Winding parallelogram coil shapes?

[ken]

Hello...

I'm trying to teach someone to wind coils.

She does OK, but all her pickup coils come out looking like parallelograms -
when you look right at the side of one of her pickup's coils, her 'bass side' is wider at the top than at the bottom. The coil's 'treble side' is wider at the bottom than the top too.

I can't figure out how she does this, and I'm trying to correct it.
It **looks** OK when she is winding, but it all turns out the same way.

Thank you,
Ken

[Spence]

This is simply because her bobbin isn't mounted quite right. So as a result, you will get one end loading more at the top and the other end loading at the bottom. Just make sure the bobbin is balanced and spinning without any wobble before attaching the coil wire.

[ken]

I checked that already... I showed her how to screw down a bolt through the center hole of the bobbin to my faceplate, and she had that right. In fact, she had it about as 'square' as you could get it. I've been watching her, I think she may be moving the wire close to the bobbin edges wrong somehow.

Ken

[madialex]

I agree

The only thing i have seen do this is a wobble in the bobbin, even if she is getting too close to the edge it will still be the same on both ends if the bobbin is centered correctly.

[Luijo]

How do they sound?

Have you tested any of the pickups she has made? Maybe you have something interesting and different there....

[Mystic]

sounds like there is a problem with her traverse speed.Maybe too fast.

[David Schwab]

I've had this happen, and my bobbins were mounted flat and square. I started spending more time winding to the middle, and that fixed the problem. Now I get a slight bulge in the center of the coil, but I don't mind that as much as the parallelogram. I think it is traverse speed.

[David Schwab]

Have you tested any of the pickups she has made? Maybe you have something interesting and different there....

My first few humbuckers look this way.

They sound good... but I'm not sure it has anything to do with the parallelogram shape!

neck

bridge

I wound some more that didn't come out that way, but I haven't tested them in a guitar yet.

[ken]

My wife figured it out -

When the winder would get to the extreme edge of the coil bobbin, she would hesitate for a tiny bit, and tear over to the other side of the coil. For some reason, she just didn't move her hand smoothly from side to side. At the speed she was going, she always managed to pile up her wire at those specific places in the coil.

My wife Carolyn calls it for some reason a 'hitch in her giddyup'.

Oh well, training is what all those almost empty coil wire spools are for...

Ken
ohmwiz@yahoo.com