Where to start with making your own pickup covers and bobbins ?

[Lyrebird Steve]

Hi Guys,

just starting to research vacuum molding for making PUP covers and maybe some custom bobbins.

How hard is this to get started (ie. I know nothing in this area) ?

Is making your own going to work out financially better, I'd like a custom logos moulded into/on my PUP covers ?

Any advice on equipment, materials, methods etc etc gratefully accepted


thanks
Steve

[captcoolaid]

I have priced both and the cheapest I could find for the injection molding was around 10 grand, as far as the stamping for the covers I think it was around 5 grand or so. It is pricey but if you want your own stuff that is what it is. Also you can screen print your logo on the bobbins for cheaper.

[David Schwab]

There are some threads here which show vacuum molded covers.

I can say from experience that pickup covers and bobbins for anything remotely different is a big thorn in the side.

[jason lollar]

I found about the opposite- injection moulding is around 3 to 5 grand and deep draw stamping is about 12 grand just for the tool. There is a gingery book about making a table top injection moulder.
I just build my bobbins for any non available designs out of pieces and there are ways to make built up plastic covers. You can also make metal covers by soldering them together out of sheet stock but its not worth doing unless you are just making one or two really pricey items- really pricey.
I have seen someone here pound out thier own metal covers with a wood form- not deep drawn but something more like 1/4 inch deep.
if you do have a stamp made it can take months from the time you get started untill the final product is finished and you have to buy a shit pile of covers. One mistake on your drawing and you can be screwed. You have to know how much angle to build in to the sides among other things.
I had three deep draw dies made this year and I am still waiting on the last cover- probably wont get the final product untill feb or longer, I just got samples two weeks ago.

[JGundry]

I have had 6 metal dies made and 7 injection mold dies made and the quotes for each of these parts ranged from $1,000 to $15,000 for the same USA made part! You just have to shop around and find places you feel you can trust and that want to do smaller runs. My advice for injection molded parts is to pay for a universal MUD base that has a couple of cavities that are bug enough for the biggest plastic part you might need. Once the MUD base is made it is just a matter of tooling individual inserts different parts which in the long run is cheapest.

[Lyrebird Steve]

Thanks all ... I'm in Australia so I have slightly limited options to shop around for gear.

My best guess is it will cost about $5 k to get going with this , which isn't viable for the volumes I need.

A 3D printer comes in at less than this ... anyone made bobbins on one of these ?

Thanks again
Steve

[David King]

Your other option is to pour-cast polyurethane covers and bobbins in silicone molds. It's easy if you can make an accurate plug of your part. One plug can make many molds, each mold will last for hundreds of parts. The more molds you make the more parts you can cast at a time. The stuff hardens in 20 minutes to an hour depending on the formula you use.
You pay to have someone engrave your logo on the plug once and all your parts will look engraved.
There are several threads about cast poly here and probably dozens of youtube videos you can watch.

[Lyrebird Steve]

David,

thanks for that suggestion ... this will do very nicely thank you

Also, my brother in-law is pretty good at carving models (he was in the garden ornament business for a long time) and is handy with making latex and silicone molds

Cheers
Steve

[David King]

Steve, if you end up making PU parts, it would be fantastic if you could document the process you used and post it around here. I know the bobbins will need at least a three piece mold if you intend to cast the screw or slug holes down the center.

[ken]

I tried the 'Santa Claus Machine' (3D printer) method of making bobbins, and they didn't work very well because the finished part's resolution wasn't fine enough.
The finished parts weren't smooth enough, so the coil wire would catch on the bobbins.

ken

[David Schwab]

I tried the 'Santa Claus Machine' (3D printer) method of making bobbins, and they didn't work very well because the finished part's resolution wasn't fine enough.
The finished parts weren't smooth enough, so the coil wire would catch on the bobbins.

ken

That depends on the printer. I did some a couple of years ago because a friend of mine has one where he works.

This one wasn't fine enough for bobbins you would want exposed, but it worked fine otherwise. We tried a pickup cover, but that didn't have a good surface texture.

[fieldwrangler]

A 3D printer comes in at less than this ... anyone made bobbins on one of these ?

I had a good hookup for stereolith work for a few minutes and had some prototype bobbins cranked out, which I loved. Any tiny little changes I wanted to make were almost trivially easy to do.

For covers I might investigate vacu-forming this year; I just had a meeting on Wednesday with a builder on the East Coast who had really good experiences with thermo plastic, routed wooden forms, a heater & a vacuum pump.

Bob Palmieri

Bob Palmieri

[Arthur Dent]

That depends on the printer. I did some a couple of years ago because a friend of mine has one where he works.

This one wasn't fine enough for bobbins you would want exposed, but it worked fine otherwise. We tried a pickup cover, but that didn't have a good surface texture.

Hey, those are mine!

I've been looking into building a 3d printer recently, and it's a whole lot cheaper and easier than you might expect to get a small desktop-size one working. I've seen kits that have pretty much all you need for under $600. Sure, the surface texture won't be great, but it's nothing a little elbow grease can't fix.

[David Schwab]

Hey, those are mine!

Is that you Andy?

I've been looking into building a 3d printer recently, and it's a whole lot cheaper and easier than you might expect to get a small desktop-size one working. I've seen kits that have pretty much all you need for under $600. Sure, the surface texture won't be great, but it's nothing a little elbow grease can't fix.

Well the one I used didn't leave a very good texture either. They have upgraded it since then, but I haven't tried it. It was good enough for bobbins though.

[Arthur Dent]

That's me alright. How have you been, David?

I figure I'd sand the outsides of covers and tops of bobbins, then take them to a buffing wheel. You could also torch it. A tumbler with some sort of abrasive media might work too.

I've thought about making a 3d printer out of parts from old printers and scanners (of the 2d variety). The old dot matrix printers often use exactly the right kind of stepper motors. Some people have even managed to repurpose much of the control circuitry, although I probably wouldn't go quite that far.