Pic(kup)story

dpm · 01-07-2008, 07:11 AM

I noticed the camera in a convenient spot as I started work on this and thought, "hey scoob, this might make a groovy picstory". Scoob didn't reply, but regardless, here's Part One.......

A bit of background

Vulcanized fiber is traditionally used for single coil pickup flatwork (the top and bottom of the coil), and generally used for odd custom pickups because the construction method lends itself to small shop fabrication. Traditional humbuckers use injection molded coil forms, something which is very expensive and involved to get set up. Having made a few pickups from vulcanised fiber I've decided to abandon it in favour of genuine wood and carbon fiber. This is the first unit made in with the new ingredients. Laminated carbon fiber holds a few advantages over the other materials I could think of - it's very stiff, thin, and relatively easy to work with. I laminated the carbon myself for this one because I happened to have some. I'll get some better looking prefab stuff for future projects.

Here we go...

This is the old vulcanized fiber, notice how it's not flat? That's one problematic aspect of it, especially with long coils like what I'm winding. It's not very stiff either.

The picstory thing didn't occur to me until after machining the flats. Here's the results in ebony and carbon, along with some custom polepieces.

Assembled. Those white sleeves on the end polepieces are styrene spacers. They bond nicely to the flats and insulate the poles. Most guys tape off the polepieces but that doesn't give any structural support.

The headstock of the winder. Laser cut acrylic with a central notch to mount the bobbin.

Coil mounted to the winder, ready to go....

A few slow winds turning the wheel by hand to get things started, check alignment etc.

A few hundred turns in, checking progress.

Halfway there...

Coil wound.

Closer...

Two coils wound..

Potting the coils in wax...

This is cool. Check out the little plume of air bubbles coming through a pore in the ebony.

Carbon baseplate and finished coils.

Part 2....

Here we have the coil and magnet assembly. I use multiple 1" and 0.5" magnets end to end because of the various lengths of coil I have to make. This one uses steel bar between the magnets and polepieces.

Because I'm not using a conductive base on this I'm using copper tape to earth all of the polepieces. Cable is attached.

The four conductor cable all tucked in. There are wooden shims either side to support the coils. The shim on this side is cut so that it clamps the cable in place when the base is attached.

Everything taped up and ready for final potting. This is the end!

Michael · 01-07-2008, 07:22 AM

Very cool.

Do you have to do all 5000 by hand?

FortePenance · 01-07-2008, 07:22 AM

cool beans! is that paraffin wax ye be usin?

I heard Van Halen potted his pickups with wax from Roxy.

Apophis · 01-07-2008, 07:25 AM

Nice

dpm · 01-07-2008, 07:30 AM

The winder spins at 2000rpm, which is very fast for a pickup winder. I limit the speed by applying load to the pulley with one hand whilst tensioning and guiding the wire with the other. There's two lateral limits (traverse stops) which aren't visible that stop the wire from travelling outside the bobbin. The process is known as 'handwinding' but in reality it a machine wind with hand coil pattern guidance. What people refer to as 'machinewound' is an entirely automated process.

The wax is a blend of beeswax and paraffin.

Apophis · 01-07-2008, 08:23 AM

my Roter/Melin pickups are also handwind

In this technique pickups have better sounds imo, cause every pickups is wound the same, but always slightly dirrerent

ohio_eric · 01-07-2008, 08:29 AM

That's pretty cool.

HighGain510 · 01-07-2008, 11:55 AM

Those look really cool Dan!

I think they would be interesting with the carbon fiber side up too!

You should wind 7-string singlecoil pickups for the guys on the board looking for some....

technomancer · 01-07-2008, 07:32 PM

Pretty cool

Will the pole pieces be cut down to be the same length as the thickness of the pups or will you drill the body to accomodate the pole pieces?

JBroll · 01-07-2008, 07:47 PM

Literally hand-winding pickups takes a long ....ing time. No fun. Some people will pay good money for it but it takes a good amount to really be worth it.

If you're interested in doing this, the simplest way to go is to grab a cheap electronic motor from some place like Radio Shack and using that as a drive. I'd measure out the right length first, as counting the turns is a little annoying to do electronically if you have no prior experience, and then set the motor to go, 'scattering' the things around just for the whole 'authentic' hand-wound sparkle.

Jeff

scott from _actual time_ · 01-07-2008, 07:53 PM

very cool stuff, there! do post more pics when you get a chance.

ibznorange · 01-07-2008, 08:53 PM

hrmmmmm.
i've got a motor. maybe i'll wind my own single 7 pickups... :scheme:

technomancer · 01-07-2008, 09:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by technomancer

Pretty cool

Will the pole pieces be cut down to be the same length as the thickness of the pups or will you drill the body to accomodate the pole pieces?

