Humbucker hookup wire

[SJE]

But I am not saying not wrap them - I secure them to the centre of the bobbin with tape which insulates and protects them and in my opinion if your solder joint is good and clean there is absolutely no reason to double wrap a joint. If you've hacked up a horrible spikey lump of solder and stuck it in there well not even 2 layers of tape will be enough.


Edit .. .. I used to have a pair of fine wire strippers . . . but they've been lost in some part of the world! But to be honest I've found that even the best wire strippers on very fine gauge multistrand still break strands. Teeth on the other hand don't!

[Possum]

....

Yes of course wrapping the coil then laying down the solder jointed magnet wire/lead and tape over that is fine, thats what I do. On P90's I use the other Gibson vintage method of folding a piece of tape over the solder joint, then doing my coil tape wrap over that. I see that in PAFs as well, but there is only one lead coming directly off the coil, the other is under the bobbin. The guy in the video doesn't seem very knowledgeable, stuff like that scares me about this business. For the record the reason a small coil offset opens up more frequencies is a straight equal winds bucker kills some 60 cycle hum but all along the frequency spectrum it is killing other frequencies with it, if you mismatch them a little some of those frequencies come back. I'm doing some work on my PAF set for an alternate version and played with an equal winds bridge for awhile, it just sounds real sterile to me so abandoned that idea.....

[Possum]

....

My ideal wire stripper, the small one, will strip really fine wire, I use the largest opening in it to strip bucker wires, it will also strip the teeny wires on four conductor hook up wire which is a bitch to strip with teeth cleanly. It doesn't have a model number on it unfortunately. Its one of these:
IDEAL INDUSTRIES, INC. - Stripmaster® & Stripmaster® Lite Wire Strippers

[Peter Naglitsch]

The guy in the video doesn't seem very knowledgeable

Dunno about that. Clint pops in here from time to time and his advices have always seemed sane. Although I, as most other, also consider taping a bare solder joint against the coil bad practice.

As I very seldom have the opportunity to lay may dirty hands on a "true" PAF (very few old Gibbos in circulation here in Sweden) and only can listen to the classic recordings for "that" sound (anyway, get on with it...) I have a question: Does the original PAF have one hook up wire entered (or exited) through one of the bottom holes? This is just out of curiosity as I'm not doing vintage accurate pickups.

[David Schwab]

I use one of those auto strippers. It's a Kronus. When I do 4 conductor cable, I can do all four at once!

It's similar to this one:



I got the one sold at Radio Shack, though they don't list it on line.

[Possum]

...

Dave: that things looks scary, I bet you can scalp people with it too...

Yes PAFs had one lead exiting a hole on the bottom of the bobbin with the lead taped to the core. When TTops came along for some reason they quit doing this, probably because you had to solder the magnet wire to the lead, which is kind of slow....

[Woodenspoke]

My ideal wire stripper, the small one, will strip really fine wire, I use the largest opening in it to strip bucker wires, it will also strip the teeny wires on four conductor hook up wire which is a bitch to strip with teeth cleanly. It doesn't have a model number on it unfortunately. Its one of these:
IDEAL INDUSTRIES, INC. - Stripmaster® & Stripmaster® Lite Wire Strippers

Thats the one I ordered....

[Woodenspoke]

I have a pair like these thats the reason I ordered the ideal strippers....one step above teeth....LOL

Mine are cheaper brand so maybe thats why they never seem to come back to home position and grab the wire properly. The ideal gets a firm grip on the wire and it has holes for each wire size so you dont have to guess if you will only be removing the covering and not the wire. Figure double the price is worth twice the accuracy.

On another note does anyone have a good source for braided covered wire. From the pickup to the control cavity besides the Stumac kind of places. I keep thinking about stripping some coax and reusing the braid but that seems silly...

[David Schwab]

This stripper doesn't have holes for each wire size, it adjust to the wire. It's really just a clamp on the left hand jaw, and a clamp with a blade on the right.

When you squeeze the handles, the two clamps close and then the jaws open... and you get a stripped wire.

It works flawlessly, even taking off the jacket from 4 conductor coax. Then I flatten the four wires so they are laying next to each other, and strip all four at once. This saves me so much time it's not funny!

Mine has a stop so you can set the length you want to strip off, so I can do a batch of bobbin lead wires quickly.

It says it handles 10 - 24 AWG, but I strip 28 AWG with no problem.

[Possum]

...

I don't think it would strip the braided wire coax wire though, even the Ideal doesn't hit it every time.....

[David Schwab]

No, it wouldn't.

[Possum]

...

Looks like it could be useful for me though, the Ideal ones if you slightly miss the hole it chops the wire off :-)

[Woodenspoke]

Looks like it could be useful for me though, the Ideal ones if you slightly miss the hole it chops the wire off :-)

I am not impressed with the strippers David shows especially if you wanted to do production work. But maybe you will like them.. After doing some online research the Klein and Ideal came in as best strippers to own. This is the Klein (link) and I assume it is like the stripper David posted but of a higher quality and different mechanism.

http://www.service.kleintools.com/CG...818071+PRD+ENG

They make electronic strippers if you have the bucks and like precision tools. Not sure if it eats fingers on short leads?

Major 5001 Wire Stripper

[David Schwab]

I am not impressed with the strippers David shows especially if you wanted to do production work.

I don't know how you wouldn't want them in a production situation. I can take a bunch of cut-to-length wires, and strip the ends almost automatically. The stripper I have has a depth stop, so you can set the length of insulation to remove.

Really it only takes as long as sticking the wire in and pulling the handle, and then on to the next piece. For 4-conductor cable, I do all four leads at once. This is much faster than the various other strippers I have used.

Also every wire comes out exactly the same, and you can't accidentally cut the wire while stripping it.

http://www.service.kleintools.com/CG...818071+PRD+ENG

That's a bad link. If it's one of those plastic tools with the razor blade, no thanks. Been there, done that.

[Woodenspoke]

Klein 11065, Automatic Wire Stripper -Tefzel® and Teflon® Insulated Wire, 11065 |DynamiteTooLCo.com

Sorry about the link? Looking at more pictures I believe they are the similar to the ideal stripmaster and not your radio shack / GB /Erwin strippers

I don't know how you wouldn't want them in a production situation

Only because I have a similar pair of strippers and always reach for a pair of Xcelite manual adj strippers. As I said my stripper is less than user friendy and it may be its a cheaper knock off of a brand name. I have no intention to add another to my collection just to see the differences. I am not in a productuion situation so stripping 4 wires at a time is unecessary. Honestly if getting the job done quickly is your goal then you should be lookig at a motorized unit and spending the bucks.

Here is some info for everyone on the Irwin brand
http://www.webbikeworld.com/motorcyc...e-stripper.htm

http://toolmonger.com/2007/02/22/han...wire-stripper/