind for a dozen or so guitars and learn along the way, i say go for it. My recommendation would be to stick to 1 type of pickup and wind about 50 of them until you get the idea,then switch to another style of pickup and learn all about winding them.
Don't know if me trying to discourage you is working yet. On the other hand build a winder, buy a $19 set of humbuckers, rip the wire off, rewind. That way you only need to buy wire and not try to source all the other components.
EDIT: First winder was a homemade, i bought a entire setup from a guy who was married with kids, he had no time left. I paid $800 for a trunk full of stuff, few 5lb spools of wire, sheets of forbon, magnets, flatwork, a professional magnetizer worth $600, a professional Bell gauss meter worth $1000, bags of half started/bad pickups and a bunch of other stuff. I have since given that winder away here, bought a Shatten style winder from Ebay $200 (which was put together inside like crap with piles of hot glue) works but i don't use it now, spent $900 on a CNC winder which i love and has repeatability that no hand winder could come close to. Had a hard time trying to source all the parts for P90's but am finally set on that. Best place for strat flatwork and some humbucker parts is AddictionFX
http://www.addiction-fx.com/
AGF refugee
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Buddha Pickups
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I would suggest you find some 40 or 41awg wire to start with. It's thicker so it won't break as easy. It's only usable with very strong magnets like a5 or ceramic as they don't yield many turns or a very high resistance. (Charlie christian pickups, El rayo, and a couple others) are made with thicker wire and strong magnets. Sort of in the grestch or rickenbacker territory as far as tones.
For your winding wire you can randomly find good deals on eBay but for the most part your best wire source is direct from remington. Most everyone else just resells wire they get from them so it'll be more expensive. They have a store on ebay and a website.
For strat and tele flatwork and rod or bar magnets it's hard to beat addictionfx, Dennis is great to work with and I think you can get slightly lower dealer pricing if you have a reverb store. I find he is also the best source for pole screws and slugs.
Tonekraft is the best quality flatwork in my opinion and they have good prices on flatwork and rod magnets, but they tend to take a month or so to fill your order. I normally have to call or email after a month to light a fire under them. Never had a problem otherwise though and he is your go to if you need custom made flatwork.
I used to use WD alot for covers and baseplates and screws and stuff, but their prices have more than doubled over the last couple years, even with a dealer discount.
Mojotone ebbs and flows on prices, also offer a dealer discount if you have a store. They have just about everything and are always the best source for bobbins. When I was last ordering supplies, I got most of my stuff from them and their prices on most supplies are pretty competitive to everyone else.
Philadelphialuthier is good for niche covers and if you need something quick as they normally ship within 24 hours, but they can be a bit pricey on most things you can find elsewhere.
I made my own winder and not sure if I'd recommend that for a beginner. But, you also may not want to invest a few hundred bucks on a legit winder to find out you can't get the hang of it.
For wax I think you can get by with a crock pot, I use a paraffin bath meant for hands/feet. Try to suspend the pickup if possible, don't just drop it to the bottom.
For a tensioner use your fingers
I find it best to sit the spool on the floor in front of me with my winder on a desk in front of me. To get the wire from the floor to the desk I run it through 2 pieces of felt tightened down with a c clamp on the edge of the desk, from there it runs through my fingers to the winder.
It's definitely trial and error to get a system that works for you. I personally hated the 2 sided tape method a lot of people use to mount the bobbin/etc with.
Make sure you have a good quality solder station too, no $5 Walmart irons. You need to adjust the temp if you're soldering a cover or getting hot enough to solder formvar or plain enamel.
A great idea to rewind pickups first and reuse those parts with maybe just buying some different magnets as most of the cheap stuff will be ceramic.
To magnetize rod magnets you'll need some strong neodymium/rare earth magnets. You can normally buy them magnetized but it makes assembly harder. It's normally best to buy your bar magnets pre magnetized as charging them with neos can be very inconsistent.
Make sure you tap your bobbins if using new stuff unless you want them to crack and split.
I wouldn't worry about counting your winds at first, just work on achieving a somewhat full bobbin. If you're off a few hundred turns on your humbucker bobbins you would call that a PAF
For your winding wire you can randomly find good deals on eBay but for the most part your best wire source is direct from remington. Most everyone else just resells wire they get from them so it'll be more expensive. They have a store on ebay and a website.