Hmmm wait, are those the two coils for a humbucker? If so then the pole pieces make perfect sense as the magnet will sit between the two rows of pole pieces

JBroll · 01-07-2008, 09:42 PM

Right-o... light-bulb moments may feel odd, but these things make a lot more sense than people think.

Also, if you have a gap between the polepieces and the magnet, you get a different sound. Experiment with that if you want a more 'airy' or 'open' sound (*hint hint nudge nudge*... don't want to give away any trade secrets or anything)...

Jeff

Durero · 01-08-2008, 01:43 AM

Awesome to see Dan

The wood covers look real classy too.

Love to see more pics of the process completed

ibznorange · 01-08-2008, 03:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBroll

Right-o... light-bulb moments may feel odd, but these things make a lot more sense than people think.

Also, if you have a gap between the polepieces and the magnet, you get a different sound. Experiment with that if you want a more 'airy' or 'open' sound (*hint hint nudge nudge*... don't want to give away any trade secrets or anything)...

Jeff

like the Dimarzio air buckers perhaps? that they announce all over the faq?

i like the airyness personally, but it definately cuts output, but oh well. Dude, dual slug poles? is this a humbucker or a single?

amonb · 01-08-2008, 04:18 AM

I have never seen that process before in such depth, cheers Dan

dpm · 01-08-2008, 04:27 AM

Cheers all! I thought this might be a cool thing to see in detail. I was initially very tentative about getting into this pickup thing because of the lack of real information available, it's all shrouded in mystery mojo bullshit. Turns out I already had a decent understanding of the basic principles involved. It's not that different to cooking, once you get an idea of how the ingredients interact you can predictably alter the end result.

I'll get some pics of the rest of the construction and post them up asap.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HighGain510

Those look really cool Dan!

I think they would be interesting with the carbon fiber side up too!

You should wind 7-string singlecoil pickups for the guys on the board looking for some....

I'll make some carbon topped versions when I have the prefab sheet. My quick home lamination isn't pretty enough for that.

7 string singles are tempting. I'll probably get the templates ready for them when I do the first standard 8 humbuckers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by technomancer

Hmmm wait, are those the two coils for a humbucker? If so then the pole pieces make perfect sense as the magnet will sit between the two rows of pole pieces

Exactly right!

Quote:

Originally Posted by JBroll

Also, if you have a gap between the polepieces and the magnet, you get a different sound. Experiment with that if you want a more 'airy' or 'open' sound (*hint hint nudge nudge*... don't want to give away any trade secrets or anything)...

Quote:

Originally Posted by ibznorange

like the Dimarzio air buckers perhaps? that they announce all over the faq?

i like the airyness personally, but it definately cuts output, but oh well. Dude, dual slug poles? is this a humbucker or a single?

That 'technology' is patented. Have I played around with that kind of thing? I can't recall. Who knows what's going on under the cloth tape? Mind like a sieve, y'know?

It's tricky to use screw poles with this construction method. Might be possible using styrene tubing instead of the poles... certainly something to ponder. These particular coils are a little taller and obviously longer than usual and they don't have a metal baseplate, all of which adds up to a brighter tone, which in turn allows me to put more iron in there to roll that off a touch and increase output (assuming a given wire gauge and number of windings).

amonb · 01-08-2008, 05:00 AM

Looking forward to more pics

Alpo · 01-08-2008, 05:10 AM

Cool stuff! Handwound pickups certainly sound different than machine wound. There's actually a pretty cool article on making pickups on the Bare Knuckle site: Bare Knuckle Pickups, North Devon, UK - Hand Wound Guitar Pickups

FoxZero · 01-09-2008, 06:08 PM

That was away ....ing cool! I totally dig the look of the pickup.

Hand wound pups are the shit. I'm obsessed with my Lundgren pup. I never had such clarity come from a passive pup.

Definitely post more pics man! I'm really diggin this.

OzzyC · 01-09-2008, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxZero

Hand wound pups are the shit. I'm obsessed with my Lundgren pup. I never had such clarity come from a passive pup.

Aren't Lundgrens machinewound?

neroceasar · 01-09-2008, 08:54 PM

Thats sweet! I'm in the process of building a pickup winder based off of Jason lollar's design.

Quote:

Originally Posted by OzzyC

Aren't Lundgrens machinewound?

Hand wound refers to the guiding of the wire back and forth across the bobbin. You'd be hard pressed to find a pickup that was literally wound by hand.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dpm

Cheers all! I thought this might be a cool thing to see in detail. I was initially very tentative about getting into this pickup thing because of the lack of real information available, it's all shrouded in mystery mojo bullshit. Turns out I already had a decent understanding of the basic principles involved. It's not that different to cooking, once you get an idea of how the ingredients interact you can predictably alter the end result.

do you have Jason Lollar's "basic pickup winding and Complete guide to making your own pickup winder"? It went out of print about 30 years ago but i managed to obtain one....

