What Pickups and Projects Are You Working On?

[big_teee]

I'm currently doing some tweaking on a 43 Gauge Bridge Humbucker.
I wound one with 43 HFV I wound one with 43 PE.
I believe I like the HFV the best. I tried different Magnets. It has best treble with A2 Magnets, but it's lite on the low end. It had better bass with A8s, still pretty good Highs. I thought the A5s sounded worse in both. I wound another 42ga Bridge its in the 9-9.3k range, and it sounded best with the A2s.
I'm also working on a pair of Jazz pickups for a friend. I hope to finish them tomorrow.
So what Are you currently working on?
Terry

[verhoevenc]

My winder. However, hit a block today in that the 3/8" drill rod doesn't fit in the 3/8" bearings. Called 'um up and they said sometimes the ends get a little "squished" when they ut the 12'ers down to 3'. I only needa like 12" so I guess I'll cut her in half and see?...
Chris

[big_teee]

My winder. However, hit a block today in that the 3/8" drill rod doesn't fit in the 3/8" bearings. Called 'um up and they said sometimes the ends get a little "squished" when they ut the 12'ers down to 3'. I only needa like 12" so I guess I'll cut her in half and see?...
Chris

We would love to see pictures.
Can you dress the end of the rod with a file?
Also, If you don't have one, for future use, pick up a cheap dial caliper.
I have 4 of them in different places.
The one I use the most is one I got at Harbor Freight on sale.
It's a digital, and will do Inches, and metric.
It's handy as a pocket on a shirt.
You could take the caliper and measure from middle to the end and tell where the rod starts flaring.
If you don't mind sharing, And I hope this portion of the forum will be a sharing area.
If you could keep a list of parts take pictures, and share here, that would be great.
I've thought about taking some pictures of a humbucker in process to share with the gang.
Rock On!
BigT

[verhoevenc]

I actually did mic the center and it's off as well. The company is sending me another rod. No problem, I'm in the middle of a move right now so I can't use it for the next week anyways. So no biggy.
I'll start a new thread to follow my build pretty closely.
Chris

[Mark Hammer]

I have a late 1930's Kalamazoo archtop that, like a number of guitars from that era, does not have enough clearance between the strings and body to install any of the commercially available mag pickups near the neck. I'm not cutting a hole in the top for love or money, so my only choice - apart from all those suggestions to use a piezo bridge pickup - was to wind my own. Took ages until I was able to find some suitable thin material to make the flatwork, and some VERY low profile neodymium magnets. The pickup is about the thickness or 3 or 4 credit cards. I took a stab at winding it, and it "works", but I think I need to do it again to get it right.

The next step after that is to locate a suitable thumbwheel volume pot for installation onto a custom-fabricated pickguard.

[Danelectron]

I'm currently attempting a single coil strat type pickup with the coils wound directly on the pole magnets. All poles south end up wired in series. I started with 43 guage and made some garolite plastic discs about an inch and a quarter in diameter that press onto each end of the magnets that act as wire guides. I put little paper discs made out of hole reinforcers (like for paper binders) on the inside of the discs that resist the wax when potting and allow the discs to pop off easily after potting. They are very delicate and I have pulled the start winding off of several so I may go to 42 guage if my fat fingers don't cooperate. The coils that I have completed came out very nice. If it all works I'll post results. It's very labor intensive, but I want to hear the characteristics that come from this design.

Also building a Fender twin (6G8) that is going to be a whopper and reglued a neck on an acoustic classical guitar for a friend that delaminated from improper storage. There was some slight warpage of the top, but I was able to slightly shim the bridge and make it playable. Oh, and I'm...

[big_teee]

I'm currently attempting a single coil strat type pickup with the coils wound directly on the pole magnets. All poles south end up wired in series. I started with 43 guage and made some garolite plastic discs about an inch and a quarter in diameter that press onto each end of the magnets that act as wire guides. I put little paper discs made out of hole reinforcers (like for paper binders) on the inside of the discs that resist the wax when potting and allow the discs to pop off easily after potting. They are very delicate and I have pulled the start winding off of several so I may go to 42 guage if my fat fingers don't cooperate. The coils that I have completed came out very nice. If it all works I'll post results. It's very labor intensive, but I want to hear the characteristics that come from this design.

Also building a Fender twin (6G8) that is going to be a whopper and reglued a neck on an acoustic classical guitar for a friend that delaminated from improper storage. There was some slight warpage of the top, but I was able to slightly shim the bridge and make it playable. Oh, and I'm...

The question that comes to immediate mind is?
How and where do you wire all those little bitty coils together?
Do you wire one to the other in the bobbin, or do you wire all of them together at the end?
That sounds like a real Wondermint!
Or I can wait til your done.
Terry

[Danelectron]

How and where do you wire all those little bitty coils together?

I will wire them together in the bobbin. It's easy to keep track of the start and finish. I did one and I foolishly twisted the ends up nice, neatly and small. I ended up with an open somewhere and had no slack to cut them apart to trace and repair. Lesson learned. Thanks for the question.

