Parts-bin Telecaster and winding your own pickups

[Daniel P]

I've wanted a Telecaster since highschool, and for numerous reasons have never picked one up. Luck would have it that as I went to pick up some fresh strings at a local shop this week, they were cleaning out a bunch of old parts and pieces, and I couldn't pass up a great deal on a Tele body blank and Tele neck.



I've had a few of the pieces of hardware in my own parts bin for years, but pickups are one of the things I need to figure out. It's one of the few places, beyond the circuit design, that I can significantly impact the tone.

This has me thinking about winding my own PUs. I'm very comfortable with electronics, and have no concerns about the handling the delicacy of 42 or 43 gauge wire.

Have any of you wound pickups without a specific PU winder?
I see people try to wind them with cordless drills (seems crazy), but maybe would work with my mini lathe set to its slower speeds.

[Daniel P]

Here is a picture of the one-and-only pickup I hand would back in high school. I didn't fully understand that in potting the pickup I needed do more than just get some wax around the perimeter. Also, its underwound by more than a few turns. But after slapping a ceramic magnet on the back of it, and taping it down to a 2x4 based stringed instrument I made, and it would "pick up" something...



I'm sure I could do better than this now.

[Dave Bagwill]

A good friend of mine who is very knowledgable about such things, wrote:

Regarding pickups and winding your own, with today's market good pickups are dirt cheap. The stuff on ebay from Asia is 9 times out of 10 great sounding and cheap. The pickups from GFS and Artec are great and I have used them with excellent results. However there are those who want to wind their own pickups and I say fine. You just need the patience, tools and skills to do it.

[Daniel P]

A good friend of mine who is very knowledgable about such things, wrote:
You just need the patience, tools and skills to do it.

Sounds just about like making acoustic guitars...

[Daniel P]

A good friend of mine who is very knowledgable about such things, wrote:
However there are those who want to wind their own pickups and I say fine. You just need the patience, tools and skills to do it.

Dave, patience and skill are still to be proven out - but I'm well on my way to building the tools:

[Dave Bagwill]

That's pretty impressive, Daniel!

[ken cierp]

Very nice -- back in the day I wound some pick ups -- I think I have a few home made bobbins around here still, anyway I used a (even then old) 45 rpm turn table I kept track of the windings by timing with a stop watch, PIA but it worked OK. At the time finding the Beldon magnetic wire was a real challenge even in highly industrialized Detroit area.