I need a better way to hold the bobbin

[888guitars]

I have a old stevens winder and I need a better way to attach the bobbins to the spinning shaft. I cant seem to get anything to wind striaight? Does any one sell such parts? Or know who can make something I can buy?

Here is what I'm workin with. The shaft spins true but my stuff attached to it is not. any ideas?

[Possum]

You really need to bite the bullet and get a machined, perfectly flat and true bobbin mounting fixture. I built Lollar's winder a long time ago and was never able to get anything that ran flat and true til I had a round flat mounting plate machined out of aluminum. He put a silicon bronze threaded center on it that I bolt my pickups to. Problem solved.....

[888guitars]

Ok, So who would make such a thing? I'm not sure of any machine shops around my parts but I will start looking. Do you have suggestions for some specs to give them?

[Bruce Johnson]

Ok, So who would make such a thing? I'm not sure of any machine shops around my parts but I will start looking. Do you have suggestions for some specs to give them?

888;
I have my own machine shop, and I've made up aluminum face plates for several other guys' winders, as well as for my own. Depending on the diameter and the complexity, it'll cost you $40 to $75. There are different ways of making them. It depends on what variety and types of bobbins you intend to work on. The last one I made for a customer was 5" diameter, with a smooth polished face, several patterns of holes threaded 4-40, and a pilot hole in the center. I can also make it to any other design that you have in mind. My own winder has a steel hub on the shaft with two index pins, and I make up custom sets of aluminum disks that snap on for each model pickup that I wind.

The main things I'd need to know are the diameter of the spindle shaft, the overall diameter you want, and the thickness of the front flange. The hub of the face plate will slip over the end of the spindle shaft and lock on with two setscrews.

You can reach me directly at brucejohnson100.......at....att......dot...net.....

[Possum]

There ya go, do it! I had two made that slip over my Adams Maxwell's 1/2 inch shaft with 3 set screws to hold it straight. I use a tailstock though for buckers, a tailstock might be a good idea also at some point...

[888guitars]

Oh Yea !! What a relief! I will measure the stuff and get back to you. I hope I can finally turn something to be proud of!

[888guitars]

Possum:
What do you mean tailstock? How is that different from the other faceplate?

[David Schwab]

You really need to bite the bullet and get a machined, perfectly flat and true bobbin mounting fixture.

I don't disagree, but my Schatten has an aluminum bar that was obviously not machined any further than having a couple of holes drilled in it, and it runs nice and true.

I think the issue is the wooden spacer used above.

[888guitars]

Ya it is the wooden "caul" that I have the pickup attached to. If bruce can help me with a better way I'm all for it!

[Bruce Johnson]

I got your e-mail, Nate.

To avoid having to go over all of it again, here's a long thread all about the accuracy of winder face plates:
How did you get your faceplate 'true'?


Below are a couple of shots of a winder face plate I made for a customer. It's a typical design with a hub on the back. The front surface is trued and polished. He later sent it back to me and had me add some threaded holes on the face.

The bottom shots show how the face plate is cut from a chunk of aluminum on two of my lathes. I peel off most of the metal on my big LeBlond lathe, then switch over the the smaller Logan lathe for the final facing and truing.

[David Schwab]

You do very nice work Bruce! Looks like you could make a submarine with that stuff!

[copperheadroads]

i used to use 1" x 1" x 4" aluminum for a base plate kind of like a schatten winder only a little overkill . but i found it wobbled a bit so i made a round base plate on a wood lathe out or some seasoned 2" maple ,with a humbucker mounting screw going in to the middle of the faceplate to center the bobbin .it works allot better but lately i noticed a slight difference in the shape of the wire on the bobbin ,one end is just a little sloped towards the bottom of the bobbin. as the other end is straight . it could be the wood warping a little & need to be trued up again .its some that i expected anyway . but if i have any grief , i just might give you a call Bruce

[Bruce Johnson]

Having a face plate that runs true (that is, doesn't wobble) isn't absolutely necessary, but it makes winding easier and reduces the risk. If the bobbin is wobbling as it spins, there's a much higher chance that you're going to get a loop of wire over the end of one of the flanges. With either hand winding or machine winding, if the flange edge looks like a blur, it's hard to feed the wire close to it without going too far. One stray loop, and the coil is ruined.

