Lollar winder vs lathe winder vs ...

[djowel]

Hey Everybody,

I'm Joël, from Holland.
I've been here for some time, but more as a silent member.
I thought that the info I needed was already here, so no need to repeat al my newbie questions over again.

Anyway, I've just completed my first set of bass pickups, for my G&L tribute L-2500. Made them from the ground up, but with some mods to my taste.
It turned out oké, with the improvised winder. But it got a bit sloppy at the end.
So, I'm planning to make a winder more to standard, for better results.

But I was wondering, who is using what on the board. By what I mean, the Lollar winder, or a lathewinder, or maybe something else fancy.
And what are the pros and cons of those different winders.
I have the Lollar book, it was sitting on a shelf of a friend-luthier of mine. And luckily, he let met lend it.

Well, I hope to hear you guys soon, and you'll seeing me hanging around.

Joel

Here are some pics of my first project:

[J S Moore]

I started out with a winder built from Jason's plans. I left out the automatic traverse because I wanted to hand feed. I finished a new winder made out of a hobby lathe which I am really pleased with. Dead true and spins a lot faster than I need it to.

It's the tail stock that I really wanted in a machine. I made a number of faceplates that clamp the bobbin in between so there is no distortion due to tension. It was really the P-90 bobbins I had trouble with.

[JGundry]

Hi Joel,

I think the lathe is a much more solid and elegant solution than the Lollar winder.

By the way what brand is that solder station? Am I correct that the iron holder captures any fumes that might be lingering on the tip. With the higher temperatures of lead free solder the tip smokes for a good while after I solder so a holder that captured the fumes would be welcome.

[djowel]

Hey, any onther member care to share their opinion on the differnt kind of winders?

Jgundry, the solderstation is just a regular housebrand station from a large radio shack webshop, here in Holland. So, I have to disappoint you. No fancy gadget.

[NightWinder]

I like the centre of the lathes. This makes for excellent coil shapes and are a blast......plus you may find some other uses down the road. There is another post, I think Kevint actually found a manual hand winder.....it would work, but makes for a sore arm. Its here somewhere.....

[Spence]

Jason Lollar seems to make fine and top selling pickups with his winder design. I seem to recall him having 3 of them in his shop.
On the other hand, companies like Bare Knuckles in the UK use winders based on a mini lathe.

Personally I don't much care for NASA spec winders. My winder is my own design born out of experience in making pickups. That experience helped me design a winder that does everything I need it to do and my pickups sell themselves.

[Ruel]

Jason Lollar seems to make fine and top selling pickups with his winder design. I seem to recall him having 3 of them in his shop.
On the other hand, companies like Bare Knuckles in the UK use winders based on a mini lathe.

Personally I don't much care for NASA spec winders. My winder is my own design born out of experience in making pickups. That experience helped me design a winder that does everything I need it to do and my pickups sell themselves.

Yup! It is the dude behind the winder that counts. Anybody can wind a pickup using any type of winder. But it is the magic that his hands create that matters, at the end of the day.

[erikbojerik]

I'm going lathe....one of these days. In the meantime, I'm still doing a LOT of reading.

[David Schwab]

I took the easy route and got a Schatten winder. I works fine, and is compact, which is important since I don't have a dedicated pickup work area (well I do, but it's a corner of the kitchen!).

One thing I would change is having a larger display on the counter, and having a preset stop would be nice.

So I like it for winding, but it is over priced for what you get. Wouldn't be too hard to make one just like it.

[NightWinder]

YEah, and that shatten.. puzzles me. How do you mount the hum bobbin? Tape? How about single coils with some weight to them. Just waiting to fly off and break your glasses or something. And the 750 rmp max just blows donkey cock. This is just to unstable, and unpredictable. Thinks about it, if mounting on with tape????? Your eyeballing at best, and that wound never be centered. I'd imagine you could creat some pretty awkward coil shapes at best, but nothing with any consistancy. Don Mare might like this for his stuff with bulging middle coils.......
Not to mention the cheesy travers, your letting your line fly across another metal object with tension on it, I would think that could alter the roundness of the wire slightly, and return effect the tone. Shields work best. We already know how inconsistant wire gauges can be anyway, so further the problem? And then theres the price.........umm. For that amount, why not get a lathe, counter , shields, and a sppol of wire? I guess its something to start on.

[Spence]

What's the matter with you Nightwinder? Everyone knows when the bobbin hits you in the face, that means it's full.

Jeez.....

[NightWinder]

Specially wearing glasses....Got to get up close to see that great coil shape!! Get ready for the tko!!

[David Schwab]

How do you mount the hum bobbin? Tape? How about single coils with some weight to them. Just waiting to fly off and break your glasses or something.

