rewinding a bobbinless Pickup

[the great waldo]

Hallo Chaps

I was just wondering if anyone had any good ideas on how to rewind a bobbinless (Framus) single coil pickup
Thanks in advance.
Cheers
Andrew

[J M Fahey]

Wait for the heavyweights but looking at it I guess they random wound it around a round holder (piece of plastic drain pipe?), pulled coil from it, wrapped it in tape and then crushed it using fingers into an elongated oval shape.

Cheapest fastest simplest way to make a (cheesy) pickup.

Not too different from lipstick pickups and those found on Teisco guitars and such.

[Magnut]

You can create a bobbin from cardstock. Cut and glue to desired dimensions. Glue it around the magnet. you can even put spacer material to keep it a little away from the magnet.

It would be prohibitive to create a form to wind, wrap and finish for a one off. I have done this however with plastic. I cut the pieces and instead of gluing them together I screwed them together. Once wound I would leave it on the bobbin, wax it, warm it a little and pull it apart. The trick is to cover the corners inside the three part bobbin so the wire doesn't go into the groove/gap. I used wax paper which I could then peel off but if you wrap it as shown you could leave it.

[the great waldo]

You can create a bobbin from cardstock. Cut and glue to desired dimensions. Glue it around the magnet. you can even put spacer material to keep it a little away from the magnet.

It would be prohibitive to create a form to wind, wrap and finish for a one off. I have done this however with plastic. I cut the pieces and instead of gluing them together I screwed them together. Once wound I would leave it on the bobbin, wax it, warm it a little and pull it apart. The trick is to cover the corners inside the three part bobbin so the wire doesn't go into the groove/gap. I used wax paper which I could then peel off but if you wrap it as shown you could leave it.

Hi Magnut
I knocked up a circular bobbin form out of Acrylic yesterday with some screw on flanges, (although my brain is telling me after a nights sleep it might be better to make the core rectangular, less chance of damaging the coil) The originals were not waxed and loosely wound. Not a straightforward job by any means , but what the heck !! Learning by doing.
Cheers
Andrew

[kayakerca]

While I haven't done one YET, I have turned away a few of these jobs before I figured out an approach. I believe I now have a process that will work for my setup.

The bobbin mount I use on my winder consists of 2 rectangular bars with an oval slot cut about half the thickness of the bars wide enough to accommodate 1/4" alnico pole pieces. I have cut narrower slots completely through the bobbin mount pieces that will accommodate various humubcker pole piece spacing with a couple of 4-40 screws to hold everything together (for humbuckers as Strat and Tele are just held though a middle hole tapped into the base mount piece). Hopefully that is something that can be visualized before I start with the bobbinless pickup wind setup.

I bought some teflon sheeting to cut into what is basically the shape of top bobbin of a Tele bridge pickup but with the last couple hole made into a slot so it can accommodate bobbinless pickups of different internal dimensions (lengths). I purchased a variety of acrylic bushings in various diameters and thicknesses. The bushings become the spacing for the inside of the bobbin by adjusting the spacing between the bushings from the E2e spacing. The thickness of the bushing determines the thickness of the finished coil (hence the various sized busings). The slots in the teflon supports and bobbin mount on the winder allow for any length of spacing of the bobbin and the diameter and thickness determine the other 2 size parameters. So basically, I will match the required bobbin dimensions with the appropriate bushing thickness, diameter and length spacing to the required bobbinless pickup winding. It will all screw together like a sandwich. . . bottom mount jig, followed by teflon base piece, followed by appropriate sized acrylic bushings (for E2e spacing), followed by the second teflon base piece, followed by the outer winder mount bracket. The pieces are all sandwiched together with the 1" long 4-40 machine screws and butterfly nuts. After the coil is wound, you just take the sandwich apart to be left with just the wound coil.

I went with teflon because nothing sticks to it. After the bobbin is wound, you can probably put the thing in the wax potting rig as is or tape the wind and pot it.

I hope this makes at least a little sense.

[Lollar Jason]

If you have a teflon set up like that you could use some bondable wire. As you wind tension it with felt pads and wet them with denatured alcohol. Dont wet them so much that liquid flies off the wound coil. Wind it up, let it dry overnight and youll have a semi solidified to a solidified coil depending on how good of a job you did. When I learned to wind at roberto venn in the 70s all the humbuckers we made used bobbinless coils like that- buying bobbins wasnt a reality then so we had to make them and with buckers they wanted us to learn that tape wrapped method.. We had a faceplate with L shaped screws arranged in an oval. While winding the L faced outwards and kept the coil contained- once done you would twist the screws so the L faced in and you would lift a bit of the coil and wrap tape around it- go a little farther more tape etc. Of course you had to wind fairly loosely- big pain in the ass. Alot of 40s and 50s pickups used bondable wire- the epiphone new yorker(looks like a mini bucker but its a sidewinder single coil)- no bobbin just wrapped around a bar magnet- others I wont mention but when you cut the old wire off a vintage pickup that used bondable wire you can smell it- really nasty chemical smell. I think it was a different bonding agent than they use now

[J M Fahey]

They might have used "wet wire winding", at least it was once used to make voice coils: you use standard enamelled wire (because that´s the only kind available) and wind it the normal way, but in the path from spool to actual bobbin wire goes into a small cup filled with thinned down nitrocellulose enamel (because that´s all there as available), wire goes through some loose felt pads, not for tension but to wipe excess, so wire has just enough varnish to bond to next one but not so much as to make a mess.

Very Rube Goldberg style machine, but once setup operator could make a couple thousand voice coils a day.

Maybe a similar setup could have been used for some pickups; we are talking 50´s technology here.

[the great waldo]

Here's a photo of my updated bobbinless bobbin. Cheers Andrew By the way I will be chamfering the edges!

[big_teee]

I like the Hell out of that!
Good Job, Andrew!
T

[Lollar Jason]

nice coil former design! Yeah anything before early 1950s would have been varnished/lacquered not bonded

[the great waldo]

I like the Hell out of that!
Good Job, Andrew!
T

Hi Terry

Thanks. I'll be trying it out this week. I did try a version with a solid centre piece but it was virtually impossible to get the coil off without damaging it. With this system you just need to slide the end pieces in a bit after waxing the coil to get the coil off. Vacuum waxing helps as it gets right into the coil. I`ve used Lexan (polycarbonate) for the disks hopefully waxing won't damage it!. Tonights project is repairing an old supro bridge (jazz bridge style pickup) Interesting system with 2 thin alnico rods going through the coils fitted in the bridge base. I'll maybe try and get some extra windings on my bobbins as I can't imagine the output is very strong but a nice idea anyway.
Cheers
Andrew

[basscu]

hi andrew,
I recently rewound one of those and have build a tool for winding the "aircoil". you need backlackdraht in addition.
I'll let you know, please send a mail.
greetings,
chr.

p.s. I' ll try to post some pics when I'm back home from holidays

[the great waldo]

Hello Chr,Istian?
Look forward to seeing it .
Cheers
Andrew

[basscu]

here's how I wound a bobbinless coil for a framus guitar pickup. one of those with alnico-rods that are adjustable by pressed on threads.
I used bondable wire that worked fine being just a few minutes in the wax-pot.
customer installed it in the bridgeposition because it has better output than before / the other one on the guitar.

[the great waldo]

Hello Christoph

Great minds think alike !!

Lg.
Andrew