Make A Guitar Pickup

Step 5 Winding

Pickups are made using very thin copper wire, 42 or 43 gauge. I would recommend buying your wire in a spool to make the winding easier, but you can find this kind of wire in other objects if you want. For example, I found mine in a pair of old dog clippers. However, just a slight warning, the winding will go more slowly if you don't have a nice round spool.

To start winding, wrap a few inches of the copper wire around and through the left hand hole on the bottom piece of the bobbin (the other hole is used to secure the bobbin to the sewing machine in step 4).

Wrap the wire around the bobbin at least ten times by hand. Then, starting slowly, press down the sewing machine pedal as you let out wire from the spool. It's very important to remember that if the wire breaks, you'll have to start your winding over. That's why you need to get the tension just right. You don't want to hold the wire too tight or it will break, and if you hold it to loose it will tangle.

I've read many different opinions on how many winds a pickup should have. I usually put on as many winds as the bobbin will hold and it seems to work. My opinion is that if it looks right, it's probably close.

Comments

[mjovanovi]

great instructabe, im making my pickup, should wind it in next few days, just one question about the wire you used, seems to me that that is not 43 or 42 awg wire, seems too thick... the question is am i wrong and if im not, what gauge did u use?
cheers!

[Cheezit]

does Enamel coated wire, sorry if this is a ridiculous question, i'm new to this.

[mrmerino]

Bare wire would short itself out, and any signal you could coax out of it would probably be bad quality.

[jmart90]

u mean does enamel coated wire work? that is the only way to go, otherwise if u just had a bunch of bare wire around the screws/ magnets, i would guarantee that it wouldnt work, so yes it will, lol, and srry for the delayed response to ur question

[octopuscabbage]

...No..the point is to have the bare wire around the magnet....For electro-magnetism..

[jmart90]

@ octopuscabbage
how about doing a little research before posting something that is of no use to the topic. ---- this comment is certified as being constructively-positive! (;D)

[zazarul]

Aaaa......how many turns

[davidpaul23]

can i wind the coil directly on the screws....

[DK69]

teflon tape being thin would help protect the first layer of windings, dont wrap it thick, even scotch 33 electrical is a lill thick, but he is saying after its all wound you dip it in wax to coat, and sink into the windings just to secure them, and keep humidity out, other places would soak them in varnish for a minute then let it drip dry to seal the windings

[Leperello Mikesiah]

you wrap the wire directly around the screws. Is that what you're wondering?

[davidpaul23]

ya i hav a lot of doubts buddy... should i hav to use wax directly on my windings or i hav to cover it with a Teflon tape first mann...?

[Leperello Mikesiah]

you put the coil directly in the wax first, then when it's all dry, put the tape around it.

[Eman34]

can anyone please suggest a good store to buy the copper wire? not an online store, but an actual store in USA, more specifically south florida.

[DK69]

One awesome place in the us is Electronic Goldmine, its in Arizona, they have a website, but they have a ton of cool stuff, solar cells, magnets, wire, capacitors, even crazy stuff like missle rate gyroscopes for experimentation, I DOUBT theyre functional, but ya switches ICs,kits, ALL kinds of stuff for pennies on the dollar, ya its www.goldmine-elec.com and its not dusty old junk. And no I dont work there, you can get a catalog online

[ERCCRE123]

radioshack has some. people say it's a bad place to get parts pricewise, but wire isn't that bad.

[Eman34]

about how many feet do you need for this project?

[capkloud]

well, it looks like he left out the exact measurements you should use for your pickup, but based on the "use 5000 windings" thing i saw earlier, id estimate about 3333 feet of copper wire. that will provide about 8 inches of wire per "turn", should be about accurate.

[ERCCRE123]

I honestly have no clue.

[mag-mag82]

what's the length of the wire i need? and where can i found it if i don't have any electric machine? how much it cost?

[levan]

can you please write down, how many "cm" is "1 gauge" ?? :) or all 42 gauge...... :D

[matt_mattmatt]

 can you describe the wire you used? I'm having some trouble finding it. solid, no coating?

[blackcorvo]

What? no sound samples? ): thats sad man.. i wanna hear how they sound... i'm working on a project just like yours, but i don't have the wire and don't found any strong magnets here...i lie in Brazil and its hard to find good magnets here. i have a HUGE block here but i don't have any wany to cut it.

[antipresident_gun]

you can get some REALLY strong magnets out of an old hard drive

[blackcorvo]

tried doing that, but they broke... and they're not THAT strong.

[Pruimenvlaai]

Try dealextreme.com, search for 'magnet' and you should find pretty cheap neodymium magnets. They ship everywhere for free, so to brazil too... Good luck with your pickup :)

[blackcorvo]

oh my, thanks!!! =D<br/>

[davidpaul23]

hi people, i wanna thank you for all your tips on making a humbucker pickup for my guitar. i made two humbuckers for my fender stratocaster and modified my fender with my own pickups. i'm playing the same guitar every week in my church and it sounds awesome and dosen't give me a problem till this date from 1 Jan 2009. i'm on my way making a guitar on my own, trying to finish that this month.... thank you all one again for your time you people spent on my queries and thak you Leperello Mikesiah (author) for this post.

[utfal]

u got that coil out of an electro magnet right..... can i use an old coil

[davidpaul23]

1.can I do my windings directly on the screws for humbucker pickups? 2.is it so that i should use a 44 gauge coil and not less gauge than tat.... what happens if I use a lesser gauge coil than 44' mann? 3. how'll i know that I've done 5000 windings on my screws? 4. watz the difference bet the single coil and the humbucker pickups buddy....?

[freestriker]

a humbucker is a double coil pickup the two coils make sounds like hum buzz disappear in single coil pickups if theres is a radio or tv near the pickup make those sounds

[killerguitarman249]

a humbucker is a type of pick-up that is bigger and louder and its like two small normal pickups put together so they work together one makes it more clear so it doesen't have as much fead back and the other is like a normal one so thats how it works "BUDDY"

[eyeball226]

It's nothing to do with feedback, it's what freestriker said, it's to do with cancelling RF hum caused by... lots of things.

[LSP]

Just one thing, if you want to make a humbucker, 5000 windings would be alright. Given the way those things are wired (internally) it will be pretty powerful. You also get to use 43 wire but carefully as the thinner you go the more highs you lose. I thought you were asking in general, in case you are looking for answers on buckers these are my 2 cents.

[Leperello Mikesiah]

1. yes you can.
2. You can use a thicker gauge, but try and get the thinnest you can.
3. You can count your winds, but I just put as many winds onto the bobbin as I could.
4. A single coil is only one coil. A humbucker is two single coils wired together to "cancel" (reduce) the hum.
Single coilSingle coil

HumbuckerHumbucker

[DK69]

Yup leperello nailed those questions, but I bet too much smaller would make a huge pickup too, but hey Leperello I just wanted to thank you for putting this up, very informative! Theres a site build yourguitar.com/resources/lemme/ that has some good tech info on pickups ( I didnt see the main page stuff just linked to the pickups) but I needed the basic dig in and tear into it concept down, before I rebuilt my pickups, so thanks for taking the time to post this!

[MiljanW]

How many times do I warp single-coil?