Redneck DIY pickup winder?

[glebert]

I've been wanting to dip my toe into pickup winding. Never done one before other than one for a kind of broomstick guitar my kid did for a science fair. We used a variable speed drill to wind that, but it was not many turns and too heavy wire.

Anyhoo, I happened into a deal on this contraption yesterday. It's a fishing reel spooler/unspooler, heavy duty like would be n a large sports shop. I'm thinking it wouldn't be impossible to convert it to a pickup winder. It has the two shafts (high and low speed), reverse, and foot pedal control. I think the line length counter could be modified to be a turn counter pretty easily. The mounting spot for the wire spool could be very easily moved to a different spot for alignment.

Thoughts? Too powerful? Too redneck?

[mozz]

You don't want your wire to be unspooled like that, you need the spool placed vertical.

[John_H]

Nice find. It looks like there are a few features that would be helpful on a pickup winder. Of course the motor and speed control can be utilized. The slow speed shaft could be used to drive a traverse and the bobbin clamp is cool too. Is that thing gear driven?

[glebert]

You don't want your wire to be unspooled like that, you need the spool placed vertical.

That should be totally doable, but as a newb do you mind explaining why? Maybe I need to watch better videos where they actually show the spool instead of just the pickup.

Oh, and John_H it is driven with toothed belts. Since the low speed shaft is meant to turn reel cranks I was thinking about trying to cannibalize the guide bits from an old baitcaster, if I could narrow up the travel.

[johnyrocket]

Because you will break the wire trying to unspool it that way. As mentioned it needs to be placed vertically, typically on the floor between your legs so the wire can spool off the top. This way there is little or no resistance to the wire coming off the spool when winding.

[mozz]

https://youtu.be/PO56K4J5XDE

[glebert]

Because you will break the wire trying to unspool it that way. As mentioned it needs to be placed vertically, typically on the floor between your legs so the wire can spool off the top. This way there is little or no resistance to the wire coming off the spool when winding.

Interesting. The funny thing is that is the opposite way that you want it for loading reels (at least baitcasters), on those you want the axis of the reel and the axis of the spool to match or the line can come off kinked.

[Helmholtz]

Point is, you don't want a thin wire having to rotate a heavy spool.
Instead you let the wire twist.

Different with heavy gauge wire.

[John_H]

Oh, and John_H it is driven with toothed belts. Since the low speed shaft is meant to turn reel cranks I was thinking about trying to cannibalize the guide bits from an old baitcaster, if I could narrow up the travel.

On my winder I used a spinning reel for the traverse. I was able to make the 'pitch' (turns per layer) and the travel both adjustable. https://music-electronics-forum.com/...94-auto-winder The others are correct about de-spooling the wire. It should dispense right off of the end of the spool.