OzzyC · 01-09-2008, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by neroceasar

Hand wound refers to the guiding of the wire back and forth across the bobbin. You'd be hard pressed to find a pickup that was literally wound by hand.

I'm aware of that, what I meant is I'm fairly sure Lundgrens are precision wound by machines.

ibznorange · 01-09-2008, 10:12 PM

Ozzy is right. lundgrens are precisionwound, by machine, as opposed to scatterwound. Bareknuckles are done by machine, but hand guided and scatterwound. lundgrens are not. not that its a bad thing, its just different

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01-07-2008, 07:11 AM	#1
dpm Oni Guitars Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Posts: 3,377 Thanked: 21 Feedback Score: 2 reviews	Pic(kup)story I noticed the camera in a convenient spot as I started work on this and thought, "hey scoob, this might make a groovy picstory". Scoob didn't reply, but regardless, here's Part One....... A bit of background Vulcanized fiber is traditionally used for single coil pickup flatwork (the top and bottom of the coil), and generally used for odd custom pickups because the construction method lends itself to small shop fabrication. Traditional humbuckers use injection molded coil forms, something which is very expensive and involved to get set up. Having made a few pickups from vulcanised fiber I've decided to abandon it in favour of genuine wood and carbon fiber. This is the first unit made in with the new ingredients. Laminated carbon fiber holds a few advantages over the other materials I could think of - it's very stiff, thin, and relatively easy to work with. I laminated the carbon myself for this one because I happened to have some. I'll get some better looking prefab stuff for future projects. Here we go... This is the old vulcanized fiber, notice how it's not flat? That's one problematic aspect of it, especially with long coils like what I'm winding. It's not very stiff either. The picstory thing didn't occur to me until after machining the flats. Here's the results in ebony and carbon, along with some custom polepieces. Assembled. Those white sleeves on the end polepieces are styrene spacers. They bond nicely to the flats and insulate the poles. Most guys tape off the polepieces but that doesn't give any structural support. The headstock of the winder. Laser cut acrylic with a central notch to mount the bobbin. Coil mounted to the winder, ready to go.... A few slow winds turning the wheel by hand to get things started, check alignment etc. A few hundred turns in, checking progress. Halfway there... Coil wound. Closer... Two coils wound.. Potting the coils in wax... This is cool. Check out the little plume of air bubbles coming through a pore in the ebony. Carbon baseplate and finished coils. Part 2.... Here we have the coil and magnet assembly. I use multiple 1" and 0.5" magnets end to end because of the various lengths of coil I have to make. This one uses steel bar between the magnets and polepieces. Because I'm not using a conductive base on this I'm using copper tape to earth all of the polepieces. Cable is attached. The four conductor cable all tucked in. There are wooden shims either side to support the coils. The shim on this side is cut so that it clamps the cable in place when the base is attached. Everything taped up and ready for final potting. This is the end! Last edited by dpm; 01-16-2008 at 06:10 AM. Reason: Update!

01-07-2008, 07:32 PM	#9
technomancer Gearus Pimptasticus • Super Moderator • Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Out there, somewhere Posts: 23,265 Thanked: 175 Feedback Score: 34 reviews	Pretty cool Will the pole pieces be cut down to be the same length as the thickness of the pups or will you drill the body to accomodate the pole pieces? Incoming It's a surprise

01-07-2008, 07:53 PM	#11
scott from _actual time_ grumpy old man Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Virginia, USA Posts: 1,010 Thanked: 9 Feedback Score: 20 reviews	very cool stuff, there! do post more pics when you get a chance. _actual time_ : prog/math/metal/???? on myspace download our EPs free at actual-time.com

01-07-2008, 08:53 PM	#12
ibznorange Chief Officer/RHLC © Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Tucson, AZ Posts: 8,369 Thanked: 60 Feedback Score: 23 reviews	hrmmmmm. i've got a motor. maybe i'll wind my own single 7 pickups... :scheme: Reverse Headstocks or Bust :chris: ALL HEIL THE ADMINISHREDDER!

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01-07-2008, 07:22 AM	#2
Michael No More Mr. Nice Guy Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Geelong, Victoria, Australia Posts: 7,741 Thanked: 49 Feedback Score: 2 reviews	Very cool. Do you have to do all 5000 by hand?

01-07-2008, 07:22 AM	#3
FortePenance ss.org Regular Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Hong Kong Posts: 3,818 Thanked: 25 Feedback Score: 5 reviews	cool beans! is that paraffin wax ye be usin? I heard Van Halen potted his pickups with wax from Roxy.

