I need a better way to hold the bobbin

[888guitars]

I have a old stevens winder and I need a better way to attach the bobbins to the spinning shaft. I cant seem to get anything to wind striaight? Does any one sell such parts? Or know who can make something I can buy?

Here is what I'm workin with. The shaft spins true but my stuff attached to it is not. any ideas?

[Possum]

.....

You really need to bite the bullet and get a machined, perfectly flat and true bobbin mounting fixture. I built Lollar's winder a long time ago and was never able to get anything that ran flat and true til I had a round flat mounting plate machined out of aluminum. He put a silicon bronze threaded center on it that I bolt my pickups to. Problem solved.....

[888guitars]

Ok, So who would make such a thing? I'm not sure of any machine shops around my parts but I will start looking. Do you have suggestions for some specs to give them?

[Bruce Johnson]

Ok, So who would make such a thing? I'm not sure of any machine shops around my parts but I will start looking. Do you have suggestions for some specs to give them?

888;
I have my own machine shop, and I've made up aluminum face plates for several other guys' winders, as well as for my own. Depending on the diameter and the complexity, it'll cost you $40 to $75. There are different ways of making them. It depends on what variety and types of bobbins you intend to work on. The last one I made for a customer was 5" diameter, with a smooth polished face, several patterns of holes threaded 4-40, and a pilot hole in the center. I can also make it to any other design that you have in mind. My own winder has a steel hub on the shaft with two index pins, and I make up custom sets of aluminum disks that snap on for each model pickup that I wind.

The main things I'd need to know are the diameter of the spindle shaft, the overall diameter you want, and the thickness of the front flange. The hub of the face plate will slip over the end of the spindle shaft and lock on with two setscrews.

You can reach me directly at brucejohnson100.......at....att......dot...net.....

[Possum]

......

There ya go, do it! I had two made that slip over my Adams Maxwell's 1/2 inch shaft with 3 set screws to hold it straight. I use a tailstock though for buckers, a tailstock might be a good idea also at some point...

[888guitars]

Oh Yea !! What a relief! I will measure the stuff and get back to you. I hope I can finally turn something to be proud of!

[888guitars]

Possum:
What do you mean tailstock? How is that different from the other faceplate?

[David Schwab]

You really need to bite the bullet and get a machined, perfectly flat and true bobbin mounting fixture.

I don't disagree, but my Schatten has an aluminum bar that was obviously not machined any further than having a couple of holes drilled in it, and it runs nice and true.

I think the issue is the wooden spacer used above.

[888guitars]

Ya it is the wooden "caul" that I have the pickup attached to. If bruce can help me with a better way I'm all for it!

[Bruce Johnson]

I got your e-mail, Nate.

To avoid having to go over all of it again, here's a long thread all about the accuracy of winder face plates:
http://music-electronics-forum.com/t15045/


Below are a couple of shots of a winder face plate I made for a customer. It's a typical design with a hub on the back. The front surface is trued and polished. He later sent it back to me and had me add some threaded holes on the face.

The bottom shots show how the face plate is cut from a chunk of aluminum on two of my lathes. I peel off most of the metal on my big LeBlond lathe, then switch over the the smaller Logan lathe for the final facing and truing.

[David Schwab]

You do very nice work Bruce! Looks like you could make a submarine with that stuff!

[copperheadroads]

i used to use 1" x 1" x 4" aluminum for a base plate kind of like a schatten winder only a little overkill . but i found it wobbled a bit so i made a round base plate on a wood lathe out or some seasoned 2" maple ,with a humbucker mounting screw going in to the middle of the faceplate to center the bobbin .it works allot better but lately i noticed a slight difference in the shape of the wire on the bobbin ,one end is just a little sloped towards the bottom of the bobbin. as the other end is straight . it could be the wood warping a little & need to be trued up again .its some that i expected anyway . but if i have any grief , i just might give you a call Bruce

[Bruce Johnson]

Having a face plate that runs true (that is, doesn't wobble) isn't absolutely necessary, but it makes winding easier and reduces the risk. If the bobbin is wobbling as it spins, there's a much higher chance that you're going to get a loop of wire over the end of one of the flanges. With either hand winding or machine winding, if the flange edge looks like a blur, it's hard to feed the wire close to it without going too far. One stray loop, and the coil is ruined.

A true-running face plate with a bobbin attached to it will help you place the wire where you want it more accurately. To further reduce the chances of stray loops, many of us use face plates with recesses cut into them. The recesses are shaped to fit a particular bobbin, and they effectively sink the flanges of the bobbins below the surface. With one of these disks on either side of the bobbin, stray loops are nearly eliminated. Since my own pickup making is limited to several of my own design coils, that's what I did for my winder. I made up special sets of interchangeable aluminum disks, which have recesses to fit the bobbin flanges of my coils.

Some guidelines about face plate dimensions:

You don't want the face plate to be much larger in diameter than the bobbins you're winding, or it starts to get in the way of the feeding. The 5" diameter face plate shown above is for a guy who's doing long bass pickups, like 7, 8, 9-string monsters. If you're just doing guitar pickups, you probably want a face plate about 3 1/2" diameter. Measure the bobbins you're likely to wind. Also, a 3 1/2" dia face plate will be about half the cost of a 5" one.

I like to make the face plates with a 1" diameter hub on the back, like the one shown above. That gives me a good reference surface for everything to be aligned to. I turn the hub from the back side first, then drill and ream the spindle bore in the same setup. This makes the spindle bore true to the hub OD. Then I flip it over and clamp the hub in a collet in my smaller lathe, while I cut the front face and trim the OD of the flange.

The thickness of the flange doesn't matter too much. Most of the face plates I've made have been 3/8" thick with the hub extending back 1". If you're going to be tapping holes in the flange, it's best to run them all the way through, so you can keep the threads clean.

[voodoochild]

I have a old stevens winder and I need a better way to attach the bobbins to the spinning shaft. I cant seem to get anything to wind striaight? Does any one sell such parts? Or know who can make something I can buy?

Here is what I'm workin with. The shaft spins true but my stuff attached to it is not. any ideas?

I use aluminum U channel rod. Cut it into 3'' pieces and epoxy threaded inserts inside. I use one for the base and the other as a clamp. The u channel is nice because it clears the magnets and presses everything flat. For single coils I use 1 threaded rod in the center. I thread it into the base piece, push a bobbin onto the threaded rod, put the clamp piece on, and tighten a nut down to secure it. For humbuckers, P-90's, I use 2 threaded rods that go through the D and G holes. It works perfectly and didn't cost me much time or money to make.

[888guitars]

I'm having a hard time picturing what your doin? How is a "u" clamp not in the way?