Reccomendations On Pickup Building

Re: Reccomendations On Pickup Building

The StewMac/Mojotone winder is great. If I were getting back into winding, I'd probably pick one of those up myself.

There are plenty of places that offer pickup parts wholesale. If you don't mind the wait, you can use Asian-based sites like dhgate.com or alibaba/aliexpress.com

Stateside, www.philadelphialuthiertools.com is a good source for basic parts. For instance, they sell 10-packs of humbucker bobbins for $7 or so, which is decent. Mojotone also sells parts directly on their site. For getting started, it's an easy way to find everything you need and the quality of their stuff is very good.

AddictionFX is a popular source of magnets around here. You can reach out to him through eBay and see about getting a better price on small bulk purchases to get started. Alternatively, there are plenty of wholesale magnet suppliers around, just do a google search.

You should consider spending some time in a pickup-makers forum. Honestly, you'll get more relevant answers than you will here. There's a good one, very friendly, here: LINK

You have a lot of options with magnet wire. Plenty of retail and wholesale places. However, you might find it more fitting to keep an eye on eBay and Reverb for proper vintage wire. Spools of various wires come up regularly and you can find some really cool stuff that way.

There's a lot more to it, though. You need a soldering station, a way to hold and properly tension the magnet wire, different kinds of tapes, lead wires, slugs and poles in different finishes, etc. It's not overly complicated, but getting started takes a decent investment and it'll take some time before you're producing anything others might want to buy!
 
Re: Reccomendations On Pickup Building

No, you guys are wrong. He DID ask about getting into the business of making pickups to sell to make big bucks. Read his 1st post again..."I wanna get in to guitar building and pickup building because people are always wanting "Boutique" guitars and pickups these day to where they shell out ridiculous money."

That doesn't sound like he wants to do it for his own knowledge and personal pleasure.

My advice to the OP: You will spend easily 1000 times as much on pickup making machines, tools, and supplies as you will ever receive from selling them. Making guitars is even MORE costly. Man, you don't even know what the parts are called! Don't even start with the idea of making "ridiculous money", or any money at all. At least not within the next 10-15 years!

Yes, do it for your own fun and learning (if you've got lots of money burning a hole in your pocket), but NOT to make any money at all at it as a business. Chinese companies are ALREADY doing what you want to be able to do (realistically in about 10-15 years), and are already selling those products at about 1/4 what you could ever sell them for with the hopes of making a profit at it. The competition is WAY WAY too great!!!

Without knowing you personally, but assuming that you have ultimate energy, enthusiasm, intelligence, and unlimited supply of money and resources, and trying to give you every benefit of the doubt, I would predict that you will fail...miserably, with that objective!

Not trying to be negative, just realistic.
 
Last edited:
Re: Reccomendations On Pickup Building

Virtual high-five, Doc!

A little reality checking now can save a lot of heartache later
 
Re: Reccomendations On Pickup Building

Thanks.

Really, I wasn't trying to be mean. Just like you say, a reality check.
 
Re: Reccomendations On Pickup Building

ive been winding pups for a while now, not sure how long but probably at least a decade. i do it because i enjoy it and can experiment. i have sold a bunch of em over the years but i doubt id ever break even. a 5lb spool of #42 pe nom-max aint cheap. granted thats a ton of wire but if im going to try to get consistent results, having a big spool sure helps. same as magnets, did i need to buy 100 alnico 2 bars? no but if they are all from the same batch, it helps with consistency. i also bought the magnets and wire from a magnet company and a wire company, not a reseller.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top