new pickup winding machine

[David King]

I like it especially with a 20% off coupon
20% off Coupon - Valid thru Monday 3/26

Good through 3-26 however these are updated every week so no rush to buy

[Possum]

You don't really need to know the machine that vintage coils were wound on, you just need to get up close and personal with actual vintage coils. This means sitting down and unwinding old coils all the way until there's no more wire left on the bobbin; this takes hours to do, write down everything you see. Count the turns per layer. A good way to do that is count how many turns you get on one pass across then back on the coil then divide by 2. Pay attention to what happens at the ends of the traverses. Do this on a machine with a counter.

Yeah a lathe can be a good way to go, you got a DC motor and control board and hopefully a locking tailstock that is dead center, most aren't though. You'll need a counter, I used an electronic counter from McMaster and a microswitch tripped by a screw head in the faceplate, you can also get a magnetic switch tripped by a tiny neo magnet you can get from Radio Shack, either of these methods are tricky at winding speeds, so search the forum for tips on how to get accurate counts from either method. Mechanical counters are great but difficult to find one that matches your gear ratio.

This guy had some good ideas, looks like he hasn't done anything new in about five years though. 'Designed2Wind' Pickup Winder Web Page/Contents
A dedicated pickup winder seems like it'd be easy enough to do, it'll be interesting to see what comes of the WSC idea, I bet it won't be cheap though and you'll be locked into what it does and parts and technical support/repair will be an issue. I remember when Wolfe's winder was broke for months and months trying to get it repaired. If you build your own, surplus stepper motors on Ebay are five bucks, control boards $35, you can easily build a backup in case anything breaks and parts are dirt cheap. Unless you're doing hundreds of coils DIY is the best way to go with the most possibilities and abilities...

As for Lollar's winder. Its my opinion that if you buy a machine gun to go deer hunting you don't learn anything about deer hunting ;-) Learn how to build a gun yourself and you become way more knowledgeable. I built two Lollar winders back in the beginning. The auto cam system was hard for me to make work but it exposed me to auto winding. I ended up taking the cam off and using the wire guide rod by hand. I gave away one of the winders and its still being used, and Jason still uses his to make pickups with, you want a vintage wind it sure will do it ;-) Building the winder also taught me how to make things I built later on and eventually culminated in my auto traverse unit, so it was all time well spent, as well as learning how to make pickups from scratch from his book. Once you learn that you can make any kind and design of pickup you want, so if Korea ever gets nuked I won't go out of business ;-)

[big_teee]

Like other aspects of winding?
There is no right or wrong way to wind.
Wheter a CNC, Old Auto machine or a Fishing real to turn the bobbin.
Winding is winding.
I prefer to keep things simple.
Enough Complexity in building pickups, without all the learning curve of Code to run a winder.
Unless your in big business, IMO simpler is better.
All in what you want to spend your time on.
I may look into the Harbor Freight, Wood Lathe.
That looks simple enough.
The tail stock, looks like a good idea.
Good Luck,
T

[JGundry]

You don't really need to know the machine that vintage coils were wound on, you just need to get up close and personal with actual vintage coils. This means sitting down and unwinding old coils all the way until there's no more wire left on the bobbin; this takes hours to do, write down everything you see.

Not true. This is what you won't see or know with a vintage bobbin unwind of a mechanically guided bobbin.

1. Wire guide method (pulley or eyelet?)
2. Tension method?
3. Distance from wire guide to bobbin?
4. Traverse method (Cam or electronic traverse?)
5. Cam size (If it was a cam) cam size is basically a matter of resolution for the traverse accuracy.
6. If a cam, was the wire guide spring loaded to hold it against the cam? (if not what was the winder manufacturers recommended cam to wire guide play?)
7. Was it a multi-cam machine or did one cam handle multiple traverse travels due to specific winder design? If so what is the play at say 1/4" travel?
8. Bobbin mounting method? (multibobbin with end plates or open mounting fixture with no end plate?)
9. If electronic traverse does the traverse come on automatically with the bobbin rotation or is it controlled by a separate switch?
10. Bobbin and traverse drive method? (Gear driven, belt or safety slip clutch driven?)
11. Traverse TPL adjustment method? (gear change or variable clutch?)
12. Does the machine have traverse presets for different magnet wire gauges?

There are still more details not listed. All of these are real details as they relate to vintage guitar pickups. Cumulatively these add up to important winding details that are unknowable from an unwind. But if you know the vintage machine, own the vintage machine, know the manufactures specs. for the machine's use, and if you have photos of the machine in use making vintage pickups then you have the answer to the vast, vast majority of these questions. Basically all you can reliably get from a vintage unwind is an idea of tension, TPL and travel limits and how accurately they were centered on the bobbin. That is something for sure but it is far from all the need to know details if you are going for vintage repro details. With a repro the more you know about all the details from materials to manufacturing methods and routines the more accurate you can make your repro..

[Possum]

Well, we're never gonna agree on that for sure ;-) The reason I recommend everyone build their own winder and try alot of different build designs is then when you unwind a vintage coil you can easily extrapolate how it was wound, and adjust your design to do the same things. All that matters in the end is that a vintage repro coil look and sound like the real deal. My journey to building this final machine included trying all kinds of variations, so I know what things to do to get the kinds of coils I want to produce. This is also why I strongly recommend against a pre-fab winder because it won't do what vintage winders did, and you can't exactly take them apart and alter things enough to do so. With mine, I can move things around on the fly, because none of it is connected or hardwired to any of its other parts.

