making similar pickups with different wire size

[John Carlsen]

Hey guys-

Haven't posted in awhile, but I have a quickie question for y'all. I need to make a pair of humbuckers for a good friend of mine, and he wants them to be fairly traditional PAF style buckers. I have only a little bit of my usual 42ga wire left, and a spool of 44ga. Here's my question, can I get pretty close with the 44ga? I have hardly any experience using 44 except to do rewinds/repairs on old filtertron style pickups. Thanks!

[mr fab]

I am afraid that it will not sound like a paf with 44 gauge. I suspect it will be a smoother/darker tone, if wound to the same specs. ceramic mags may brighten it up, but then its no longer a paf then

[David King]

John you could do one coil of each though when that's done it's usually 42 and 43. My guess is that your friend might not notice.

[big_teee]

A typical 42, 44 set would be Like the SD SH-4, SH-2 Set.
Called a Hotrod set!
35th Anniversary, SH-4 and SH-2 Set - Seymour Duncan Sets
The Neck is a 42 AWG A5, and the Bridge is a 44 AWG A5.
The SH-4 is around 16K +.
Seymour Duncan has sold tons of these through the years!
T

[John Carlsen]

Thanks guys! Yeah, I'm not looking AT ALL for a replica. I'm looking to make something that has a similar tonality to a nice, bright PAF style pup. What would be your recommendation for figuring out how many turns of 44 to keep it on the brighter side? I'm super inexperienced with it. Like what dc reading would be a similar sound to an 8k with 42?

[big_teee]

To replicate 5000 turns of 42, with 44 AWG?
The estimator says to get 5000 turns of 44, wind to 5500-5800 Ohms., per bobbin!
That should get you in the ballpark. Try 5650 ohms, with minimal scatter.
Coil Estimator
T
If the tone is to thin and bright, put some more wire on the bobbins.
If they are too dark, take some off!

[Mike Sulzer]

Thanks guys! Yeah, I'm not looking AT ALL for a replica. I'm looking to make something that has a similar tonality to a nice, bright PAF style pup. What would be your recommendation for figuring out how many turns of 44 to keep it on the brighter side? I'm super inexperienced with it. Like what dc reading would be a similar sound to an 8k with 42?

Given that this is a humbucker with steel cores, replacing 5000 turns of #42 with #44 will not be that different; that is, the extra resistance does not make a huge difference because the dominant loss is due to eddy currents in the cores. The inductance will rise a bit since you are winding the 5000 turns into a somewhat smaller space, but I do not think your friend will notice to big a difference. As BT says, take some off if you want it brighter.

[Mike Sulzer]

A typical 42, 44 set would be Like the SD SH-4, SH-2 Set.
Called a Hotrod set!
35th Anniversary, SH-4 and SH-2 Set - Seymour Duncan Sets
The Neck is a 42 AWG A5, and the Bridge is a 44 AWG A5.
The SH-4 is around 16K +.
Seymour Duncan has sold tons of these through the years!
T

It is interesting to compare the measurements of the SH-2N with the SH1N (59), their sort of PAF duplicate.
SH2N.pdf
SHn59.pdf

It looks as though the SH2n has fewer turns and the higher capacitance is a result a of different winding method. The lower peak (higher loss) of the SHN2 likely means that the it uses a different core material

[David King]

Just ignore the DCR and count the turns. You may not get perfect hum-cancelling with 5000 turns each of 42 and 44 (and all of this is predicated on your having enough 42 to wind one complete coil...). The 44 awg will have a slightly smaller turns*area so you could potentially want a few hundred more turns to get things to cancel better.
I've always heard that, all other things being the same, the smaller wire will yield a brighter coil. This is apparently because more turns are closer to the core. Now there may also be more self-capacitance to the smaller coil which will tend to dull it a bit. As Mike say the inductance could be a little higher as well which I think lowers the resonant peak, further dulling it.
I'd say wind it with whatever you have but not too tight and it will probably sound great.

[John Carlsen]

Thanks for all the input, guys! I may just make both coils out of the 44ga wire. I imagine that will yield a more similar result to what I'm after.