potting and inductance

[Rick Turner]

I actually don't see the point in trying to do a half-assed job of potting unless you want really inconsistent results as per "hand winding"...as in I don't have any idea what this next pickup is going to sound like, but I'll call it "hand-made" and charge more for it because I can talk up the mojo aspect and sell words, not musical sounds.

If you want a kind of potted coil, try thinning the wax or something like that where you'll get full depth potting, but with differing viscosities or hardness of wax or change your formula. Thinking you can dip a coil for "X" amounts of minutes and get the same penetration of wax...so far and no further nor less...is making pickups strictly by the seat of your pants, and you won't have any idea what worked when and if it does.

OK, a bit harsh, but I think that once one has come up with a "sound" in a pickup, one should be able to reproduce it time after time so people know what it is that they're going to get. This is one of the advantages of computer controlled winding if you can kind of fake in a particular inconsistency and repeat it time after time as has been claimed. Whether it's more flare at one end of the coil than the other, more spaced turns at a particular depth of the windings, or whatever, the important thing is being able to reproduce what you make. This is one of the reasons I'm so picky about matching coils and turns...I know exactly what my pickups sound like. This means I can make changes and know why I'm getting particular results. It's not mojo, it's not hype, it's at least close to science.

[Spence]

Oh have another go at people who hand wind. Obviously you can't do it so you feel the need to keep slagging it off. Every pickup I make by hand winding is perfectly consistent with the last.
Beeswax will lower the melting point of paraffin wax by the way.

[madialex]

Thanks for that Spence!!!

[madialex]

The ones I wound last night by hand sound just like the ones the night before that

[jonson]

Iv'e allways had a lot of respect for your work Rick but as to your attitude well. This is a pickup makers forum and I would guess 90% of the guys on here including our illustrious moderater who stood up for you in another thread are hand winders. They, over the years have given a lot to one another over the construction of pickups and with your knowledge in the few weeks I have seen you here you have done not alot but try and insult everybody or blind them with science. Not worth being around here much anymore is it.

[big_teee]

I actually don't see the point in trying to do a half-assed job of potting unless you want really inconsistent results as per "hand winding"...as in I don't have any idea what this next pickup is going to sound like, but I'll call it "hand-made" and charge more for it because I can talk up the mojo aspect and sell words, not musical sounds.

If you want a kind of potted coil, try thinning the wax or something like that where you'll get full depth potting, but with differing viscosities or hardness of wax or change your formula. Thinking you can dip a coil for "X" amounts of minutes and get the same penetration of wax...so far and no further nor less...is making pickups strictly by the seat of your pants, and you won't have any idea what worked when and if it does.

OK, a bit harsh, but I think that once one has come up with a "sound" in a pickup, one should be able to reproduce it time after time so people know what it is that they're going to get. This is one of the advantages of computer controlled winding if you can kind of fake in a particular inconsistency and repeat it time after time as has been claimed. Whether it's more flare at one end of the coil than the other, more spaced turns at a particular depth of the windings, or whatever, the important thing is being able to reproduce what you make. This is one of the reasons I'm so picky about matching coils and turns...I know exactly what my pickups sound like. This means I can make changes and know why I'm getting particular results. It's not mojo, it's not hype, it's at least close to science.

Some of us here are doing this for the fun of it. This isn't life or death or anything like that. Every pickup I make is by the Seat of my Pants. The only one I'm trying to satisfy when I wind a pickup is me. If the result is bad I tear it up and start over. Like Forest Gump said "Life is like a box of Chocolates you never know what You're Going to Get"!!!
Terry

[Rick Turner]

Uhhh, hand winding... Been there, done that, started doing it in 1968, found better and more consistent results from good machine winding. I started literally hand winding...turning the thing by hand as well as guiding the wire by hand. Then I added a counter and a sewing machine motor. Then Ron Wickersham, my partner at Alembic, modified a jeweler's lathe and made a fully automated fly winder out of it, and then things got really consistent with the pickup making...as well as much easier.

If hand winding is so good and you can achieve perfection coil after coil, then why are there all these claims that what's good about it is the inconsistencies...exactly the opposite of what is now being claimed? And if your hand winding is perfect and absolutely uniform from one pickup to the next, then what's wrong with machine winding if it gets the same results?

What makes hand winding better than machine winding, folks? As someone who has wound pickups for close to 40 years, I just don't believe it. I see and hear nothing inherently better in "hand wound" pickups.

And original PAFs...which seem to be the Holy Grail around here...were machine wound...

I detect the odor of sour grapes...

If you don't have an automatic bobbin winder, of course you're going to defend how you make your pickups. But that's an emotional response, not one based in logic.

[jonson]

Iv'e got an automated winder and I know OTPG has as well so that not the reason for defending handwinding. Makes a good doorstop though.

[madialex]

Well Rick, most of anything I do is a custom one off anyway. As soon as my website is done it will reflect that. I am not looking for consistency. As far as hand winding goes though, I'd dare you or anyone else to take 2 hand wound pickups by the same winder on different days and blindly test them and tell me you can hear a difference. If so I want to see it. I am not upset by the remarks, I welcome a winder of your experience here and hope to glean some knowledge from you. I would love to have a CNC winder, I could then put my wind into it and save myself a load of time but thats not what I do so I don't need to lay out that kind of cash right now.

Thanks for your posts Rick and Welcome.

[madialex]

BTW I have had a set or 2 of Spence's Pickups in my hands and I for one cant tell a difference between the sets. Looks wise or sound. So I don't know where this argument will end up but thats my .02 worth.

[CRU JONES]

I don't hand wind either. I come up with algorythmic scatter (and straight winds) and download them to my home made cnc winder through usb. Then I test as many characteristics as I can from them and try to keep sets where the sets are all the same except for one variable. Then I jam!

I have learned not to hate ceramic magnets, brass baseplates, or poly coated wire.
I have messed with different dielectric potting materials too, sense that is what we were talking about!
Peace,
Cru

[Spence]

Sour grapes Rick. Everything you've said on this forum has been full of sour grapes.
It doesn't make one iota of difference how you chose to wind your pickups because everyone here already has a fairly unshakeable preference.
The first machine I made is the one I still use. For the record I made it fully automated. Then I took all that crap off and took control for myself. That's the way I like it and my pickups sound the better for it.

[big_teee]

Isn't pickup winding kinda like bow hunting?
You can use a stick bow, recurve, compound, or Cross bow.
When you harvest that deer, the end result is probably close to the same.
Pickup winding is whatever works for the individual winder, and whatever the builder can afford!
Back on wax potting, for low level playing I really prefer un-potted!
Later,
Terry

[madialex]

This is a good article I found concerning inductance...

Inductance of a Coil

[J M Fahey]

Hi Cru.
Got highly interested on your homemade setup.
A few pictures and hints would be most welcome.
Not a pickup maker myself, far from it, but would *love* to be able to wind consistently input and output transformers for recording type equipment.
Yet can't afford an expensive "professional" winder.
Thanks, whatever you decide to do.