A true-running face plate with a bobbin attached to it will help you place the wire where you want it more accurately. To further reduce the chances of stray loops, many of us use face plates with recesses cut into them. The recesses are shaped to fit a particular bobbin, and they effectively sink the flanges of the bobbins below the surface. With one of these disks on either side of the bobbin, stray loops are nearly eliminated. Since my own pickup making is limited to several of my own design coils, that's what I did for my winder. I made up special sets of interchangeable aluminum disks, which have recesses to fit the bobbin flanges of my coils.

Some guidelines about face plate dimensions:

You don't want the face plate to be much larger in diameter than the bobbins you're winding, or it starts to get in the way of the feeding. The 5" diameter face plate shown above is for a guy who's doing long bass pickups, like 7, 8, 9-string monsters. If you're just doing guitar pickups, you probably want a face plate about 3 1/2" diameter. Measure the bobbins you're likely to wind. Also, a 3 1/2" dia face plate will be about half the cost of a 5" one.

I like to make the face plates with a 1" diameter hub on the back, like the one shown above. That gives me a good reference surface for everything to be aligned to. I turn the hub from the back side first, then drill and ream the spindle bore in the same setup. This makes the spindle bore true to the hub OD. Then I flip it over and clamp the hub in a collet in my smaller lathe, while I cut the front face and trim the OD of the flange.

The thickness of the flange doesn't matter too much. Most of the face plates I've made have been 3/8" thick with the hub extending back 1". If you're going to be tapping holes in the flange, it's best to run them all the way through, so you can keep the threads clean.

[voodoochild]

I have a old stevens winder and I need a better way to attach the bobbins to the spinning shaft. I cant seem to get anything to wind striaight? Does any one sell such parts? Or know who can make something I can buy?

Here is what I'm workin with. The shaft spins true but my stuff attached to it is not. any ideas?

I use aluminum U channel rod. Cut it into 3'' pieces and epoxy threaded inserts inside. I use one for the base and the other as a clamp. The u channel is nice because it clears the magnets and presses everything flat. For single coils I use 1 threaded rod in the center. I thread it into the base piece, push a bobbin onto the threaded rod, put the clamp piece on, and tighten a nut down to secure it. For humbuckers, P-90's, I use 2 threaded rods that go through the D and G holes. It works perfectly and didn't cost me much time or money to make.

[888guitars]

I'm having a hard time picturing what your doin? How is a "u" clamp not in the way?

[Joe Gwinn]

I don't disagree, but my Schatten has an aluminum bar that was obviously not machined any further than having a couple of holes drilled in it, and it runs nice and true.

Schatten has the machine tool to make the hole axis perpendicular to the faces of the bar. A good drill press will do this, as will a vertical mill used for drilling. Without a machine (such as using a handheld drill), it's hopeless.

That said, your suspicions of the wooden spacer are probably justified.

In any event, the OP should get a properly machined winder plate. The George Stevens winder is a tank, and with a good faceplate things will go far better.

At normal winding speeds, one cannot really tell what's going on, and mystifying things happen. One thing I found helpful was to provide a recess into which the bobbin flanges fit, so the wire physically cannot hang up on the edges of the bobbin flanges. This can be as simple as an aluminum plate roughly the same thickness as the bobbin flanges with an bobbin-shaped oblong hole cut in the center. The fit need not be precise, and there can be a gap between bobbin and plate. The plate is held to the faceplate with a few countersunk screws. But, sand everything smooth so there is nowhere for the wire to catch.

[Bruce Johnson]

As a followup to the original topic, here are pictures of the face plate that I made up for Nate (888guitars). It's 4" diameter, turned from a slug of 6061 aluminum. The hub on the back is 1" diameter, and the bore is drilled & reamed to 0.376" to fit a 3/8" shaft. Two 10-32 setscrews lock it on. The flange is 3/8" thick. Nate asked for the milled groove on the face for magnet clearance when he does reverse winds. There's a single 4-40 tapped hole in the center. I added a 3 degree bevel around the outer edge of the face and gave it a light polish to help prevent wire snagging.

