Confused about wind direction (help?)

[Kelby]

OK, I'm getting ready to wind my first pickup. I went ahead and bought the Schatten and some StewMac single coil kits. And the StewMac directions seem to contradict each other about winding direction.

First, the instructions for the single coil kit (StewMac data sheet #i-5967) say on the second page that for a clockwise winding (which I think is the traditional strat wind, right?), you need to turn the pickup counterclockwise as viewed from the top. Makes sense, looks right. On my Schatten winder, the right arm rotates in a clockwise direction, which would make that the WRONG arm according to this data sheet.

But, the instructions for the Schatten winder contradict that. (StewMac data sheet #i-1465) The "pickup specifications" page at page 4 of the data sheet say that strat pickups are "clockwise/right winding arm".

So the two data sheets agree that the strat pickup is a clockwise wind, but they seem to disagree about which arm I need to use in order to get a clockwise wind.

Help!?!?

[David Schwab]

It doesn't make any difference which direction you wind in.

The right side of the Schatten turns with top away from you (clockwise), so if you view the coil from the top you have wound a counter clockwise coil.

Maybe they mean the right side turns clockwise and the left turns counter clockwise.

It doesn't matter though unless you are doing two opposite wound coils. But for single pickups you wont hear any difference.

[Kelby]

Thanks, David!

Do you normally do the middle pickup RW/RP, or does it matter?

[David Schwab]

Do you normally do the middle pickup RW/RP, or does it matter?

I don't make single coils... or at least I haven't yet. But I also don't wind my humbuckers like that, I usually wind both coils in the same direction. I did one with each coil reversed, but then I got very confused wiring it up! I didn't hear any difference, but it's probably a good thing to keep the ground end of the coil on the inside if you ground your magnets/poles.

[Dr. Guitar]

The direction doesn't matter, unless you are mixing brands of pick ups. If all 3 of your strat pick ups you are making on your own, just put them on the same arm and wind away.

RWRP means your wind in the same direction, but hook the middle Pick up backwards (hot goes to the magnet first, then out on the middle pick up) and charge your magnets with the opposet polarity for that pick up.

RWRP will add a little hum canceling in the 2 and 4 positions. It won't be true series humbucking, it will be parallel humbucking.

It's wire wrapped around a magnet, not a lot can go wrong.

[David Schwab]

RWRP means your wind in the same direction, but hook the middle Pick up backwards...

Actually it means "reverse wind/reverse polarity". In this case you do wind the middle pickup in the opposite direction, as well as reversing the polarity of the magnets.

But you can wind them all the same direction, and then reverse the magnets in the middle pickup, and wire that with the polarity reversed. It's exactly the same thing electrically.

The area where it matters is that you might get a little less noise if your start is ground, and your magnets are not grounded.

[Kelby]

Thanks, guys! I'm windin' away!
For my first project, I'm replacing three super-cheap, super-crappy pickups in one of my son's guitars. So It would be hard to go wrong. I guess I'll start by replacing the neck & bridge, then see how that goes and try some type of RW/RP for the middle.
I'm off and running!

[Zhangliqun]

I wind my humbucker coils in the same direction, just reverse the wiring for each coil. The finish lead of the slug coil goes to ground (soldered to baseplate on 2-conductor) and the finish lead of the screw coil goes to hot.

The direction your pu is wound in doesn't matter, what matters is which leads you solder to hot and ground. That said, I do wind my Strat middle pu's in the opposite direction because I just got used to doing it that way.