first wind - a few questions

[mcgruff]

Hi

Just bought a couple of humbucker kits with a view to making a couple of low-output, vintage PAF pickups. This is my first time winding so any tips will be very welcome.

The guitar is a 335 which I use for blues/rock/funk kind of sounds - clean tones to crunch. I plan to be playing it through one of these DIY tweed champs.

In general, I'm looking for something "musical", responsive and expressive - I guess that means low output, scatterwound and unpotted? For this guitar, I think I need something on the bright side of the spectrum with slightly scooped mids.

The kits have a range of magnet options - I chose Alnico III and Alnico IV. Do you recommend that I should magnetise these myself to make sure they're fully charged? I've got no way to check the gauss - but maybe there's no real need to.

It looks like I should be aiming for about 3-4k DC resistance per coil. How many turns is that, roughly? I've got no idea when I need to stop winding...!

I'm planning to order some of this 42 guage Polyester 180 Dual Coat wire. Is that good quality wire? It's about the only option I've found in the UK (links to UK sources for pickup parts most welcome ).

Asymmetric coils seems to be recommended to add some brightness; I think I'm going to want that. Suppose I go for a 3:2 ratio: Is that too much? A hot side would help with coil tapping (which I definitely want to try).

Scatter winding... will just have to play that by ear I guess. Suppose I alternate between a couple of dozen turns one layer and a dozen on the next, and finish off the last few layers winding nice and even. Does that sound sane?

Thanks for your help I'm kind of hoping if I do my research, and wind carefully, I'll get some good results at my third or fourth attempt.

[big_teee]

Welcome to the Winding Community!
A good place to start is the Resources Thread.
http://music-electronics-forum.com/t30228/
Check out the Stew Mac Humbucker Instructions listed there.
A3, and A4 Should sound good.
On bar magnets I usually stick with A2, & A5.
The Salvarsan Coil Estimator, is a wonderful tool, Designed and Maintained by our Forums own Mr Salvarsan.
Coil Estimator
You will do fine.
Be patient and persistant.
Maybe others will jump in also.
Terry
**Edit Note
I think the UK has its own Ebay?
I would sure look for pickup winding wire, & parts there.

[mcgruff]

Thanks for the welcome

The coil estimator was a bit of a surprise. With 42awg wire, and scatter-winding, it says I can only get 2-2.5k per bobbin. AFAIK PAF humbuckers tend to be around 7-8k total but I'd need to use 43awg to get near that.

I feel like I've got something wrong somewhere...

[big_teee]

did you get something that looks like this.
You have to pick the bobbin type?
On Humbuckers, the coils are only .25-.275" tall.
Very little room to put much scatter, and scatter is not that desireable for humbuckers.
Taller Single coils like strat coils have more height, and a little scatter doesn't hurt.
Also if you have another guitar to experiment with, besides the 335, I would use it.
IMO the 335 is a bit hard to work on for experimentation. Until you get real close to a finished product.

[mcgruff]

Yeah - I'm assuming the "max layers" is the max amount you can fit on the bobbin and can't be exceeded. I'll need to read up some more about scatter winding. I thought this was important for a vintage PAF recipe but looks like I got that wrong.

I'll adapt the guitar so pickups can be connected/disconnected quickly to some sort of plug in the pickup cavity. There's no way I'm going to fish all the pots etc out the F-hole each time and do some soldering

It would be kind of cool to have a range of pickups for the guitar which can be swapped in and out easily when I'm looking for a different tone. Once I've got some nice humbuckers, I'd like to try making an original Firebird-type design. Brighter sounds can work well in hollow-bodies.

[big_teee]

you shouldn't have any trouble getting over 8k on a pair of bobbins.
Some bobbin types, are bigger than others, and you can fit more wire on them.
Also on the Estimator, it shows the OD of the Single build wire is .0028.
Most single build now days is around .0026 inches. So you can probably get more on than it shows.
Experimenting is what it is all about.
Good Luck,
T

[David Schwab]

I guess that means low output, scatterwound and unpotted?

What makes you think you want those things? Don't just grab things out of the air. No one scatters humbuckers. I don't even scatter single coils. Unpotted means you will get squealing if you get too close to the amp. I don't find it changed the tone at all. It never hurt the tone of any Fender pickups.