I charged him $75, and it took me about 2 1/2 hours to make. No big money maker job for me, but I'll make up custom face plates like this for any of you guys who need them. Let me know.

[StarryNight]

I've taken my wobbly faceplate (an aluminum rectangle) and mounted a dial indicator in front of it to measure the how off axis it was and then shimmed one side until it was in plane. I used electrical tape as a shim and got it pretty bang on.

[David Schwab]

As a followup to the original topic, here are pictures of the face plate that I made up for Nate (888guitars)...

Nice job! I think I'll have to enlist your services when I start getting my new winder together.

[Bruce Johnson]

An extra note:
I can also help you if you need other machined parts for your winder. Here's a driveline kit that I made up for another customer, with an aluminum face plate, a stainless shaft, and matched timing pulleys and belt.

As I said above, I offer these services to other winders because I have the machinery to do it, and I know that it can be hard to find a machine shop willing to work with you on little jobs. I quote jobs like this at about $25/hr, whereas my normal rate for machine work is $45/hr.

Hmmmm......Well, under the new, improved format, I can't seem to figure out how to upload an image from my computer. Under Manage Attachments, it seems like the only option is to upload from a URL. Is that true?

Okay, thanks David! I think I got it now.....

[David Schwab]

An extra note:
I can also help you if you need other machined parts for your winder. Here's a driveline kit that I made up for another customer, with an aluminum face plate, a stainless shaft, and matched timing pulleys and belt.

As I said above, I offer these services to other winders because I have the machinery to do it, and I know that it can be hard to find a machine shop willing to work with you on little jobs. I quote jobs like this at about $25/hr, whereas my normal rate for machine work is $45/hr.

Cool!

Hmmmm......Well, under the new, improved format, I can't seem to figure out how to upload an image from my computer. Under Manage Attachments, it seems like the only option is to upload from a URL. Is that true?

I had a hard time finding it the first time as well. It was showing previous uploads.

In the upper right hand corner is a button labeled "Add Files", click on that.

Then click on the "Choose Files" button and browse to your file.

Then press "Upload"

Then you will see it in the "Attachments" pane at the bottom.

Check the box next to the image then choose Insert Attachment or Insert Inline.

The old attachment window was much easier.

[Joe Gwinn]

As a followup to the original topic, here are pictures of the face plate that I made up for Nate (888guitars). It's 4" diameter, turned from a slug of 6061 aluminum. The hub on the back is 1" diameter, and the bore is drilled & reamed to 0.376" to fit a 3/8" shaft. Two 10-32 setscrews lock it on. ...

One improvement occurs to me while looking at the photos. I would have put the two setscrews 45 degrees apart, not 180 degrees apart, for greater stability on shafts that are not a perfect fit in the hub bore.

[David Schwab]

Okay, thanks David! I think I got it now.....

You did indeed!

Nice looking parts. Now I have to start designing my winder so I can use your services. You know the old saying * , "I could rule the world, if I could only get the parts..."

(*also an album by the Waitresses)

[Bruce Johnson]

One improvement occurs to me while looking at the photos. I would have put the two setscrews 45 degrees apart, not 180 degrees apart, for greater stability on shafts that are not a perfect fit in the hub bore.

Joe, I usually use two setscrews at 180 just to keep it balanced to minimize vibration. A trivial thing, just an old habit. The clearance on the shaft should be 0.001" unless the shaft on his machine has been chewed up somehow.

[Bruce Johnson]

You did indeed!

Nice looking parts. Now I have to start designing my winder so I can use your services. You know the old saying * , "I could rule the world, if I could only get the parts..."

(*also an album by the Waitresses)

Thanks, David. That's why I keep aquiring machines. Every new machine tool gives me the capability to make parts the way I really want them to be, when I need them. So I can build even more machines. It's a difficult addiction to kick.