For strat and tele flatwork and rod or bar magnets it's hard to beat addictionfx, Dennis is great to work with and I think you can get slightly lower dealer pricing if you have a reverb store. I find he is also the best source for pole screws and slugs.
Tonekraft is the best quality flatwork in my opinion and they have good prices on flatwork and rod magnets, but they tend to take a month or so to fill your order. I normally have to call or email after a month to light a fire under them. Never had a problem otherwise though and he is your go to if you need custom made flatwork.
I used to use WD alot for covers and baseplates and screws and stuff, but their prices have more than doubled over the last couple years, even with a dealer discount.
Mojotone ebbs and flows on prices, also offer a dealer discount if you have a store. They have just about everything and are always the best source for bobbins. When I was last ordering supplies, I got most of my stuff from them and their prices on most supplies are pretty competitive to everyone else.
Philadelphialuthier is good for niche covers and if you need something quick as they normally ship within 24 hours, but they can be a bit pricey on most things you can find elsewhere.
I made my own winder and not sure if I'd recommend that for a beginner. But, you also may not want to invest a few hundred bucks on a legit winder to find out you can't get the hang of it.
For wax I think you can get by with a crock pot, I use a paraffin bath meant for hands/feet. Try to suspend the pickup if possible, don't just drop it to the bottom.
For a tensioner use your fingers
I find it best to sit the spool on the floor in front of me with my winder on a desk in front of me. To get the wire from the floor to the desk I run it through 2 pieces of felt tightened down with a c clamp on the edge of the desk, from there it runs through my fingers to the winder.
It's definitely trial and error to get a system that works for you. I personally hated the 2 sided tape method a lot of people use to mount the bobbin/etc with.
Make sure you have a good quality solder station too, no $5 Walmart irons. You need to adjust the temp if you're soldering a cover or getting hot enough to solder formvar or plain enamel.
A great idea to rewind pickups first and reuse those parts with maybe just buying some different magnets as most of the cheap stuff will be ceramic.
To magnetize rod magnets you'll need some strong neodymium/rare earth magnets. You can normally buy them magnetized but it makes assembly harder. It's normally best to buy your bar magnets pre magnetized as charging them with neos can be very inconsistent.
Make sure you tap your bobbins if using new stuff unless you want them to crack and split.
I wouldn't worry about counting your winds at first, just work on achieving a somewhat full bobbin. If you're off a few hundred turns on your humbucker bobbins you would call that a PAF
Thanks to all for the tips!
Am I sensing some regret from some of you?
I'd really love to grab some BareKnuckles whenever the mood strikes me, but if I can get to a point that I can wind them (or similar) myself... you see where I'm goin? Is it worth the trouble, or is it just a pain in the ass?
Am I sensing some regret from some of you?
I'd really love to grab some BareKnuckles whenever the mood strikes me, but if I can get to a point that I can wind them (or similar) myself... you see where I'm goin? Is it worth the trouble, or is it just a pain in the ass?
"What is this place? Where am I?"
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Buddha Pickups
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I dont think I said anything discouraging? Sorry if I did.rrobbone wrote: ↑Tue Oct 19, 2021 7:21 pm Thanks to all for the tips!
Am I sensing some regret from some of you?
I'd really love to grab some BareKnuckles whenever the mood strikes me, but if I can get to a point that I can wind them (or similar) myself... you see where I'm goin? Is it worth the trouble, or is it just a pain in the ass?
I think it's worth it if you have a bunch of guitars that could use pickups and plenty of spare time.
For the price of 3 sets of BKPs, you'd already be out over $500, and that is in the ballpark on what you'll need to get started, if you can find a winder that'll work for under a couple hundred bucks.
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andrewsrea
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- Location: Lake Saint Louis, MO
- Gearlist: 28 Guitars: (2) basses, (2) acoustics, (3) hollow bodies, (3) Semi hollow, (1) Double-neck, (17) Solid-bodies
Hey, @rrobbone !
