At last, ready to start winding

[Folkcafe]

Spent part of the afternoon cutting parts to turn my mini-lathe into a winder. Fabricated a mounting plate for the bobbins and cut an adjustable guide attachment to mount on a magnetic dial indicator base.

It's all systems go after I get some supper. Hopefully I'll have at least some kind of working pickup tonight.

Don

[JHow]

What lathe is that, 6-inch atlas?

[Folkcafe]

I have 2 different lathes in the pictures.

I bought a Central Machinery 7x10 but found it was too small and there were many things that annoyed me about it. So I really don't get much use out of it. So I figured it might make a good pickup winder. It is variable speed and runs smooth.

The 2nd (the one you are probably asking about) is a last generation 101 series Craftsman/Atlas 6" lathe that I picked up recently. It was in great shape but had sit idle so long that the lubricant had turned to something more like glue. I tore it down, cleaned it up and I must say for a relatively crap lathe, it works fairly well (far smoother than the other one). It also came with a ton of tooling. 3 & 4 jaw chuck, taper drills, steady rest. flat chuck plate, knurling set, heavy cast iron stand and more. It was a bargain for $200

[JHow]

Were veering a little off topic, but I too have tried the lathe for pickup winding. I have 7x10 chinese and 9" Southbend. My problem with using the 7x10 for pickup winding was the speed control. It seemed too fast for me. I broke the wire a bunch before I got the hang of it. I know you can adjust the speed and of course its not that hard to build motor controller, but I only re-wound an old dearmond pickup for a kay archtop on a one-time basis. $200 is pretty good for a lathe and tooling, however. The southbend is belt driven and seemed like overkill for a pickup,

[Joe Gwinn]

The 2nd (the one you are probably asking about) is a last generation 101 series Craftsman/Atlas 6" lathe that I picked up recently. It was in great shape but had sit idle so long that the lubricant had turned to something more like glue. I tore it down, cleaned it up and I must say for a relatively crap lathe, it works fairly well (far smoother than the other one). It also came with a ton of tooling. 3 & 4 jaw chuck, taper drills, steady rest. flat chuck plate, knurling set, heavy cast iron stand and more. It was a bargain for $200

There is a yahoo group for people owning these lathes, which were made by Logan Actuator, from which many parts are still available. This group is quite useful, and is moderated by Scott Logan, the current owner of Logan Actuator.

lathe-list : Logan Lathe Users Group

[Faux Hog]

?

Is that a short scale 3 string tele bass?

[Folkcafe]

It's a full scale 3 string guitar. Sort of based off of the cigar box trend except solid body and with a pickup designed for it.

I didn't update anyone here (the weather was just too nice to stay indoors) but I have my first working pickup. The guitar isn't ready yet but I connected a temporary lead to it and managed to tuck it under the strings of my full size hollow body. I wound it to just over 6k and have plenty of output. I wasn't going for hot so based on what I've been reading this became the baseline target. I used A2's for magnets as I was shooting for mellow. Hard to get a gage from the test on the hollow body but it sounded pretty good.

I hope to have things together to a point where I can at least plug it in by the end of the week. I'm working on the finish (at least color and sealed) and will shield the cavity. After that it's assemble, wire up and go.

[Faux Hog]

?

That project looks to be great fun. Interesting neck joint. I suspect a traditional template compensated for three strings. Very cool! Where on earth did you find that bridge and flatwork? Very very cool and different, thanks for sharing. - tell us a little more about the pick ups, on second glance I'm guessing the flat work is half a P bass pick up?

[Faux Hog]

No, that's obviously not a p bass pickup, sorry.

[Folkcafe]

The flat work is custom, laid out in CAD and cut by me. The details are in the post "Cutting Flat Stock (My observations)". The neck joint came from my paranoia. The width of the neck is based on my tenor banjo but I didn't trust that narrow a neck joint. It probably would have been ok but I had a 2"x2" neck plate anyway. I scaled the body down but you are right, I could fit a standard tele neck in that slot. The 4 string I have on the drawing board is the same except with minor changes in how things were cut and fit.

The pickup is wound to just over 6k with heavy formvar. I made the flatwork wide to allow me to experiment with numbers of windings. I've started with A2 magnets and so far like the choices I've made with that and wire type.

My method for cutting the flat work is simple. Design in CAD, plot the drawing actual size, use a glue stick to fasten the paper pattern and cut with a scroll saw. Using the layout, I just drill the holes on the drill press and I'm ready to go. The paper washes off with warm water after I'm done. The only special tool is for the ferules that I got from Stew-Mac. While I have a shop full of tools, this could even be done with hand tools like a coping or jeweler's saw and a cordless drill by anyone.

You would just need a cheap or free vector based drawing program (that is where the learning curve is). The hardest part was figuring out the magnet spacing for the pickup at an angle and for that I just used AutoCad.

[Faux Hog]

At an angle?

Anyway, I think your paranoia based decision made for a very cool and original look. I just plain dig it. I did read your previous post, and enjoyed it, didn't mean to make ya post it twice. Good work. Fun. Definitely post the work on the 4 string as well. Where's the bridge from again? Custom? If so, hats off, looks good.

[Folkcafe]

The bridge is temporary. I just bent and drilled a piece of brass plate and polished it. I plan to make a more traditional tele bridge once I have the pickup sorted out. I'd like to find a company that can chrome plate it once it is done.

Bending was done using a large drill press vice and a heavy duty hinge forming a kind of bending brake.