Assembly Jig

[Magnut]

I thought I would share a little of what I use to assemble some pickups. I can't help but wonder what everyone else uses to space the top and bottom flatwork during assembly. I know I have usually used modified bar stock as a spacer to get the desired coil height.

I finally got fed up with that and decided to make something a bit more user friendly. I took the barstock and milled a groove in it and some divots to aid the fingers in pulling the spacer out and came up with what looks like an old fashioned clothes pin or a tuning fork.

It works very nicely and since it's one piece it's much easier to handle. I've started making a few different gauges for different heights. The two pictured are only 30 thou apart. (.030) It may not seem like much but it's a world of difference to me.

I also thought I would post these since someone with a few more machining skills than me could possible write a program and crank some of these out. They don't take much time to do by hand.

Cheers!



It would probably be interesting to find out what are some of the more interesting things people have used over the years. Coins, playing cards, old chicken bones....

[Art Wright]

Magnut,

Excellent idea for a jig. As I was looking at the photos I thought of a possible improvement. Instead of milling a slot for the poles, drill it out for each pole location then cut down the length. Now you have two halves (held together with a rubber band) to hold the poles perfectly straight and in perfect alignment with the bobbin. After the bobbin is assembled just split the halves apart and your ready to wind.

Art

[Magnut]

Thanks. That would work well too, nice idea. I have another jig I use to position and place the poles but you have a good idea putting it all in one. Thanks for sharing the idea.

[belwar]

very cool jig - thanks for sharing that

[RedHouse]

I didn't have my single coils jigs handy, but here are a couple of my Rick jigs.

Same idea, except mine split into two halves to release the bobbin assembly. Seen here are a bass pickup and guitar pickup version of the jigs which are used when pressing the poles into the FR4, I have many more of these type jigs which I use.

[RedHouse]

I forgot to mention, I have a friend who is a tinkerer (with a cnc router and milling machine) he doesn't wind pickups but saw one of my jigs one day and went home and made some out of acrylic with a hinge.

I think he might be looking to make/sell things like this to make some extra money, hard times for all now-a-days ya know. He makes a lot of novelty stuff out of surplus electronincs and the like. One time he showed me some miniature houses which were made out of disk drive motor windings from old drives, very cool.

If anybody needs his service I'd be happy to be a go-between or pass on his contact info.