Not at all... you have to pull quite hard to remove the bobbins from the double stick tape. I have to get a screw driver under them and pry them off! They advise you to use carpet tape, which they supply a piece of. But I've been using either plain double stick tape, or foam tape.

I've used a lot of double stick tape (not the foam kind) for router templates. That's a pretty standard thing. I don't mean smallish plastic templates, I mean big MDF or plywood templates. You can actually pull the finish off a guitar when removing the template.

So the bobbin mounted with tape is quite strong. For some of my coils I actually stick magnets to the winder, and attach my bobbin to the magnets, since it has a steel rail sticking out the bottom. I haven't had a single bobbin come loose yet. I have run it at full speed and the bobbin does not come off, and my bobbins are kind of heavy... way heavier than a Fender or Gibson bobbin.

I could always drill holes in the aluminum bar you mount the bobbins on, and use screws, but honestly I've had no need to do that. It's more flexible this way. I make some odd size pickups.

And the 750 rmp max just blows donkey cock.

It's 725 RPM actually. What's the problem? I never wind at full speed. I'm never up past half to 3/4 speed. That's fast enough for me.

This is just to unstable, and unpredictable. Thinks about it, if mounting on with tape????? Your eyeballing at best, and that wound never be centered. I'd imagine you could creat some pretty awkward coil shapes at best, but nothing with any consistancy. Don Mare might like this for his stuff with bulging middle coils.......

No, it has a center line etched in the bar, and I have center lines on my bobbins. It's not hard at all to get them centered, and really, it doesn't make much of a difference. I don't get a bulge in the middle, unless I feed the wire that way.

Not to mention the cheesy travers, your letting your line fly across another metal object with tension on it, I would think that could alter the roundness of the wire slightly, and return effect the tone.

Naw, that doesn't happen. You run the wire under the bar, but really your fingers are applying the tension, and you aren't pressing it against the bar. It's the same pressure put on the wire as it wraps around the center of the bobbin anyway, be that alnico rods or whatever. I've never been able to put so much pressure on the wire to even stretch it much... it slows the winder at that point. But I get nice tight coils, and never break any wire unless it gets caught on something nearby.

A lot of the time the wire doesn't even touch the bar or the crossfeed limiters.

Shields work best. We already know how inconsistant wire gauges can be anyway, so further the problem?

What problem? It's a really simple device... a motor and an axle spinning the bobbin. Not much different from the old Fender winder, really.

And then theres the price.........umm. For that amount, why not get a lathe, counter, shields, and a sppol of wire? I guess its something to start on.

The price blows... but if you think that you paid someone to build you a winder, it makes sense... and still blows!

I'll justify it in my case that I needed a winder and at the present time have no access to a work shop. I had no room to put a small lathe, nor the room to make one into a winder... not at the expense of my wife's sanity!

The winder has already paid for itself a few times, so I'm not too concerned. At some point I'll build something fancier... but that will have to be a bit more automated.

[NightWinder]

So your saying you get centered bobbins everytime? It really just does'nt look stable? You know....
The LAthe is quite simple to set-up, and break down. Can come in handy for other projects too. Quite cheap.
Speed is an important factor.....faster can help with tighter tensions. I may have to try one just for fun. I've never been enthused about it, but you always bring shatten up, and speak highly of it. I wonder if you can alter the performance for faster speeds. Change some values? Is the counter reliable? Never had thought about it really, but you have me interested.

[David Schwab]

So your saying you get centered bobbins everytime? It really just does'nt look stable? You know....

They get centered as much as they need to be. The part you attach the bobbins too is not very wide, so it's hard to get them off center in that dimension, it's not like a large round platform. It doesn't wobble at all.. turns quite freely. I give it a spin after the bobbin is attached, so if it looks off I adjust it.

The LAthe is quite simple to set-up, and break down. Can come in handy for other projects too. Quite cheap.

Certainly much cheaper than the Schatten. But as I said, at the time it was better for me to have something that worked out of the box. I just didn't have the time to set up a counter and mod a lathe.

I'm quite at home with wood working machines, but it didn't fit into my available time. That's what happens when you have a full time job, and a two year old! I've made or modified a lot of the tools I use for lutherie... grinding down files and stuff like that.

Speed is an important factor.....faster can help with tighter tensions.

Geeze, I just can't imagine going too much faster. I can't see what's going on! It's just a blur. I run it almost full out for larger winds, but for what I'm doing, it doesn't take me long to get a coil wound. I use the speed control to adjust the tension, so I set it so it's feeling about right between my fingers.

I'd imagine using a different winder wound be a much different experience, but this reminds me of my old sewing machine motor winder.

I may have to try one just for fun. I've never been enthused about it, but you always bring shatten up, and speak highly of it. I wonder if you can alter the performance for faster speeds. Change some values? Is the counter reliable? Never had thought about it really, but you have me interested.

