How to handwind a pickup without the wire breaking?

Left_Hand_Strat

Left_Hand_Strat

New member
just a thought.

a while ago I bought a Strat pickup bobbin and I rescued the wire from a dead pickup I had laying around, so I thought I would use the wire off the dead pickup to make a new one.

in mind I have no equipment as such to automate the procedure, I did it by hand. I did lots of winds and then the wire broke.... this happened 3 times before I gave up and shoved it in the tool box.

How do you stop it from breaking and am I better off making a little Winding machine myself and using new wire???
 
Re: How to handwind a pickup without the wire breaking?

I haven't tried it myself, but I could not even imagine attempting it by hand. Winders are pretty expensive but I've heard of people mounting the bobbin on a drillpress or hand drill with success. Still seems problematic to me. Sorry I can't be of much help with this.
 
Re: How to handwind a pickup without the wire breaking?

I've herd of people using sewing machines.
 
Re: How to handwind a pickup without the wire breaking?

thanks guys! :)

I am thinking of doing a strat pickup since I have the bobbin....

So I was thinking would 42 or 43AWG be good enough for the job?

also how much would I need 500g of either wire is quite expensive so would 100G do the job?

Also question abou pickup magnets. on a strat pickup, if I have magnetised polepieces no matter what type they are, and put a bar magnet underneath as well (no matter what type either) would this have any real difference on the characteristics of the pickup?? I only ask because this could lead to some experimentation.
 
Re: How to handwind a pickup without the wire breaking?

42 and 43 are common sizes for pup wire. old strat pups use 42, hotter more modern pups like ssl5 use 43. i dont know how much wire you need in weight, but you need at least 120 meters.

How do you stop it from breaking
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be more careful. really, thats all there is too it. wire that thin is pretty easy to break so you need to be very careful when hand winding. putting 9000 turns of wire on a bobbin by hand takes a long ass time and a lot of patience

as far as your magnet question... im not sure what you are asking. you have a strat bobbin with the six pole piece magnets and you want to put a bar magnet on the bottom as well? the type of pole piece magnets will effect the sound. alnico II wont sound like alnico V.

ive never tried adding a bar magnet to the bottom but i dont see it helping anything.
 
Re: How to handwind a pickup without the wire breaking?

jeremy said:
42 and 43 are common sizes for pup wire. old strat pups use 42, hotter more modern pups like ssl5 use 43. i dont know how much wire you need in weight, but you need at least 120 meters.

be more careful. really, thats all there is too it. wire that thin is pretty easy to break so you need to be very careful when hand winding. putting 9000 turns of wire on a bobbin by hand takes a long ass time and a lot of patience

as far as your magnet question... im not sure what you are asking. you have a strat bobbin with the six pole piece magnets and you want to put a bar magnet on the bottom as well? the type of pole piece magnets will effect the sound. alnico II wont sound like alnico V.

ive never tried adding a bar magnet to the bottom but i dont see it helping anything.
Click to expand...

you pretty much answered my question! lol

and ok just go a lot easier. I can get some 43 wire on a 100g spool and it has about 4500 meters of wire. so that should be enough, lol
 
Re: How to handwind a pickup without the wire breaking?

should I also be a bit looser with my winding? cause I try and do it pretty tight which probably isn't helping matters....
 
Re: How to handwind a pickup without the wire breaking?

Way back about 30 years ago I popped an A5 bar on the bottom of a Strat pu and I couldn't hear any difference. As for breaking wire, as Jeremy said it's no mystery or secret, you just have to have a softer touch. You're probably trying to go too fast and/or gripping too tight. Just keep the grip as light as you can without it slipping out, and just one turn every two to three seconds until you develop the touch and then you can go faster.

I had the opposite experience when I first started -- I was amazed at how much stress the wire could take without breaking. Guess I have a naturally lighter touch.
 
Re: How to handwind a pickup without the wire breaking?

To me it sounds like you had some super-thin wire in your original pickup.

You should definitely start out with awg42. Thicker is easier. And you need to pull strong, otherwise it gets microphonic.

Signed, uOpt, sitting on pickup making materials without doing anything with it.
 
Re: How to handwind a pickup without the wire breaking?

Zhangliqun said:
He's breaking the wire. I don't think his problem is not pulling strong enough.
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Yes, what I was saying is that pulling less is no solution. If you do that you might be able to work the thin wire but if the resulting pickup is too loose you can't rescue it even if you are potting.
 
Re: How to handwind a pickup without the wire breaking?

uOpt said:
Yes, what I was saying is that pulling less is no solution. If you do that you might be able to work the thin wire but if the resulting pickup is too loose you can't rescue it even if you are potting.
Click to expand...

If he's breaking the wire, then pulling less hard is the ONLY solution.
 
Re: How to handwind a pickup without the wire breaking?

I believe that Seymour wound his first pickup with a modified record player.
 
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