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I'm winding a set of Tele pickups, so I thought I'd share my experiences in case anyone else is thinking about it. I may edit this some later to make it more coherent.

I'm using assembled bobbins from mojotone. They're well made, and I'd recommend them. An especially nice thing is that the pole pieces are superglued into the fiber-work, so the bobbin is rigid enough that you don't need to worry about lacquering the bobbin, except to prevent rust, if you want. I wound directly onto the neck pole-pieces, but wrapped a single layer of polyimide tape around the bridge bobbin before winding to insulate the pole pieces.

I used Solderable Polyurethane (Electrisola P155, NEMA MW 79-C) wire from Remington Industries. 43 AWG for the neck, 42 for the bridge; roughly 7800 winds each. Here are some additional thoughts about wire: viewtopic.php?f=192&t=34040

I originally intended to wind by time, using the constant rate of the turntable to put a certain number of winds on the coil per minute; you know, 33 or 45. At 45 rpm, it would take 2 hrs, 52 minutes, and 48 seconds. At 33 rpm, 3 hrs, 56 minutes, and 22 seconds. I found it difficult to keep the wire unspooling properly, without it forming kinks, or breaking, so I abandoned the timing method and turned the platter by hand, counting each full rotation. I moved my left hand back and forth spinning the platter and the spool (to let out more wire), guiding with my right hand. I counted to a hundred 78 times for each pickup. I tallied hundred counts on paper to keep track. I can wind at about 2000 winds per hour this way. Impractical commercially, but good enough for two pickups.

I've seen people on forums suggest setting the spool on the ground and letting the wire unspool from around the top, but I found that this twists the wire and causes kinks. I put the spool on a paint roller, but it was still too heavy to turn freely just by pulling on the wire, so I turned the spool by hand to let off wire a little at a time.

I found that it's easier to keep the wire feeding nicely if you dangle something on it to keep some tension. In my third picture you can see what I used, a little crumpled piece of paper.

I used two 3"x1/2"x1/2" N42 Neodymium magnets from CMS magnetics set attracting each other in a small vise to magnetize the pickup pole pieces. The vise allows me to pull one magnet away from the bobbin and the other magnet without changing the direction of the magnetic field.

ive wanted to do this ever since i learned a bunch of electric guitar theory, kudos for you trying it. i've seen people have success with a drill and with the back of a sewing machine (seems to work the best). i just want to experiment with crazy designs

Pretty freaking cool man.

Thanks

Go for it, pat; it's not hard. I just finished winding the bridge, and I'll wire them up soon.

Check out this article about various types of pickups: http://www.ece.rochester.edu/courses/EC ... ickups.pdf

There are some interesting pickup designs, like a lipstick pickup, just a mass of wire wrapped around a bar magnet, wrapped in tape and stuffed in a tube. Or a Teisco pickup:

Very cool. I want to wind some pickups, and have been researching it a bit. Have you seen the winding counters that you can make with a calculator and a reed switch? Here is a link to one example: http://mojoshout.com/technical/diy-guit ... r-counter/

Basically, you get a reed switch and a calculator. You wire the reed switch up to the equal sign button on the calculator, and put the magnet that comes with the switch on the pickup, which you mount on a drill or whatever you want. You hit 1+1 and then the equal sign, and start spinning and winding the pickup. Every time the magnet passes the switch, it simulates pressing the equal sign, and the number goes up by one. Cheap, easy digital counter.

Mike

That thing with the calculator seems like the way to go, very nice, especially at higher speeds. Post some pictures of your winding rig whenever you do it; I'd like to see your implementation of that.

whoa, thanks for that article! i love seeing how the insides of pickups work! thats another reason i want to get into it, knowing the insides of electronics is a cool feeling

yesyes
overwound teisco pickuups
that is a fantastic idea
i actually thought the black i was seeing
was atleast the magnet
looks like a piece of fabric
i knew there were no poles under there

teisco pickups have rubber magnets (seriously)

patrickviolence wrote:teisco pickups have rubber magnets (seriously)

Oh yeah, kind of like that flexible fridge magnet material?

I saw they mention rubber magnets here, too: http://music-electronics-forum.com/t13178/


I soldered leads to my pickups today, and I noticed that one pole piece of the neck pickup is shorted to a winding. It seems that it's only shorted in one place, and the pole piece doesn't touch the pickup cover, so there shouldn't be any problem, unless the winding shorts to that same pole piece somewhere else, shorting out some winds. In that case, it should only be a few hundred winds at most, since only that many touch the pole piece directly. It would change the sound, but not unusably so, so I'd be fine with it, I think. I could always take it out and rewind it in the future if there's a problem.

morange wrote:

patrickviolence wrote:teisco pickups have rubber magnets (seriously)

Oh yeah, kind of like that flexible fridge magnet material?

I saw they mention rubber magnets here, too: http://music-electronics-forum.com/t13178/

well thats just silly
are you gonna wax this one morange?
also how much the copper spool cost ya?

I'm not going to wax them. I saw in the grocery store they have blocks of paraffin wax by the canning jars, though.


I just put the cover on the neck pickup, but I wrapped the outside of the bridge pickup winds in a layer of polyimide tape, then with some kitchen string. The layer of polyimide tape underneath the wire winds of the bridge pickup did a good job, because no pole pieces shorted to any winds. This type of tape resists heat and is very thin, but doesn't really stretch, so it likes to crinkle up instead of lay perfectly flat, when you go around the ends of the bobbin.

I got the wire from Remington Industries, from their website. They sell on ebay, too, among a few other sellers. I bought the 1 lb spools, about 20-30 dollars each. About a quarter pound would be plenty for a pickup, though, if you want to buy less (and you see it available in lesser quantities). I do see smaller spools on ebay; just search something like, 42 awg magnet wire.

http://www.remingtonindustries.com/
http://www.ebay.com/sch/remington_indus ... ksid=p3686
http://www.ebay.com/sch/baewire/m.html? ... ksid=p3686

So I've been messing with these in my telecaster. They sound great, much better than the stock baja telecaster ones. That may be partly because they were wound about 2 kOhm hotter each, and wired with 250 kOhm pots. Muddy. I've got mine wired 70's tele/jazzmaster style with 1M pots and 1000pf cap on the volume control to retain treble as you roll down. Overall pretty nice.

The bridge pickup is microphonic to some extent, as you might expect, given the telecaster bridge design. I can tap the guitar body with a pick, with the guitar close to the speaker, and hear a good loud pink, and a squeal if I move it too close. I haven't tried it at high volumes yet. To be clear, I like it.