@mozz & @Buddha Pickups Tim highlighted many things that I would say and i would not necessarily say they have regret. I thing their stories are about building magnificent pickups, is a journey of investing and learning lessons through mistakes.
I've had to build, test and tear apart many pickups to get to my favorite recipes, which is some of that they are saying.
My first pickups were experiments, using a record player as a winder and some 38ga magnet wire in the late 70's (they were not great). I laid off building and winding, referring those repairs / requests to Lindy Frailin who was then in Baltimore, until the early 90's. At which time, I met up with Lindy at a guitar show and struck a deal that he could watch me fix his Fender amp and I got to watch him hand wind an 1960 Harmony Barney Kessel pickup.
Even though I've made mistakes since then, through my experience with Lindy - I learned through his experience and skipped a few mistakes. So it is great you got to hear their experience in the preceding threads.
My adders to their advice would be:
- Skip the DYI winders and buy a winder with a reputation for reliability and has a counter.
- Buy a cotton glove for the hand you will keep tension with, unless you are buying a winder with a traverse mechanism. Magnet wire has splices which can snag and the cotton glove keeps the wire from catching and snapping. I have a two hand technique for hand winding and my un-gloved hand does the traversing and a little pre-tension, where the gloved hand does most of the tension.
- Learn how the wire comes off of the spool and ensure the edges of the spool are smooth (lots fo YouTube videos on this). Placement is critical. It has to be lower and a few feet in front of your winder. If your right hand is the first to touch the wire, the wire must come off in a counter-clockwise manner. Clockwise for the left hand.
- The heavy-duty rare earth magnets (you'll need bigger than Stew Mac suggest) are dangerous. I use two with 300lb pull-power each and they sit in the jig opposed and eventually 1" apart. So they want to jump at each other with 600lbs of finger-breaking force. To maintain their strength, I store them apart and out of reach. Which means you need to carefully assemble and disassemble the jig each use. And they have gotten away from me, sometimes jumping 12". I think @mozz uses an electro-magnetizer, consisting of large coils and capacitors, which is safer but way more expensive.
Hope this helps.
@mozz & @Buddha Pickups Tim highlighted many things that I would say and i would not necessarily say they have regret. I thing their stories are about building magnificent pickups, is a journey of investing and learning lessons through mistakes.
I've had to build, test and tear apart many pickups to get to my favorite recipes, which is some of that they are saying.
My first pickups were experiments, using a record player as a winder and some 38ga magnet wire in the late 70's (they were not great). I laid off building and winding, referring those repairs / requests to Lindy Frailin who was then in Baltimore, until the early 90's. At which time, I met up with Lindy at a guitar show and struck a deal that he could watch me fix his Fender amp and I got to watch him hand wind an 1960 Harmony Barney Kessel pickup.
Even though I've made mistakes since then, through my experience with Lindy - I learned through his experience and skipped a few mistakes. So it is great you got to hear their experience in the preceding threads.
My adders to their advice would be:
- Skip the DYI winders and buy a winder with a reputation for reliability and has a counter.
- Buy a cotton glove for the hand you will keep tension with, unless you are buying a winder with a traverse mechanism. Magnet wire has splices which can snag and the cotton glove keeps the wire from catching and snapping. I have a two hand technique for hand winding and my un-gloved hand does the traversing and a little pre-tension, where the gloved hand does most of the tension.
- Learn how the wire comes off of the spool and ensure the edges of the spool are smooth (lots fo YouTube videos on this). Placement is critical. It has to be lower and a few feet in front of your winder. If your right hand is the first to touch the wire, the wire must come off in a counter-clockwise manner. Clockwise for the left hand.
- The heavy-duty rare earth magnets (you'll need bigger than Stew Mac suggest) are dangerous. I use two with 300lb pull-power each and they sit in the jig opposed and eventually 1" apart. So they want to jump at each other with 600lbs of finger-breaking force. To maintain their strength, I store them apart and out of reach. Which means you need to carefully assemble and disassemble the jig each use. And they have gotten away from me, sometimes jumping 12". I think @mozz uses an electro-magnetizer, consisting of large coils and capacitors, which is safer but way more expensive.
Hope this helps.
Live life to the fullest! - Rob