Gibson's Winding Machines?

[kevinT]

Does anyone know what type of winding machines Gibson is using to wind their pickups these days?

[Possum]

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there's a video on YouTube somewhere showing them winding pickups for the 335 Cream custom shop guitars, the winders are crude old things, but it may not be their main winder, just for custom shop vintage winds. I imagine their '57 classics etc. might be Korean made possibly, not sure about that one...

[JGundry]

Here is a screen grab from that video. This machine I think can do as many as 12 bobbins at a time. I bet it gets quite a bit of use considering how many it winds at once. The bar on top looks like a felt washer tensioning set up with wire guides below.

[Possum]

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Its definitely an old school winder, probably a cam traverse, not computer controlled.

[Electricdaveyboy]

Yeah these are oldschool,

I saw a PRS video once and they wound their bobbins on a modern industrial computer winder.I think it took 20 seconds to get the bobbin full,funny how fat it ran.

[David Schwab]

I hope PRS improved their pickups, because I heard some when they first started making them and they sounded like crap.

[NightWinder]

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You know Jon, Looking at that shot, looks like they are winding way to fast. The bobbin is tight on the edges, but loose in the middle. Gibby must like old machines. Technology is their enemy- LOL, they don't even make dish top caps on their guitars anymore......

[JGundry]

I had another look at that video, it's on google video. That machine does 10 bobbins. The traverse makes the journey in about 1 second. If that machine is the one that does Burst Buckers then it is doing 65 TPL and with a 1 second traverse it is winding at 3900RPM which is faster than I like to wind. I run my Leesona at around 1200 RPM and the vintage Gibson PAF slug coil winder I have runs at less than half the RPM of the Leesona. Both of my machines make very tight coils. Gibson pots all of these pickups though so if the coils are a bit loose it's not an issue to them. Production speed is probably the top priority considering the volume of guitars Gibson now makes.

[NightWinder]

Mechanical Mojo : )

I had another look at that video, it's on google video. That machine does 10 bobbins. The traverse makes the journey in about 1 second. If that machine is the one that does Burst Buckers then it is doing 65 TPL and with a 1 second traverse it is winding at 3900RPM which is faster than I like to wind. I run my Leesona at around 1200 RPM and the vintage Gibson PAF slug coil winder I have runs at less than half the RPM of the Leesona. Both of my machines make very tight coils. Gibson pots all of these pickups though so if the coils are a bit loose it's not an issue to them. Production speed is probably the top priority considering the volume of guitars Gibson now makes.

At that speed....Are they on mechanical counter?? Mine peeks ut at 1150-1300 depending on the switch. I'd assume they are BB as the wire is the nicely died Poly- COuld be an older video though with Pe .

[Possum]

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Yeah its a mechanical winder. I couldn't find that video anymore my link to it on google video doesn't work anymore and it says the video is gone.

[JGundry]

Just type in Clapton 335 into google and it's the first thing that comes up.