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Do you have any good PDFs on pickup winding? Books or tutorials from the net.

I'm particularly interested in p90s and charlie christian pickups, which i plan on making for my Jolana Tornado mod. Info on other kinds of pickups, as well as magnet comparison, wire choice, bobin making, magnetization, and diy winders/magnetizers is also very appreciated.

I think Jason Lollar wrote one or two books.

yep. and i'm not paying 60usd for them.

There's a pretty good book - available on Amazon for about £18 in the UK - "Pickups, Windings and Magnets...: And the Guitar Became Electric" [Paperback] by Mario Milan

yep. you can find "Basic Pickup Winding" (lollar) on tpb.

Yeah, I have the lollar book, but I haven't read much of it. I think I can find more opinions and answers with google. Maybe I'll get around to reading it. Not sure though.

I had the Lollar book,nothing there that u cannot find on the net.

For example:
http://behindthetone.com/johnfisher/buck/humbuck.htm

While I believe that winding your own pickup is doable, I also believe that the results will be mediocre.

Reading what Bill Lawrence has to say on pickups, magnets and materials, I come to the understanding that some people have a "green thumb" for things.

Those people were not born with a magnet in their mouth. They probably started out making a pickup with exactly the methods we would start with, but it turned out that they have a certain talent for the things needed to become an innovator on the field rather than a copycat. It is very seldom that designs come out that are markedly different from others (hopefully better in some respect).
Look at the impressive line of boutique winders. Somewhere I have seen a list with hundreds of them. Since they all use the same approach, the all are similar.

You probably never find that out if you don´t try it, but just following what somebody else wrote would not lead to anything better than mediocre.

From a monetary standpoint, gaining the right materials (cold rolled steel of certain specs, magnets of certain materials, sizes and strengths, plastic cases, wire, bobbins etc. etc.) for just one or two guitars will most certainly cost a multiple of a commercially available product. The guys who do it professionally have established the right workflow to do do this economically.

For me as an old tinkerer, I think twice before I start out with some project. Getting a project started boils down to three cases:
1) What I want is not available commercially,
2) What I want is much cheaper DIY than buying
3) I feel the insane inner urge to do it

Mostly it is a combination of the three

-helmut

Well, here I go:
i have an insane urge to control things with servos and microcontrollers, so I'm gonna build an universal winder to wind transformers, inductors and pickups (almost) automatically. it will have 'tasklist' like programs i can alter, and the only thing i need to do is do the first couple of winds, and then the machine does all of the other stuff by itself, pausing for lacquer coats, paper insulation (in transformers) and similar stuff.

i will then alter the 'recepies' till i get something i like. also, i'm going to restore an old hollowbody Jolana from the 60s which has shitty pickups, so i have a testing ground for all of the crazy stuff, like p90/humbucker winds with magnetized polepieces, alnico blade pickups (similar to a charlie christian), gold foil style or dynasonic style stuff...

eventually, i'll make a scatterwinding module with a pot for rpm and a slider for wire position, which will be able to record good scatterwinds and repeat them at will. and i can even start selling these machines, or offer them as a free (non-comercial) device.

not too interested in replicating old designs: i have awesome handwound pickups on my handmade tele, wound by a master. that guitar is perfect for me, a better one cannot be made. this is just an experiment.

aquataur wrote:While I believe that winding your own pickup is doable, I also believe that the results will be mediocre.

I have to disagree. I recently started winding some pickups. I have only made 2 so far, but they both sound fantastic. I don't really think they are the best pickups ever, but they do sound pretty damn good (WAY better than mediocre).

The first was using directions online for a PAF style humbucker and the second was just me trying some random things to see what happened. Neither are wax potted.

andrej,

are you going to make a microprocessor controlled scatter winder?
Pun aside folks, YOU may be the ones that make a difference. Insane urge is a good prerequisite. Carry on.

-helmut

This forum has several long threads on what you're looking to do. I've built a couple very simple winders and guide the wire by hand with some pretty good results, but it could be that just like your own kid is the brightest and best looking one in the class, your own pickup will sound the best as well.
Another thread

That was MIGHTY helpful!

Mine will be a lot smaller, faster (with a ramp down / ramp up at the end of each coil pass) and more adaptable. The only thing that bothers me is tensioning: since I want to wind pickup coils, inductors, transformers and speaker coils on the same machine, i want to be able to adjust the tension according to wire thickness. The only thing I haven't figured out is how to control that efficiently. I considered mechanical-only solutions, but that doesn't seem to have the desired flexibility or precision.

I'd go with a simple felt block tensioner, adjustable with a screw. The more involved solutions get really complicated due to the irregular shape of most pickup bobbins.

Bajaman might be able to help you out, he's mentioned something about winding his own pickups using some kits he bought in a thread somewhere, you could try pming him for some advice.......

Here's nice pickup winder kit from stewmac http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics ... inder.html

I enjoy watching this (pickup winding content).

I would highly recommend the Thomas Pickup Winders from ebay. Just do an ebay search for them. They are hand-built and are supposed to have way better motors than the Schatten ones from Stew-Mac. Although, I do not have any personal experience with the Stew-Mac ones, many people on the net have commented saying the Thomas ones are higher quality and cheaper (than the pre-constructed). And the seller is awesome if you have any issues with his products. I got a used one off ebay and the power supply blew up immediately when I tried to plug it in. I contacted him and he sent me a replacement for free. It took a little while, but I can't argue with free support for a product I bought used from someone else.

deltafred wrote:I enjoy watching this (pickup winding content).

Blocked in the USA apparently. Copyright issues. I'll have to use a VPN or something later.

CHEEZOR wrote: Blocked in the USA apparently. Copyright issues. I'll have to use a VPN or something later.

I'll post it on dropbox when once it downloads.

CHEEZOR wrote:I would highly recommend the Thomas Pickup Winders from ebay. Just do an ebay search for them. They are hand-built and are supposed to have way better motors than the Schatten ones from Stew-Mac. Although, I do not have any personal experience with the Stew-Mac ones, many people on the net have commented saying the Thomas ones are higher quality and cheaper (than the pre-constructed). And the seller is awesome if you have any issues with his products. I got a used one off ebay and the power supply blew up immediately when I tried to plug it in. I contacted him and he sent me a replacement for free. It took a little while, but I can't argue with free support for a product I bought used from someone else.

deltafred wrote:I enjoy watching this (pickup winding content).

Blocked in the USA apparently. Copyright issues. I'll have to use a VPN or something later.

Stewmac says that the new Schatten's are improved. Hopefully the new line (three models) have no motor problems, like the early model

I never came across Thomas Pickup Winders before - if the customer support is as cool as you say I will think about Thomas unit. I'm up for simple winder myself. Only for inductor wiring, I'm thinking about making my own inductors from ages - there is no other way to get some unconventional inductors than making them myself