You remember all the problems I had with repetitive stress damage doing hand guided winding; my ultimate goal was to build a machine that I could make do my hand guiding for me. The sick part of all that was I joined a bunch of CNC forums and emailed several CNC nerdy guys and not a single one of them could tell me in plain english how to make a simple winder traverse; move a wire guide back and forth? The course I eventually found taught me everything I needed to know. I was actually talking to a programmer previous to that who said he could build me an auto winder that would "learn" my hand guided winding technique for about 4 thousand bucks, and I was seriously considering it. But I don't like things that break that I can't fix myself, so when I found that course you know how much time I spent trying to get it to work for me, you never did see the final version though, and it saved my ass big time, not to mention that now I could get real clarity out of P90 neck pickups for the first time that hand winding can't give you. Repetitive stress can literally cripple you badly, it happened to me with the early Mac Plus, there was a whole year I couldn't raise my arm above shoulder height without screaming in pain, we didn't know about RS stuff back in the mid-80's. Anyway, before you build your own winder you should pay attention to how you hand wind, where you place your hand etc. Did you know with your hand in the right place you can wind a single coil without barely moving your hand at all, the wire will bounce off the bobbin ends and guide itself ;-) I read about a guy who watched Leo F. do that on a pickup he wound for him....

[JGundry]

Possum, you might want to post some pictures of your winding machine here on this thread. It would probably clarify a few things for people trying to decide what the best approach for them is. I know you have posted a photo years ago but I can't find it in a search. I think ultimately people want to find the best tools for them whether it be DIY, vintage or new pre-made CNC machine. For what I make the best tools are without question the original winder models set up and operated as they were in the 50's and 60's.

FYI for vintage P-90 tone you NEED machine wound. They were done on a multi bobbin machine with end plates and felt tensioners.

[big_teee]

You guys still doing the, "My Dog Is Bigger Than Your Dog"?
I think You two guys are the Only ones that care.
Just My Observation.
Good Luck,
Terry

[ReWind]

Terry, that Harbor Freight wood lathe isn't going to be ideal for winding PUs. I have one that I have used to cut faceplates and pulleys on as well as machine some discs I use for turn counting. It's a variable speed, but it's only variable from "fast" to "really freaking fast" and it uses an AC motor. Believe me, I considered putting bobbins on it and have taken apart the speed controller. It's a digitally controlled AC motor. I couldn't tweak it to run slow and as it's a single phase motor it can't run backwards without some creative gearing. It's also a little clunky and not machined too precisely.

This one might do you better, but you're talking 4 times the price: Mini Lathe - 7" x 10" Precision Mini Lathe

[big_teee]

Terry, that Harbor Freight wood lathe isn't going to be ideal for winding PUs. I have one that I have used to cut faceplates and pulleys on as well as machine some discs I use for turn counting. It's a variable speed, but it's only variable from "fast" to "really freaking fast" and it uses an AC motor. Believe me, I considered putting bobbins on it and have taken apart the speed controller. It's a digitally controlled AC motor. I couldn't tweak it to run slow and as it's a single phase motor it can't run backwards without some creative gearing. It's also a little clunky and not machined too precisely.

This one might do you better, but you're talking 4 times the price: Mini Lathe - 7" x 10" Precision Mini Lathe

Thanks for the Heads up!
I do a whole Lot of Looking!
Very Little Buying.
Still kicking things around.
I read where the lathe was 750-3500rpm.
Hell, the slow is about where I wind full speed.
T

[JGundry]

You guys still doing the, "My Dog Is Bigger Than Your Dog"?
I think You two guys are the Only ones that care.
Just My Observation.
Good Luck,
Terry

Glad you found the Mini Lathe advice useful. Good luck.

[David Schwab]

I know you have posted a photo years ago but I can't find it in a search.

I believe it was this one:



But I also seem to remember something about this being his old winder?

[JGundry]

I believe it was this one:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]17879[/ATTACH]

But I also seem to remember something about this being his old winder?

That's it! I would love to see the new one! That thing is like a hijacked Lollar winder. My favorite part is the prescription drugs required to run it. I think that is a Casio bio rhythm calculator also. It probably requires the moon be in a certain phase to run properly. The servo on that thing was an idea he borrowed from my lathe winder for remote hand guiding. I would bet the current winder is light years beyond the one in this photo!

[Possum]

Thats an old photo and not an auto winder. But you can see the Adams Maxwell unit. That was Jon's servo idea, it worked fairly well but still involved turning a knob by hand which eventually hurt my wrists. The Adams Maxwell winder part of it is one of two backups. Incidentally Seymour Duncan uses those for his personal hand winding. No, I'm not going to post a photo of the current rig. I already told everyone where to learn CNC dirt cheap, that guy is in his late 70's and those courses won't exist forever, he was real helpful with a few problems I had and I beta tested his most recent addition to the course. You can't get any cheaper than that and you'll have to do the work to learn it and do the work to make your own design. It took 5 years to find that resource, so use it! I used parts off Ebay that were unique and you won't be able to find anyway, but there are similar surplus items. The course was alot of fun.

[Possum]

Yeah, building the Lollar winder spun off alot of related pieces that are still lying around here in nooks and crannies. I still use the same felt tensioner arm on my current winder, it just WORKS. I loved that Casio, spilled something on it and it died, damnit. One problem with that rig was getting the wire guide centered with the locomotive wheel drive idea ;-) You need to go LINEAR, hint, hint.

[JGundry]

No, I'm not going to post a photo of the current rig. I already told everyone where to learn CNC dirt cheap..

Please?????!!!!!! I want to see the new one!!!!

I'll show you mine and you show me yours. Mine's made out of wood too, Ummmm..... 50's Gibson wood that is. Actually I get wood every time I use it. Sick but true.

Naughty bits blacked out so as not to scare the wildlife.