8-string humbucker bobbins

[Durrant Pickups]

just wondering if anyone knows a supplier for 8 string humbucker bobbins?

[Peter Naglitsch]

I have search but not found any so I have decided to cut up two ordinary bobbins and glue them together. This is for a one-off 8-stringer I'm building and I'm going to cast the end result into resin so if there are some bad joint they will not be visible. But if anyone have a source for 8-string bobbins I would like to get some of those instead.

[Ilya F.]

I make 8-string humbucker from fiberboard material with laser cutting (logo too). It looks good and possible to make custom dimension and string spacing:

[RCI Guitars]

Seems to be what a few of the bigger builders are doing as well, joining two bobbins together. I'll admit, I do it myself...for 8 and 9 string pickups. I had great success taking two blade bobbins, cutting them and gluing them together to make a single blade and single pole screw humbucker. I sand them smooth and buff them out for a nearly invisible glue joint, but I also use a 3M film that shrinks around the bobbin when heated and it covers the joint as well.

[Durrant Pickups]

I like both options the fiber bobbin finish gives the pickup a very heavy metal look and being a trend atm I think it works well I also like the joining idea but was concerned about the join line which doesn't seem to labour intensive to remove. On that note may I ask what you use to splice the bobbin and what is in the middle of your fiber bobbin. I was going to build a fiber bobbin with a wooden centre but again I don't want to anything too labour intensive

[David Schwab]

You don't have to use fibre. You can also make those parts from plastic with a wood or plastic core. Glue it together and it will look just like a plastic bobbin, because it is.

[RCI Guitars]

I have also seen some really nice all wood bobbins made for 8 string use. Think the set I'm thinking of was a flame maple and rosewood bucker made by Vik Guitars. They look great and with maple, you could stain them any color of the rainbow, fixing the age old question of..."where can I get colored bobbins from?". Problem is with a lot of members, including myself...its time consuming work!

[David Schwab]

You could also get any color plastic you want. Use thin pickguard material. I was using laser cut wood for a while, and it tends to crack.

You can make up a router jig to cut the plastic into bobbin parts.

[David King]

One trick with the wood flatwork is to drill all your holes in a thick piece of wood and then slice it up on the bandsaw. It saved me a lot of time and avoided any splits while trying to drill thin wood.

[David Schwab]

One trick with the wood flatwork is to drill all your holes in a thick piece of wood and then slice it up on the bandsaw. It saved me a lot of time and avoided any splits while trying to drill thin wood.

That's a good idea. In my case the flatwork was laster cut. It would just split along the grain.

[Peter Naglitsch]

On the same topic: Just noticed that Mojo has extra long C8 magnets suitable for 8-stringers so those are at least possible to source. They are even long enough for slanted 8-stringer HBs (I'm doing a "fan fret" 8-stringer)

[RCI Guitars]

I'm working on getting a laser cutter to make my own parts. I have many 8 string designs that I would like to come into reality...one is a humbucker with 4 blades, very similar in appearance to a BKP black hawk, but different build and configuration. Blades on a fan fret would be perfect!

[David Schwab]

I'm working on getting a laser cutter to make my own parts.

That would be the way to go!

I'm actually surprised how cheap some of them are. I might have to get one myself.

[Durrant Pickups]

even cheaper if you know someone haha get this we know a sign maker and he is abit of a spendaholic he bought quite a large laser for $3000 australian and hasnt used it at all not even plugged it in so im going to offer him $2000 for it see what he says haha maybe even less barter him up to it

[Zhangliqun]

What about baseplates?