Let's say you have an old, dead, single coil pickup

[mort]

Is it at all possible to just strip the wire off of it and rewind it willy nilly and come out with a working pickup?

Maybe not completely willy nilly, but certainly without practice or technique

[hariossa]

If the magnets are working and you wind it properly with the right wire and correct number of turns/resistance it will be working like new.

[mort]

How loosely can the word 'properly' be interpreted?

[Art Wright]

If you strip off the coil wire and wind rewind it willy nilly or by any other means, chances are you will come out with a working pickup. The real question will be, do you like the tone it produces.

[Chuck H]

Right, a pickup is just an electromagnetic transducer. You could wind one turn of household AWG wire on the bobbin and it would still perform this "function" but to a much less efficient standard and of course useless for a guitar. But my point is that the device is very simple and there is no precision in making it "work". The science of making good pickups for guitars is about how many turns of a particular size wire and how those turns are wrapped, random or even. It's always a good idea to "pot" the pickup (submerge it in varnish, polyurethane, hot wax, etc.) to reduce microphonics. And I would at least suggest you put together some kind of rig that will hold the bobbin and spin, even if you must crank it by hand to make this chore easier. It will be easier to build a simple contraption than to wind by hand, as in one hand holds the bobbin while the other hand wraps the loops. You won't do that more than once I promise. If you get into it you can buy or build a better winder.

If you want to use the pickup in the same manner it was used originally you need to note what direction it was wound so that it will work in proper phase with the other pickups. If you want to change it's function you'll need to know the magnetic polarity and the wind direction of the pickup you want to emulate, ie: Strat middle pickups are wound differently to reduce noise and hum when used with the neck or bridge pickups. Tons of good info on wire size, number of turns, polarity and wind direction for most pickups can be had here and the archives of this forum by searching.

Chuck

[mort]

Thanks for the explanation. I have a broken pickup coming in the mail with some other non-broken ones and I was thinking of trying my hand at repairing it. And I get ya on doing it freehand, I had already imagined that as being extremely tedious, and it would continually be twisting the wire, wouldn't it? possibly causing it to break midway I'm guessing.

It'll make for a good experiment if nothing else I suppose.

[Rick Turner]

If you just want a working pickup and don't care about exactly matching original specs, just run a screw through the center of the pickup bobbin (if possible), chuck it up in an electric drill held in a vice, and guide on some 40 to 42 gauge magnet wire dereeling it off of one end of the spool with the spool at the bottom of a round plastic bucket or wastebasket. Wind on as much as fits more or less, and you've got a pickup.

Of course, the devil is in the details...

[SonnyW]

One thing you might want to check first when you get your broken pickup is the solder connections. If the coil is open, I have sometimes found that to be the problem. Just resoldering them has fixed several that I have gotten in. I would hook an ohmmeter to the leads while reheating the solder connections to see if the connection resumes. You need to unsolder them anyway if you are going to attempt a rewind. If resoldering doesn't work, I have seen pickups with a single broken wire on the outside of the coil, such as from being dropped or hit. So before you strip the wire off you want to look closely at the outer portion of the coil for a broken spot. This is best done with a magnifier and a bright light. You may be able to unwind the coil a little and splice the break. If several turns are broken it gets more difficult. If nothing else you will be able to get a good idea of how the rewind should be done by keeping careful notes while unwinding. You can unwind a few layers and note the direction and turns per layer before you use a knife or scissors to remove the bulk of the wire.

[Chuck H]

+++

I did just that using not working pickups for the first four pickups I wound. Three sounded good and comparable to other pickups of their type. One sounds very good and though the guitar is long gone I'm still saving that pickup for another guitar.

Chuck

[mort]

guy said at least 7 or so turns were broken on this "twangbanger" pickup, so it's pretty toasted.

that's a good idea about the drill, and duely noted.

I have another pickup with a break in a winding lead, pretty close to the connection for the big leads that go to the controls. I tried getting a little solder on it but it wasn't working. I didn't want to damage it any further so I stopped. What's the best way to fix that without over heating the fine wire lead and burning it up?

[SonnyW]

If you are lucky and the broken magnet wire is the one that leads from the outside of the coil you can unwind a couple of turns and resolder it to the eyelet by first unsoldering the large lead then sanding off some of the insulation on the magnet wire and running it through the eyelet several times before resoldering the lead wire. This is how it was made to begin with. But if the broken magnet wire runs from the inside of the coil that is pretty hard to fix in my experience. you could try carefully sanding a little spot and splicing in a short piece of other wire but it is going to look bad and I haven't had much luck with that method myself.

I should have mentioned also use a pencil type soldering iron not over about 25 watts. I use a temperature controlled soldering station and that is ideal, but not everyone will have access to that. Don't try a soldering gun they are too hot.

[mort]

If you are lucky and the broken magnet wire is the one that leads from the outside of the coil you can unwind a couple of turns and resolder it to the eyelet by first unsoldering the large lead then sanding off some of the insulation on the magnet wire and running it through the eyelet several times before resoldering the lead wire. This is how it was made to begin with. But if the broken magnet wire runs from the inside of the coil that is pretty hard to fix in my experience. you could try carefully sanding a little spot and splicing in a short piece of other wire but it is going to look bad and I haven't had much luck with that method myself.

I should have mentioned also use a pencil type soldering iron not over about 25 watts. I use a temperature controlled soldering station and that is ideal, but not everyone will have access to that. Don't try a soldering gun they are too hot.

That's basically what I was trying to do. I stuck one end of my solder into the eyelet, bridged the solder across, and tried to get it to stick to the wire. I gave myself a little extra length of solder lead to account for it melting and getting shorter as I heated. I just couldn't get it to stick.

Just checked and sure enough, it's the lead that comes from inside the winds. I'm going to make one more attempt at bridging it with solder strand before giving up on it.

I do just happen to have a decent soldering station. Weller 50W, controllable from 350 to 850 degrees. There was a lab on Ebay that retooled their facility and blew them out for $30 each. Score.

[SonnyW]

The kind of splice I was talking about was with using a short piece of magnet wire. If you can sand down the broken lead with some 400 grit sandpaper carefully enough to keep it from breaking off you can use a piece of magnet wire or even better a strand stripped out of some stranded lead wire (a strand out of some silver teflon for example would be great now that I reconsider, but I used 41 magnet wire). I would think that would be better than trying to make a solder bridge hold. The particular repair I was remembering had a grey bottom flatwork and plain enamel looking wire and although I did get it to stick it looked bad with the burned grey flatwork. I don't remember exactly what temperature I had my soldering station set to but I usually keep it around 550-570. Most of the other times I have just ended up breaking off the inside lead. Even if that happens you will have more rewinding practice parts.

- btw that is a great deal on the weller station.

[mort]

It worked! I used a strand from some amp wire I have laying around and got it fixed pretty well. Check it out. Not bad for a no0b huh!

[SonnyW]

Congrats, man that was a fast repair too. Good job.