Lower wind pickups are cleaner. Just stick with the standard humbucker recipe; about 5,000 turns per bobbin. If you want a slightly scooped tone, use heavy build 42 gauge wire, or regular build 41.

[mcgruff]

Thanks for the reply. I should say I'm not interested in vintage correctness just for the sake of vintage correctness but I do want to understand how different factors affect tone. It's really helpful to get some good feedback; that will help me to zero in on a good humbucker formula much quicker than I could on my own.

The sound I'm looking for is responsive, dynamic, bright-ish and mid-scooped (335-style guitar) so that seemed to be pointing towards a low-output PAF type pickup.

I've read that potting deadens the sound a little so it isn't always an automatic choice. Seymour Duncan Seth Lovers are unpotted and Neil Young's Old Black apparently had a pickup which was highly microphonic. However, potting isn't a critical decision to make right now. Can always change that later.

Scatter winding is interesting. And confusing. I have seen people recommend it for humbuckers. My aim in choosing this option would be to brighten the tone a little by lowering coil capacitance. People also claim that scatter winding has a variety of euphonic effects such as greater responsiveness and more complex & more even harmonics.

Mismatched coils again was something I hoped would add a little zing. A hotter coil might also help a little with coil-splitting although now I'm thinking about trying the Zhangbucker "splat" idea (one coil + tap part of the other).

I'm still learning so I'm keeping an open mind. There's good and bad information to be found on the internet and I hope that talking to some real pickup winders will help me to figure out which is which.

[SonnyW]

The sound I'm looking for is responsive, dynamic, bright-ish and mid-scooped (335-style guitar) so that seemed to be pointing towards a low-output PAF type pickup.

I've read that potting deadens the sound a little so it isn't always an automatic choice. Seymour Duncan Seth Lovers are unpotted and Neil Young's Old Black apparently had a pickup which was highly microphonic. However, potting isn't a critical decision to make right now. Can always change that later.

Scatter winding is interesting. And confusing. I have seen people recommend it for humbuckers. My aim in choosing this option would be to brighten the tone a little by lowering coil capacitance. People also claim that scatter winding has a variety of euphonic effects such as greater responsiveness and more complex & more even harmonics.

Mismatched coils again was something I hoped would add a little zing. A hotter coil might also help a little with coil-splitting although now I'm thinking about trying the Zhangbucker "splat" idea (one coil + tap part of the other).

I'm still learning so I'm keeping an open mind. There's good and bad information to be found on the internet and I hope that talking to some real pickup winders will help me to figure out which is which.

Let me jump in here a little on the scatterwinding. (I hope that some of the ones around here that have strong opinions on this don't hijack this thread too badly) Yes there is good and bad info on this out there and talking to real pickup winders could bring out both sides of it. There are a few good sounding examples of either side of the argument.

I am with David and big_teee on this one, more scattering will give you the opposite of what you say you are looking for. Original P.A.F.'s weren't very hot and they were all machine wound. Actually IMO scatterwinding will increase capacitance not lower it. And the effect is so small that the fact that you are planning on using using double coated wire will probably change the coil capacitance more than the winding method will. If you can find some single coated 42 gauge wire you will get closer to the sound you want. Increased capacitance cuts highs. So does increased turn count, which leads to increased inductance which increases output and cuts brightness. By the way don't trust any measurements you might make of capacitance with a typical meter. Usually they are not related to what is really going on at the frequencies the pickup will be operating at. I'd take the theory into account but not worry about capacitance that much. Since I assume you are handwinding, I would say just wind them evenly and neatly to about 5000 turns per bobbin, or maybe a little less if you use the double coated wire. If anything try to keep your hand motions when winding a little quicker than you might think you should. (In other words go for a little less turns per layer than a "perfect wind" where each wire lies up tight against its neighbor in each layer) IMO, a lot of that talk about scatterwinding is controversial, and most of the part about it that I think could be relevant applies to single coils not P.A.F. type humbuckers. You can make the decision about potting later, but most humbuckers need it, or they will get microphonic at gig volumes. The original P.A.F.'s weren't potted for a lot of reasons, one of the biggest problems would have been that the butyrate plastic in the bobbins from back then has a low yield strength at typical potting temperatures. So they would have warped if Gibson tried it which I would guess they might have done. That's why the Seth Lovers and others that are making P.A.F. replicas are not potted because they are trying to get as close to the originals as they can. But unless you are using butyrate bobbins, (not common, and certainly not found in kits) you are probably going to want to pot it if it is going into a 335. Remember that semi-hollow guitars where the pickups are attached to what amounts to a soundboard are much more sensitive to feedback than a LP or other solid body guitar. Back in the day, they used to stuff paper in the f-holes and things like that to combat the feedback. (If you want to get into some acoustic theory look up hemholtz resonator. That is what the hollow body approximates and the sound coming from the amp goes in the f-holes and resonates the top a little which wiggles the pickups relative to the strings a little and that is what starts the feedback happening. )

