Guitar Pickup winding station

I am planing on winding my own pickups soon so decided I needed to make a work station for my home built winder instead of having everything scattered all over the place. I kind of designed this on the fly but am happy with the way it turned out.

This is the start of the stand. I wanted some storage drawer so I could keep everything at hand. Its built up of 1/2 Baltic Birch ply with oak drawer runners and dividers.

Here I am laying out a router templet for the hand pull and routing it out



Here are all the drawer fronts with hand holds cut

Then I used a cove bit and made a cove on the inside for a finger hold. The reason for all of this is I did not what anything that the wire might get caught on and break the wire.

I put dividers in the top drawers for all the small parts.

Drawers installed and top put on.

Finishing up

Winder and everything mounted on stand I wanted it to fold up to store it and came up with the fold up wire holder and a removed tension arm. Then made a holder for the foot control and power cord. The winder is set up with a digital counter to keep track of how many winds on the pickup and also has a gear motor with offset disk to move the wire side to side as it winds instead of me doing it by hand.



Now just hope it all works as planed

Boy oh boy, that is slick, Jay. I bet it plays a tune while it's winding too!

That's really cool, jay!

I may have to get in on this thing

Dang, you're not messing around, Jay. I know zilch about pickup winding. I'm assuming you can make double coil pups as well as singles?

That is slick Jay. Cool idea on the hand grips for the drawers.

Very neat Jay way to go.

As one who has had many many experiences with coil winding for all sorts of applications, the key to success with a coil of any type is what you put through the center.

At the end of the day its a magnetic circuit. As i understand a guitar pickup it has poles in the center, so what are you using for the metal cores because that is where the magic element will be more than in the wire and the tightness or compactness on the former.

It should not be any old steel that its made of, in fact what steel is used and how the poles are secured to form the magnetic circuit will be key to the performance of the circuit formed by the guitar string.

Electromagnets are a real source of manufacturing black magic from my experience so put equal if not greater effort into the cores you going to use.

Love the draws and handles going to steal that idea for certain to good to pass up for flush face draws.

Way to go Jay you a man after my own heart making your own coils.

You going to need a solder pot to tin the ends and burn off the coating to get a good connection as well.

Very cool Jay. You are really getting into this big time!

Thanks everyone
Vaughn I will as I learn more I have a ways to go. First winding I am planing are just single pole pickups for Diddley bows so I can get a feel for how it winds with out wasting a lot of wire during the learning curve

Wow, felt a little recoil myself when opening those photos looks awesome Jay

Well I tried my first pickup wind and this is how it ended up



Cant say it was a total disaster as I caught the the problem before I had it completely wound and I did learn ONE thing not to do. Just glade it was a single pole pickup for a Diddly-bow

Looks like you've got to keep your eye on that spinney thing or you will be making wigs for robots!

Ted Calver said:

Looks like you've got to keep your eye on that spinney thing or you will be making wigs for robots!

Click to expand...

I suspect the tone from that pickup will be a little thin.

Reminds me of backlash I've had on some fishing reels in the past. Might want to put a little more tension on the spool of wire.

Jay if you dont have any, consider taking wire on a ride around a couple of idler wheels on stiff wire arms that have some spring in them. This can help regulate tension.
Wish i was down at your place to help you, had a fair bit of experience on coil winding.
Other thing is if you trying to wind them and expect them to hold shape when removed from former consider dabbing on some spar varnish it will act like liquid glue.
Need to see more of what u want to accomplish to offer any meaningful help. Best of luck.

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

The problem I had is with the pigtail at the start I didnt tape it to the winding plate good enough and it broke about half way through the wind. I stopped to check the resistance and couldnt find the end it was broken off and inside the winding. I also had the mag installed to tight and it cracked the bobbin ........All part of the learning process I figure.
And YES Rob I too wish we were closer together.