[Joe Gwinn]

Joe, I usually use two setscrews at 180 just to keep it balanced to minimize vibration. A trivial thing, just an old habit. The clearance on the shaft should be 0.001" unless the shaft on his machine has been chewed up somehow.

I've never seen 180-degree separation used except when needed for lateral adjustment, rather than simply to affix a hub to a shaft. Nor are all shafts perfect.

The setscrews don't weigh very much and are very close to the axis of rotation, so dynamic balance won't be affected. More to the point, the only thing that will matter in practice is to get the center bore and the rim of the face plate concentric, because the effect of a small test mass of constant size varies as the square of distance from the rotation axis. Sufficient concentricity is almost automatic if one turned and bored on a lathe without removing the faceplate from the lathe.

Anyway, a pair of setscrews spaced 45 degrees apart was good enough to get a patent, now expired, because of far greater rigidity and resistance to loosening (because the parts were far less able to wiggle and work themselves loose). (No, I don't recall the patent number -- it's been a long time.) Lots of people used 90 degree spacing, which does work, but 45 degrees worked surprisingly better, according the trade press of the day. Not that it will be so critical for a pickup winder, and I bet 60 degrees will work just as well.


On something this small, it won't be important, but on larger stuff it is standard practice to ensure that the setscrews don't stick out, for safety. Those oldtime big square-headed setscrews were a big danger as they tended to catch clothing and pull people into the gear works, causing the gears to rust.

[David Schwab]

I have to say that all the high end knobs I have two set screws at 45 degrees apart.

[Joe Gwinn]

I have to say that all the high end knobs I have two set screws at 45 degrees apart.

Hmm. I didn't know that, but it makes sense, as control shafts are not made to particularly tight tolerances.

[RedHouse]

... Nate asked for the milled groove on the face for magnet clearance when he does reverse winds. There's a single 4-40 tapped hole in the center. I added a 3 degree bevel around the outer edge of the face and gave it a light polish to help prevent wire snagging...

Wow, like minds and all that!.

Here is one I had made for my second winder, I have the same magnet clearance slots (one for single coils and one for humbuckers stud-coils) and the 4-40 in the center.

(the axle shaft actually has the 4-40 hole)

[RedHouse]

How much is that kit?

...Here's a driveline kit that I made up for another customer, with an aluminum face plate, a stainless shaft, and matched timing pulleys and belt......

[888guitars]

Thanks again Bruce! I have wound a couple of pickups now and they are WAY better looking now that it spins true!

[Bruce Johnson]

How much is that kit?

Brad, if I remember right, that kit was around $125 total. About $85 was for the face plate, which was a large 5" one. The belt and pulleys were about $20 and the shaft was about $20. Very little labor involved in them; mostly parts and material. The timing pulleys were from McMasters, which I then reamed to 8mm bore. The shaft was 1/2" dia 303 stainless, turned down to 8mm dia on both ends.

[Busterdawg]

Forgive my ignorance but what is a "dial indicator"?

[Bruce Johnson]

Forgive my ignorance but what is a "dial indicator"?

Basically, it's a precision measuring tool that looks like a small clock. When you push on a plunger or finger on the bottom, the needle on the clock face rotates and you can read the amount that the plunger moved to very high resolution, generally 0.001" or 0.0001". In this case of measuring the wobble of a face plate, the dial indicator is mounted solidly to the frame of the winder with its plunger resting on the face surface of the face plate. You then slowly rotate the face plate by hand and the amount of wobble can be read by the movement of the needle on the clock face. That's a simplified explanation, but those are the basics. If you hear the expression "to indicate something in", it's referring to using a dial indicator to measure wobble or runout, as you adjust the wobble or runout down to zero.

Here's the Wiki entry, although it doesn't really explain the useage very well: Dial indicator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Busterdawg]

I appreciate the explanation. I also have an aluminum rectangle for a faceplate and can tell it's not true. I will either get myself a dial indicator and see if I can fix it via the method you just described or maybe contract the job out to Mr. Johnson if he is so inclined.