As far as mismatching the coils, I wouldn't take it too far, a couple hundred turns or so is enough. The more mismatch the less humbucking effect. Up to a point, the less turns the cleaner and brighter they will end up, just as David said.

[mcgruff]

Thanks for the advice.

That was the only wire I could find unfortunately (anyone know any good UK suppliers)?

I guess I'm going to have to do a bit of experimenting to get the best out of the materials I've got. I'll maybe start with 4200 turns and see what that sounds like. For my first attempts, I should probably just concentrate on not breaking the wire rather than doing anything fancy

[mcgruff]

@SonnyW have you heard of the terms "grade 1" and "grade 2"? I found another source of magnet wire: the Louth Transformer Company LTD. It looks like they sell single-coated wire which they call "grade 1" and double coated wire which they call "grade 2".

Solderable Grade 1

Temperature Index: 180ºC
Thermal Class: H
Base Coat: Polyurethane
Overcoat: N/A

Solderable Grade 2

Temperature Index: 180ºC
Thermal Class: H
Base Coat: Polyurethane
Overcoat: Polyurethane

[SonnyW]

@SonnyW have you heard of the terms "grade 1" and "grade 2"? I found another source of magnet wire: the Louth Transformer Company LTD. It looks like they sell single-coated wire which they call "grade 1" and double coated wire which they call "grade 2".

I haven't heard those exact Grade 1 vs Grade 2 terms used, but checking their website they do quote specifications such as NEMA MW82C that I am familiar with. So I think you are correct in concluding that Grade 1 means single coated and Grade 2 means double coated. However, I did notice that Louth did not carry the smaller gauges that you will need. You need 42 awg which is about .063 mm. I didn't see any smaller than .5 mm on their site. You might try Brocotts which is in the UK so you should be able to get it. Enamelled Magnet Wire - Brocott UK

They even have a separate section on their website for guitar pickup wire, though it looks like a subset of the regular selection. I have not used their wire but it looks like it would be good and I haven't heard any complaints about it either. There should be other sources too in the UK, there are plenty of good independent pickup winders based there. Some of them hang out on the forum here at times.

The single build .063mm would be my choice. Here in the US that wire would be called 42 awg Single Poly. Lots of good sounding humbuckers have been wound with similar wire. The reason that I recommend the single coated wire is because that will give you a coil that is similar dimensionally to the P.A.F. and there is definitely a difference in the sound of single coated vs. double coated wire in a humbucker.

The double coated wire would work too, but it is going to take up more volume, and have a lower self-capacitance. So it will sound different. Such wire might be good for getting the sound of Fender type single coils that were made originally with heavy Formvar wire.

[CRU JONES]

+1 to sonnyW, good advice

I think no one really knows what scatter winding is, or each has their own definition. I imagine it being something like "impressionistic painting"

Using 5000 winds per coil for your first pickup is really great advice. Experimentation is really fun, but if your first pickup sounds horrible it can be a huge bummer. If I wind a humbucker 5000 per coil and you do the same, they will sound different, but both will sound pretty good 4200 winds is much less than 5000 winds, to me when you get that low it starts to sound like a "filter". With overdrive it sounds like a kazoo... Maybe a cross between a kazoo and a dying duck.

either of those wires will be great. big_teee and I are big fans of the "heavy build" 42ga wire for the neck humbucker. I think heavy build sounds quite nice in the bridge as well, especially with those low winds you are planning. To me 5000/5000 IS low winds, to each their own.

[SonnyW]

A Cross between a kazoo and a dying duck. What a great metaphor. ROFL

[mcgruff]

Thanks Sonny & Cru. Should be ready to start soon. I'm going to use a sewing machine as a winder just as soon as I figure how to clamp a bobbin on the end. Shouldn't be too hard.

Incidentally Louth do have 42awg etc but yeah some pages on their web site rather confusingly say they don't...!