Well I don't know about how highly I speak of it, but it doesn't suck. Believe me, if I got it and it didn't work well, it would have been on eBay the next day!

The counter works fine. It's an optical system. It has no problems running at full speed. I wind by turn count, so I keep my attention on the counter and bobbin the whole time. I've never seen it skip, and when I check the DC resistance, I'm within a few ohms of my target.

For higher speed you'd either need a different motor, or I suppose different size pulleys would do the trick.

OK what I don't like about it is, it's homemade looking. The base is melamine covered particle board. The edges are a bit rough looking, and the bracket that holds the traverse guides was mounted out of square. He really needs to make up a routing and drilling template. Mine has a sheet metal case, which is OK, but the new ones are plastic. It has a cheesy low res ink jet label on it. This machine is obviously built by Les Schatten himself. It's not like a lathe from a factory somewhere.

The counter is small, which for me is sometimes hard to read... I'll be 50 this year and I've spent too many hours in front of a computer monitor! I need a larger display.

I'd really like a programable counter that stops the winder.

The motor is a bit underpowered... it works fine, but I'm able to stop the winder by squeezing the wire tight! That might not be a bad thing though... let's me get the wind tight without breaking the wire.

But don't get me wrong... my next winder will be lathe based with more bells and whistles.

This would not be a bad winder for half the price. That's the real issue with the Schatten. Too expensive.

If I had to do it over? I think I'd go the lathe route.

[NightWinder]

Can you adjust the travers bar? Move it closer, to the bobbin, or further away? You got any pictures with a bobbin mounted?

[Phil m]

Hi Joel,

Nice pickup! I don't think I've ever seen another home build musicman pickup before, besides me

Where did you get or what did you use for the eyelets on this picture?

[djowel]

Hey. phill,

Believe it or not, after much googleling around, I found a local handcraft store that selled them. They are actually light connectors sockets for dollhouses.

The Bobbins are actually smaller than MM pickups. The original MFD-pickups have magbars and height adjustable polepieces.
But I wanted a diffirent sound, so I choose the rod style.
Conveniently enough, the polepieces were the same dia. size as MM rod magnets.

Phil, I actually have to give you some creds. I've learned alot from your site.

[djowel]

By the way, Are there different publications of the Lollar book?

I've noticed that some, including Jason, reffer to instructions for making bobins with Forbon.
But mine doen't say anything about it. Only bobbin design with wood and Plexiglass.

[David Schwab]

Can you adjust the travers bar? Move it closer, to the bobbin, or further away? You got any pictures with a bobbin mounted?

No, you can only move the two stops left and right. I don't have any photos with the bobbin on it, but I have some pickups to wind tonight, so I'll take some snaps.

Here's a few pictures I had taken when I got it. And the last one is one of the first coils I wound... see it winds nice and smooth.

[NightWinder]

No, you can only move the two stops left and right. I don't have any photos with the bobbin on it, but I have some pickups to wind tonight, so I'll take some snaps.

Here's a few pictures I had taken when I got it. And the last one is one of the first coils I wound... see it winds nice and smooth.

Thanks. One thing, Did you purpously put a flare on the bobbin shape? Top is wider than the bottom. Unless you are trying to manipulate frequencys, I would know....That can create some unnessisary lowend looseness, seeing more of the field of the string, but flaring down narrower. What is that gook on top of the poles, silicone? I'm sure that thing would rocks......I'm just an asshole about coil shape.LOL

[David Schwab]

Thanks. One thing, Did you purpously put a flare on the bobbin shape? Top is wider than the bottom. Unless you are trying to manipulate frequencys, I would know....That can create some unnessisary lowend looseness, seeing more of the field of the string, but flaring down narrower. What is that gook on top of the poles, silicone? I'm sure that thing would rocks......I'm just an asshole about coil shape.LOL

Nope, just sloppy winding! It looks worse in the picture than it is because of the angle it's on. That's one of the early coils I wound on this winder so I was still getting the technique down. You'd be surprised how different the coils can look and they all sound pretty the same. I've purposely tried different shapes... bulges in the middle, wide at the top or bottom... I record them and compare, and I can't hear a difference. That's because I don't have a lot of wire wound on the coil, so it's never that far from the core. Even going from the rods to the blades didn't do much to the sound. I thought it would be a lot more dramatic a change, but it wasn't. That pickup currently resides in one of my basses along with a blade model. You can hear it here. The first track was this pickup in the bridge position, and the next track has it in the neck, with a blade model in the bridge. I've changed the blade model twice since this recording.

That's hot melt glue... this pickup was cobbled together for testing purposes. Normally I epoxy the coil forms together. I usually tear the test pickups apart and reuse the parts. My wife does arts and crafts, so I was looking at her hot melt gun and borrowed it. It's actually pretty handy stuff.