[David King]

I just finished up my first sidewinder attempt. I can't figure out how to wire it up, it's noisy as hell and doesn't seem to care about phase so I'm confused to say the least. I used C8 mags that are .210 x .250 x 3.125", I rounded the ends on the grinder and glued 1/16" forbon flatwork to top and back and wound as much 43 spn as I could fit, -7500 turns at 10.5 k or so. I have the S poles both facing in and tried various thickness blades or no blades and the sound is mostly harsh 3-4kHz and VERY microphonic (unpotted). There is some low end which sounds usable but the rest is ghastly and no way to fit the string radius w/o grinding a taller blade.

[big_teee]

Very Nice Looking Work David!
I've been considering a similar project.
If its all work in progress, and your experimenting, what if?
You put your bobbins north south, north south.
North of one on top, south of the other on the bottom.
Put Blades on each end. One north and One South.
Then experimented with the Phase.
Heck you might even put a blade in the middle, to go with the ones on each end.
It all looks small and I can see many possibilities.
Keep us posted!
Good Luck,
Terry

[Joe Gwinn]

I just finished up my first sidewinder attempt. I can't figure out how to wire it up, it's noisy as hell and doesn't seem to care about phase so I'm confused to say the least. I used C8 mags that are .210 x .250 x 3.125", I rounded the ends on the grinder and glued 1/16" forbon flatwork to top and back and wound as much 43 spn as I could fit, -7500 turns at 10.5 k or so. I have the S poles both facing in and tried various thickness blades or no blades and the sound is mostly harsh 3-4kHz and VERY microphonic (unpotted). There is some low end which sounds usable but the rest is ghastly and no way to fit the string radius w/o grinding a taller blade.

You need a mild steel plate between the coils, to stop the music from getting to the lower coil. Actually, a thick copper or aluminum plate may also work. There are a number of variations in the patent literature. David Schwab can probably put his fingers on a few.

[big_teee]

I'm currently attempting a single coil strat type pickup with the coils wound directly on the pole magnets. All poles south end up wired in series. I started with 43 guage and made some garolite plastic discs about an inch and a quarter in diameter that press onto each end of the magnets that act as wire guides. I put little paper discs made out of hole reinforcers (like for paper binders) on the inside of the discs that resist the wax when potting and allow the discs to pop off easily after potting. They are very delicate and I have pulled the start winding off of several so I may go to 42 guage if my fat fingers don't cooperate. The coils that I have completed came out very nice. If it all works I'll post results. It's very labor intensive, but I want to hear the characteristics that come from this design.

Also building a Fender twin (6G8) that is going to be a whopper and reglued a neck on an acoustic classical guitar for a friend that delaminated from improper storage. There was some slight warpage of the top, but I was able to slightly shim the bridge and make it playable. Oh, and I'm...

How is the Independent Coil Pickup Coming?
Anxious to see its final shape.
Terry

[Danelectron]

Well, I've gotten a few coils wound and in an attempt to remove the paper discs from some I damaged them. I would like to be able to remove them for asthetic reasons, but am going to just do one with them on to get it complete. If it sounds decent, I am going to make a jig for the winder that will hold the pole magnets in place with the garolite discs so that I can just snap it in and wind away instead of messing with the glue. I'm revamping my winder tomorrow so there will be a delay. It is becoming an obsession.

[mondo]

I'm in the process of designing and building my first single coil. It's 41 gauge poly wrapped on an alnico bar magnet. The magnet is taped with electrician's tape and krazy glued with the south facing pole pointing up onto clear plastic flatwork that I hand cut out of a CD case. I made the bobbin a bit long to accomodate the coil so it will fit into a p-90 cavity. I've mounted it onto a copper sheet that is split down the middle so I can solder my connections onto the base plate and have a circuit. I have no idea how it's going to sound but I'm having some fun with it.
Is there any reason why you shouldn't tape your magnet with electrician's tape? What difference will it have as opposed to paper tape? I think the electricians tape is nice and soft so it will hopefully cushion the inner windings a bit. I suspect that the magnet may be a bit too strong because the pickup will be very tall and close to the strings. I may try it again with some weaker Alnicos or try to find a narrower magnet.
I love p-90s and lipsticks so this is a bit of both rolled into something that may be a total stinker.
I'll send a pic and let you know how it turns out.

[copperheadroads]

I'm in the process of designing and building my first single coil. It's 41 gauge poly wrapped on an alnico bar magnet. The magnet is taped with electrician's tape and krazy glued with the south facing pole pointing up onto clear plastic flatwork that I hand cut out of a CD case. I made the bobbin a bit long to accomodate the coil so it will fit into a p-90 cavity. I've mounted it onto a copper sheet that is split down the middle so I can solder my connections onto the base plate and have a circuit. I have no idea how it's going to sound but I'm having some fun with it.
Is there any reason why you shouldn't tape your magnet with electrician's tape? What difference will it have as opposed to paper tape? I think the electricians tape is nice and soft so it will hopefully cushion the inner windings a bit. I suspect that the magnet may be a bit too strong because the pickup will be very tall and close to the strings. I may try it again with some weaker Alnicos or try to find a narrower magnet.
I love p-90s and lipsticks so this is a bit of both rolled into something that may be a total stinker.
I'll send a pic and let you know how it turns out.

COOL