Advice please

[RedHouse]

Yes suck'age decreases with wind'age. It's actually a good plan to set out winding a few (dozen) pickups ....just to get the hang of it, don't expect anything and each one you do you'll get better. Be like the old Nike slogan ..."Just Do It". Wind them up, document what you did, try them out, then cut the wire off the bobbin(s) and do it again.

Also good to get a testbed guitar even a cheap-ass pawn shop no-namer will do for your beginning experiments, you'll want to route-out the pickup areas through to the back so you can install/remove pickups w/o having to deal with the strings, way faster that way, you make a little removable mounting block that installs from the back that's what I did after a while got tired of the install/remove process.

When you first starting you need to get used to how everything effects everything and can worry about the wood later.

Definately get a spiral-bound notebook and get into the habit of writing EVERYTHING down (core size, turns-per-layer, wire size, tension, magnet type and gauss), get that habit going right from the start. Trust me, you'll refer to that notebook often in the comming years. When I started I had one notebook, then two, and now I have 3 of those 6"x9" 180-sheet 5-subject spiral notebooks, I refer to them constantly.

Wind different size bobbins so you get used to how the core size/shape effects things, and of course experiment with magnet types a gauss levels. You can live without an Extech but you should have a decent DMM and a gauss meter.

You will need to get the feel for tension, and find your best winding RPM for you and your machine (everybody's different).

If you don't have one, I'd recommend getting Jason's book, many here have started with that book.

[SainT]

Thank you other1152, David, and Brad!
I love how supportive this forum is, it makes a guy feel like he can't go wrong!

Brad,
Small world! I was googling how to build winders a little over a month ago and came across your blog on classicamplification.com and liked your design based on the upgrade of lollars system the best so I went with that. I even bought an optek sensor, red lion counter, and sealed bearings from NAPA (although that part was only because NAPA was the only company willing to work with me and search for a part that I didnt have a part number for), so thanks! lol. I'm stoked to finish my winder and I will definitely have to run it by you to see what you think! Of course I didn't copy it exactly, as I have been adding parts of my own that I would like to have such as a built in tensioner (I think that is what its called) type deal, basically just an ajustable gravity tensioner, but you definitely had the best step by step instructions on the micro-blog being that I am a visual learner.

I never even thought about routing out the back of a guitar for testing, that is such a good idea! Thankfully one of my jobs is working for a local music store, so getting my hands on a cheap guitar won't be too hard at all.
I will be picking up Lollars book too since it is up for sale again on his site.

I really feel like I should be buying my wire and magnets from other sources other than places like stewmac just for sake of cost. I've read the post concerning vendors, but which one do you guys recommend? Cost is not a problem, I have school loans and grants hahahaha (hey it's better than the classic "wasted school money on partying" story)

[other1152]

in Jason's book there is a list of suppliers for wire and other parts ect. i got my first 2 pound spool from whitmore wirenetics for about 60-70 bucks shipped, all their contact info is in lollar's book i believe. its a good idea to find a supplier outside of stew mac, you will save money.

[RedHouse]

Thank you other1152, David, and Brad!
I love how supportive this forum is, it makes a guy feel like he can't go wrong!

Brad,
Small world! I was googling how to build winders a little over a month ago and came across your blog on classicamplification.com and liked your design based on the upgrade of lollars system the best so I went with that. I even bought an optek sensor, red lion counter, and sealed bearings from NAPA (although that part was only because NAPA was the only company willing to work with me and search for a part that I didnt have a part number for), so thanks! lol. I'm stoked to finish my winder and I will definitely have to run it by you to see what you think! Of course I didn't copy it exactly, as I have been adding parts of my own that I would like to have such as a built in tensioner (I think that is what its called) type deal, basically just an ajustable gravity tensioner, but you definitely had the best step by step instructions on the micro-blog being that I am a visual learner.

I never even thought about routing out the back of a guitar for testing, that is such a good idea! Thankfully one of my jobs is working for a local music store, so getting my hands on a cheap guitar won't be too hard at all.
I will be picking up Lollars book too since it is up for sale again on his site.

I really feel like I should be buying my wire and magnets from other sources other than places like stewmac just for sake of cost. I've read the post concerning vendors, but which one do you guys recommend? Cost is not a problem, I have school loans and grants hahahaha (hey it's better than the classic "wasted school money on partying" story)

Yeah well it goes both ways around here so smokem if ya got em.

One day everybody is helpfull and polite, the next day you might suck for your opinion, then on the next day you won't get any answers without someone violating the super-secret-hard-earned-research club oath, but it's a nice place to hang out and for the most part people are trying to move forward here.

Funny you had any problems with NAPA, the part number for the bearings is right on the webpage where you saw the reference to NAPA (part# R6-2RSJ) and you should have been able to just call 'em about it. The NAPA near me had to order them in, but that only meant waiting until the next day as they have a huge warehouse system in place all over the country.

For your testbed guitar aim for something like a rosewood neck Squire Tele because a Tele has lotsa body thickness (1-3/4") to it which will hold up well to having two big oversized mounting holes rounted clean-through to the back, many cheep-o plywood type guitars will be a bit spongy with all that wood gone right after the neck. It takes some fiddling around at first to get the testbed guitar up-n-running with removable (from the back) pickup carriers but once you get that going testing/swapping pickups becomes a 3-minute operation instead of a 30-minute operation with a string change/retune.

You'll be glad you made the extra effort. It was easy for me to make a testbed guitar which I called my "pickup jig" I once worked in a hotrod shop where litterally everything was made with a jig of some kind. Most of the time building the jig takes longer than the part but since parts have to be installed/removed many timies before final assembly it a natural to use jigs, and that experience is what came to mind after installing/removing pickups umpteen million times while learning and developing my own winding style and technique, specially when you're finally honing in on something and need to quickly do A/B testing to see which of two "almost there" pickups are the one.

Later you can move to real wood and fine tune your winds. Never forget that the wood is 80% of the tone, the pickup just helps that come out and can emphasize or de-emphasize characteristics of the guitar itself. You'll never get an Epihone Les Paul to sound like a 1959 Gibson Les Paul although they look similar they're not built the same. You can make a quick-connect system (like EMG) out of an old computer CDROM audio cable and a couple 4-pin headers like in attached pic.

{Edit}... also, regarding pickup wire there is a company called BAE that sells off spools on eBay all the time, if you're patient and watch them from week to week you can often get wire at a very good price, their eBay alias and store is called baewire. I once got two 9-lb spools of #42 Poly off them for $100/ea.