This Bill Lawrence pic + bobbin building

[Phil m]

I found this pic on the Bill Lawrence website.



The title under it says: "Here, Ross is stamping out coilform parts"
The guy is obviously making bobbins with some sort of die in a press.

This has got me thinking of different ways to start making bobbins a little bit faster than with my router and drill press jig. Does anyone know how that's done in big companies and has pics?

Does anyone also feel like showing any pics of their setup?

I know a whole lot of you buy your bobbins but I'm into building them. I build my own instruments with lots of custom spacings. There isn't any bobbins available for most of my projects.

[David Schwab]

I guess he's punching them out with a die on that arbor press. Probably doing flatwork type bobbins, a la Fender.

I doubt he makes the L-500's that way though, but maybe the L-600.

I'm mostly cutting them out by hand at the moment, but I plan on using a router.

I just made a stacked Tele lead pickup from copper clad PCB... cut out entirely by hand (you can score and snap that stuff pretty easily) and shaped with a drum sander on my drill press. I haven't wound it yet... this weekend I'll get to that... I'll post some pictures.

I think punching them out with an arbor press seems like a good idea... you just need to make the dies. I've got a small arbor press I use for pressing frets in. I'll have to explore this idea further!

[David King]

What about downloading a free pcb design utility and outputting a DXF or bitmap file that you can send out to a laser or rotary engraver along with your sheet stock? You could stockpile samples of every possible 6 and 7 string permutation and spacing you might need and replenish as you go through them.

[David Schwab]

That's a good idea David... I forgot all about laser cutting. I was looking into that a while back, but got sidetracked with having covers made. A friend of mine is doing the CAD work for me... now I just have to wait...

[Merlin]

Laser is perfect way in my opinion. Some laser machines can use Corel Draw draws what is very easy to do. And also you can make any shape/size you wish.