Bulk pickup winding service

[Old McDonald]

I stumbled upon this site today. link

I wonder what they charge? Anyone ever use their service?

[David Schwab]

That's interesting. 1,000 piece minimum. I wonder if they will do a sample?

Could be good for someone that gets a huge pickup order.

[madialex]

I dont see any good coming from this

[pickupjunkie]

Just curious what the difference would be between getting a 1000 of these wound and importing the same amount from Taiwan or wherever. Other than paying for US labor?

What makes the small handwinders pickups so good is the good ones are anal retentive about getting every detail perfect. I dont think you can get that in a mass produced product regardless of where it comes from. I might be wrong heck who knows but it stands to reason to me and my simple mind lol.

Of course Im a hack guitar maker and NOT a pickup maker so maybe my view is skewed lol.

[David Schwab]

If it ever came to me needing 1000 coils wound, I'd see what they were about. If they could do what you want for a good price, it might not be a bad idea under the right circumstances.

[Stan H]

I guess it really depends on what you are looking for...they wouldn't be your pickups. I wouldn't expect anybodys work to sound the same as mine. You loose that personal mojo....

[David Schwab]

I guess it really depends on what you are looking for...they wouldn't be your pickups. I wouldn't expect anybodys work to sound the same as mine. You loose that personal mojo....

Sure they would be your pickups, just someone else wound them. Unless you are doing something really generic, like 5,000 turns of 42 on a PAF bobbin, you have your own formula. The way I see it, the bobbins are just one part. You have the magnet size and type, the metal parts you are using, etc.

Look at Guitar Fetish. They have a whole range of pickups, and they don't wind a single one of them! They aren't the highest quality out there, but they aren't the most expensive either. People seem to like them, so they found their niche. I've heard good things about the pickups from Stew-Mac as well, and I'm sure they are imported from Asia.

If your pickup relied so much on your hand guiding them to be unique, then every pickup you wound would sound different! But that doesn't happen. The style of wind matters more than you winding it... a tight wind, little or a lot of scatter, etc. But you can program a winder to do that. I'm all for machine winding if you can get the tone you want, and there's no reason you can't, you just have to figure out how to wind it.

I do agree that a lot of factory made pickups from Asia are on the bland side compared to the hand made versions, such as Kent Armstrong and even Bartolini. Their hand wound pickups are better than the import versions. But I think there's a place between those extremes where you can probably get a good sounding pickup using some winder other than yourself. Or you hire people and get real winding machines. But that's only if you are trying to produce in volume of course.

I've been thinking about having some bobbins wound to my specs by someone with an automated winder so I can do an A/B comparison to one I did by hand. That would answer the question regarding hand vs. machine wound, at least for my pickups.

I wouldn't mind doing something like GFS as long as I was getting something I'm totally happy with. I think the mojo is in the design, and not so much the manufacturing as long as the quality of the work and materials is high.

[Stan H]

I've been thinking about having some bobbins wound to my specs by someone with an automated winder so I can do an A/B comparison to one I did by hand. That would answer the question regarding hand vs. machine wound, at least for my pickups.

I'd love to see the results. I do believe that technique has some to do with it...maybe not much but I believe it's there.

[Joe Gwinn]

I stumbled upon this site today. link

I wonder what they charge? Anyone ever use their service?

There are many companies that will wind small and odd coils for a fee, so if one suddenly needs 1,000 coils wound, shop around. And don't limit the search to companies mentioning guitar pickups - a coil is a coil to them, and many will have the needed equipment to handle fine wire and oblong forms. It's a very competitive business, and they are hungrier than usual these days.

[David Schwab]

There are many companies that will wind small and odd coils for a fee, so if one suddenly needs 1,000 coils wound, shop around. And don't limit the search to companies mentioning guitar pickups - a coil is a coil to them, and many will have the needed equipment to handle fine wire and oblong forms. It's a very competitive business, and they are hungrier than usual these days.

That was my thought too... if you think about winding 1,000 bobbins, think about the cost of parts for 500 pickups!

certainly nothing I need at the moment!