01-07-2008, 07:25 AM	#4
Apophis Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Poland Posts: 18,279 Thanked: 71 Feedback Score: 1 reviews	Nice

01-07-2008, 07:30 AM	#5
dpm Oni Guitars Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Posts: 3,377 Thanked: 21 Feedback Score: 2 reviews	The winder spins at 2000rpm, which is very fast for a pickup winder. I limit the speed by applying load to the pulley with one hand whilst tensioning and guiding the wire with the other. There's two lateral limits (traverse stops) which aren't visible that stop the wire from travelling outside the bobbin. The process is known as 'handwinding' but in reality it a machine wind with hand coil pattern guidance. What people refer to as 'machinewound' is an entirely automated process. The wax is a blend of beeswax and paraffin.

01-07-2008, 08:23 AM	#6
Apophis Banned Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Poland Posts: 18,279 Thanked: 71 Feedback Score: 1 reviews	my Roter/Melin pickups are also handwind In this technique pickups have better sounds imo, cause every pickups is wound the same, but always slightly dirrerent

01-07-2008, 08:29 AM	#7
ohio_eric SS Contributor Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Ohio Posts: 9,243 Thanked: 189 Feedback Score: 1 reviews	That's pretty cool.

01-07-2008, 11:55 AM	#8
HighGain510 Cold As Ice Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Northern Virginia Posts: 12,531 Thanked: 228 Feedback Score: 32 reviews	Those look really cool Dan! I think they would be interesting with the carbon fiber side up too! You should wind 7-string singlecoil pickups for the guys on the board looking for some....

01-07-2008, 07:47 PM	#10
JBroll Hard-On For Freedom™ Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: San Antonio, TX, USA Posts: 4,197 Thanked: 26 Feedback Score: 1 reviews	Literally hand-winding pickups takes a long ....ing time. No fun. Some people will pay good money for it but it takes a good amount to really be worth it. If you're interested in doing this, the simplest way to go is to grab a cheap electronic motor from some place like Radio Shack and using that as a drive. I'd measure out the right length first, as counting the turns is a little annoying to do electronically if you have no prior experience, and then set the motor to go, 'scattering' the things around just for the whole 'authentic' hand-wound sparkle. Jeff

01-07-2008, 09:42 PM	#14
JBroll Hard-On For Freedom™ Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: San Antonio, TX, USA Posts: 4,197 Thanked: 26 Feedback Score: 1 reviews	Right-o... light-bulb moments may feel odd, but these things make a lot more sense than people think. Also, if you have a gap between the polepieces and the magnet, you get a different sound. Experiment with that if you want a more 'airy' or 'open' sound (hint hint nudge nudge... don't want to give away any trade secrets or anything)... Jeff

01-08-2008, 04:18 AM	#17
amonb Ibanez Fanboy Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Brisbane Posts: 2,552 Thanked: 17 $amonb is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $amonb is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $amonb is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $amonb is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $amonb is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $amonb is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $amonb is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ Feedback Score: 0 reviews	I have never seen that process before in such depth, cheers Dan

01-08-2008, 05:00 AM	#19
amonb Ibanez Fanboy Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Brisbane Posts: 2,552 Thanked: 17 $amonb is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $amonb is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $amonb is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $amonb is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $amonb is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $amonb is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ $amonb is rather kvlt and tr00. \m/$ Feedback Score: 0 reviews	Looking forward to more pics

01-08-2008, 01:43 AM	#15
Durero prototyping... Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Qualicum Bay, Vancouver Island, Canada Posts: 5,367 Thanked: 41 Feedback Score: 5 reviews	Awesome to see Dan The wood covers look real classy too. Love to see more pics of the process completed

01-08-2008, 05:10 AM	#20
Alpo ... Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Finland Posts: 2,541 Thanked: 7 Feedback Score: 0 reviews	Cool stuff! Handwound pickups certainly sound different than machine wound. There's actually a pretty cool article on making pickups on the Bare Knuckle site: Bare Knuckle Pickups, North Devon, UK - Hand Wound Guitar Pickups Through the darkness of futures past The magician longs to see One chants out between two worlds Fire Walk With Me

01-09-2008, 06:08 PM	#21
FoxZero Zero Imperfections Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: West Chester, PA Posts: 915 Thanked: 9 Feedback Score: 3 reviews	That was away ....ing cool! I totally dig the look of the pickup. Hand wound pups are the shit. I'm obsessed with my Lundgren pup. I never had such clarity come from a passive pup. Definitely post more pics man! I'm really diggin this. My Site http://foxzero.net/ My band's site http://wolf-hybrid.net/

01-09-2008, 10:12 PM	#25
ibznorange Chief Officer/RHLC © Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Tucson, AZ Posts: 8,369 Thanked: 60 Feedback Score: 23 reviews	Ozzy is right. lundgrens are precisionwound, by machine, as opposed to scatterwound. Bareknuckles are done by machine, but hand guided and scatterwound. lundgrens are not. not that its a bad thing, its just different Reverse Headstocks or Bust :chris: ALL HEIL THE ADMINISHREDDER!

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