Sewing Machine Coil Winder?

[spud1950]

SonnyW - That's the best sewing machine winder I've ever seen. Your setup for the tripping counter is quite ingenious!

[SonnyW]

thanks, you are too kind.. but if I have stumbled onto any ideas that other winders can put to use that's good for everybody. I certainly have gotten a lot of good ideas from this forum, mainly just by lurking.

[chevalij]

Sonny, if you look at your sewing machine winder, I'm sure you'll notice that it's probably more suited to pickups than JGungry's Leesona. It's made by PFAFF! hehehe

[SonnyW]

Come to think of it maybe you're right. I could cross out a couple of those F's in the name, maybe paint it green, get me some Alinco II bars and I'd be all set --- no wait --- I could call it the "Black Monster" At least it's the right vintage... 1952 and still humming along.

[David King]

Mine is a WWII British-made Spartan (Singer). I'm still working out the tensioner and traverse for it but it will soon be replaced by a Generation ? winder that will be more portable and ergonomic to use.

[salvarsan]

Mine is a WWII British-made Spartan (Singer).

I'm impressed by the reflection optocoupler.

-drh

[David King]

Thanks Dr.
I had to mess around to get it to trigger. I started with black sharpie and a white paper dot. The paper reflected less than the gloss black sharpie. I went with copper foil that I buffed up to mirror finish. The black was much trickier, I tried silicon carbide sandpaper but ended up with ebony dust sprinkled over wet shellac (can you tell I'm a luthier?). It's rock solid 2000 rpm.
The extra mass is good at that speed as even with balanced shafting, any off centeredness of the bobbin will start it bumping around a bit as the coil fills up with copper.

[David Schwab]

Is that a hack saw blade I see?

[SonnyW]

Good work David. Very original. Using the other end of the main spindle to mount the plate for attaching the bobbin is a good idea that gets all the drive components out of the way. I wouldn't have thought of that. After taking a look at your homepage I can see why though. I don't think I would be able to get that big of a pickup bobbin to stay put on mine, the attachment area is too small for that amount of mass. I, too am curious about the hacksaw blade...

[David King]

Ahh yes the hacksaw blade...
I needed a springy piece of metal to hold the wire guide (a delrin washer) so that the wire spool on the floor can un-spool straight up. A dead hacksaw blade was handy so I ground the teeth off it and bolted it to the front plate. It's not ideal but it works well enough that I haven't bothered to change it. A refinement would be a hinge so that it would swing out of the way when not in use. All of the wire guide parts came off the old sewing machine. I replaced the main shaft with a straight one as the original had all kinds of crank kinks in it to drive the various internal sewing apparatus and it was way out of balance as a result.

[David Schwab]

Ah! first I thought it was for cutting the wire, or slitting your wrists... (as an alternative to pulling out hair.. for the fashion conscious).

Then I thought I saw the washer or a grommet, so I figured it was a wire guide.

We all come up with ways.. when I wind I steal a freestanding cup holder tree to put my spool on wire on, and sit it behind me to the right on top of a storage container. One of these days soon I'm going to make a permanent setup.

So David, have you finished any pickups, and have you tried them in one of your super cool basses? That looks like a clone of a Guild pickup in the photo.

Inquiring minds want to know!

[David King]

I just finished winding my second set of dual coil humbuckers, I was busy soldering them tonight but didn't have room on the bobbins for grommets so I'm going to do them up guitar HB style. The first set was for a 4 string and it's really just a couple of pairs of Jazz pickups but with radiused, grounded magnets and totally shielded wood covers. They sounded like bass pickups, good all around and dead quiet. These latest are longer 5 strings with same number of turns so I'll be curious to see if there's a big difference.

I really want to do some mismatched sets with A3s on one coil and C8 and steel poles on the other. I also have some ideas about neodymium mags but I want to get a handle on the Alnico and ceramic options first.

[David Schwab]

Cool!

I just did a mismatched bridge pickup. I had two different designs I liked, and wanted to merge them, so I used one coil from each. Different gage wire, and different amount of turns too! Double mismatched.

I played it and had to call my wife and work and tell her I hit pickup nirvana.

Test 4

[David King]

David,
Those do sound great, congratulations. Really nice growl and very clean top and bottom with lots of character. I take it those are ceramic magnets in there?

[David Schwab]

Thanks David. Those are neo magnets. The same pickup with a ceramic was much thinner sounding. The neos give a nice snarl in the mids and have a big bottom. Kind of a cross between alnico and ceramic tone wise.

Is that bass your original bass, or one that looks like it? That's a cool bass. I always liked that one, and the King Bass too. The King Bass has some of the styling cues I've always liked in basses, and I used a lot of similar lines in mine. Very tasteful design David.