Splicing wire to fix a break or to add extra windings

[shawnl]

So what's my issue you might ask? Well I wound a coil which I'm very pleased with but miscalculated the amount of resistance I thought I was going to get. Unfortunately, I already cut the wire from the spool before taking the reading. I need to add at least another thousand winds to get to where I want to be. I'm fully confident in my ability to do a splice but the purist in me feels a little unsettled about whether or not this would flaw the overall quality of the coil. I would think from a technical perspective that as long the connection joining the 2 sections of wire is properly soldered, the current should still flow through the coil regardless. Still I can't help but think I'm creating a weak point in the coil for future breakage. On the other hand, the coil turned out so nicely that it seems sort of tragic and wasteful to cut through all those windings to start over again. Perhaps, I'm over thinking this.

Does splicing wire weaken or destroy the integrity of the coil and would you consider it bad craftsmanship?

[trevorus]

Nah, just splice it. Twist the splice a bit, solder it lightly, then dip it in some lacquer. Let it dry, then start wrapping gently until you get at least a few winds past the splice, then go back to normal winding tension.

[big_teee]

Nah, just splice it. Twist the splice a bit, solder it lightly, then dip it in some lacquer. Let it dry, then start wrapping gently until you get at least a few winds past the splice, then go back to normal winding tension.

+1

[SonnyW]

+1

+1 also. I don't think a proper splice hurts the integrity. After all, it is not really different than the splices used to make connections. Many vintage pickups had factory splices, and as another example all P.A.F.'s had a splice buried in each coil for connecting the start lead, which was about a 28 to 30 ga wire.

[David Schwab]

The way I slice it is to twist both ends around a small length of tinned hookup wire. This way you have a better joint then just twisting them together, since it's hard to solder magnet wire to itself. This joint will be as strong as your start and finish connections. Then I fold a small piece of masking tape over it, lay it on the coil, and continue winding.

I've done this a number of times with zero failures.

[jason lollar]

it can be done quite easily but personally I would never do it on an item I was selling- its just bad form and not up to snuff in my opinion.The only time I would do that is on a tapped coil where it has to be done by design.

[big_teee]

+1 also. I don't think a proper splice hurts the integrity. After all, it is not really different than the splices used to make connections. Many vintage pickups had factory splices, and as another example all P.A.F.'s had a splice buried in each coil for connecting the start lead, which was about a 28 to 30 ga wire.

I totally agree with what Sonny said.
Wires are tied together other places.
If they are properly spliced, I see no problem with it.
Maybe if you have a very High Price point, you can justify starting over?
I don't, I splice. It is Not the norm, but it happens on rare occasions.
T

[David King]

I just find it way more economical to cut the wire off and start over. Maybe if I was winding with plain enamel at $45/lb I'd think differently but it's so rare that i break a wire, I think it's inconsequential.

[jason lollar]

Im not saying dont do it I am just saying I dont do it becauseI try to make sure my work is typically alot cleaner than the work you see in photos in other peoples advertisements BUT I rarely break a coil wire so its not a big sacrifice. i was helping a guy the other day where we had to splice 4 times in one pickup- I kept telling him he was snagging the wire as it came off the spool with his shoe- he finally believed me and quit breaking the wire

[foonting]

it can be done quite easily but personally I would never do it on an item I was selling- its just bad form and not up to snuff in my opinion.The only time I would do that is on a tapped coil where it has to be done by design.

Same here ... though for a tapped coil (on a SC) I always bring a wire out to a separate eyelet on the flatwork. If I break a wind I take a deep breath and cut the windings ... I have a good deal with a scrap metal dealer to handle my waste copper! On non-selling prototypes I'll splice if I have to ... I use up odd ends of wire reels like that ... for experiments.

[SonnyW]

Im not saying dont do it I am just saying I dont do it becauseI try to make sure my work is typically alot cleaner than the work you see in photos in other peoples advertisements BUT I rarely break a coil wire so its not a big sacrifice. i was helping a guy the other day where we had to splice 4 times in one pickup- I kept telling him he was snagging the wire as it came off the spool with his shoe- he finally believed me and quit breaking the wire

Does splicing wire weaken or destroy the integrity of the coil and would you consider it bad craftsmanship?

I guess I only answered half the question with my first post so I ought to clarify. Does splicing weaken or destroy the integrity of the coil? Not really if done properly. Would I consider it bad craftsmanship? Usually yes.

I mostly cut off the wire and start over when that happens, and it is very rare that it does. And when hand winding, the shoe thing has gotten me more than once Jason, so I know exactly what you mean, and I have cut off plenty of wire for that reason. But in the context of the OP's post, I wouldn't give a second thought to splicing to increase turns on a development pickup for my own use. And if a customer brought me a pickup and wanted to increase turns I would probably splice on to that one. Now if I was rewinding a pickup for a customer, I would consider splicing to be in very bad form, since the customer wouldn't expect that. On a production pickup, I nearly always will cut off the wire and start over, but that is just me, and I wouldn't consider it a big deal if some other makers have occasional splices. I might have even spliced myself at some rare times on a production handwound pickup, but it has been extremely rare, and I would definitely cut wire and start over if it happened twice in the same one. But on pickups for my own development use I have spliced them if needed. Usually if I am breaking wire there is either a problem with the setup or a problem with the spool of wire, and I stop to find the root cause of that. I can't ever think of a case where I have spliced a machine wound coil except for the start wire leads, which I do on all my humbuckers. I consider that to be good craftsmanship as it increases the sturdiness and reliability of the coil. I also have one or two designs that incorporate a splice as part of the design. I don't think that hurts the reliability at all if the splices are done right.

[foonting]

I was winding a prototype noiseless SC sized split design a few weeks ago ... with different bobbin shapes and configurations than I've done before. Got one of those 'hard to identify snags' where you run over the flatwork with super fine abrasive paper ... but still it hangs up ... and of course with 43awg it breaks. Wound up with a splice on one coil ... but the pickup will be going into a test instrument for evaluation anyway ... so all that matters is the sound! Redesigned the bobbins now so any potential problems are minimised. I think the secret is to convince yourself that splices are bad (except for lead wires) and that working clean is the best practise. I have a workshop cat who thinks breaking coil wire is a sport though ...

[shawnl]

Well I appreciate what you're all saying and I have tried splicing for the sake of learning. However, I do feel that if I was in fact including any of my pickups as a standard part in any of my custom basses they would be the best I could possibly make them. After all, if I'm winding correctly I shouldn't be breaking wire.

I'm intending to use this particular set of pickups as a replacement for an EMG 40hz I currently have in a fretless bass. When I researched what was inside and how they were built, I came across of photos of the coils someone had managed to remove from the cover. They were surprisingly sloppy and used bastardized pole piece bobbins in place of ones that should have fit blades. I'm sure this was probably some sort cost or time saving measure, and EMG successfully hid it under the epoxy potting. If I had been aware of the shortcuts taken, I would have never bought this pickup. Thing is most people probably aren't aware of half-assed production and I'm sure EMG think's as long it produces a signal it can be sold. I build things myself so I can put as much quality into something as I can without getting short-changed on something because some company was trying to save money. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'd still feel hesitant about buying a pickup with a splice in it either, even if it does still physically work.

[jason lollar]

alot of you probably know this; one of the dangers with soldering in any case, a splice or pig tailing coil wire to a lead wire like on a humbucker, is that you can get a bad solder joint- heres the weird part, you might get the DC ohm reading to come out as expected but if you test it with an inductance meter the henries will be way off, so if you actually used the pickup you would get a lower output with alot less bass- almost like if you wired a humbucker together out of phase with itself. It doesnt happen very often- maybe 1 out of 100 pickups- but it does happen and if you arent checking for it youll get a call someday about a weird sounding pickup.
You get those calls anyway but its usually a bad solder joint the customer made while installing the new pickup

[Mark Hammer]

Some 20 years ago, I rewound a buddy's Tele neck pickup. It was one that was "potted" in varnish or something similar, and I gather the wire had been eventually pulled apart or something by the slowly curing potting material.

It was a bit of an emergency job, and I really didn't have access to much wire, so I had to re-use unwound wire. The pickup ended up having some 40 splices. Trust me, I'm NOT proud of it. But what you notice PDQ, when you have that many splices, is the bulk they can add. And of course, the extra space results in air gaps within the coil and greatly increased risk of microphonics, unless one engages in some seriously thorough potting.

I suppose it goes without saying that splicing #42-43 wire, and being a chain smoker or someone with Parkinsonism, tend to be mutually exclusive. I can say that after a day of 40 solder splices, my nerves were pretty frayed; almost became a chain smoker as a result!

This all brings up the question of preparing wire for a solder joint. It will depend on the coating. For those coatings where I could not simply dissolve the material, I would fold over a piece of fine emery paper and pinch it as I draw the wire end through. I imagine there are better ways, but that's what I do.

Incidentally, the rewound über-spliced pickup sounded great, for whatever reasons. Saw the guy use it at a gig the next evening and he was on fire.