Post Type Archives: SWD

Last year I made some custom Gretsch Style pickups for actor Bill Mumy who played “Will” on the television show “Lost in Space”. It was a fun project and wanted to do the pickups for Bill who is also a great guitarist and song writer. My idea was to wind a standard humbucker with the…

Winding tension is the amount of drag or rate the magnet wire can be pulled through the tension devices without stretching the wire. It is usually measured in grams for the finer magnet wires.

The winding speed is the rate at which the bobbin turns either top coming or top going. The winding speed also determines the rate at which the traverse will automatically follow the set pitch for the magnet wire diameter.

The turns per layer is determined by the traverse width from left to right and the diameter of the particular gauge of magnet wire. Just divide the traverse area by the diameter of the wire and you’ll get the maximum number of turns that will fit side by side in each layer.

This is a measurement from left to right side of the winding area in a bobbin. If your humbucking bobbin has a traverse that measures .250 inches and you use .0026 inch diameter magnet wire, the maximum number of turns without the wire stacking would be on average 96 turns per layer. Divide .250 inch…

The pitch is the desired space between each turn of magnet wire on a coil. If the pitch is wide, there will be a larger space between each turn. If the pitch is narrow, then each turn may overlap and cause irregular winding or coil shape. The pitch is one of the many things you…

The number of turns is usually the total number of turns wound onto a particular bobbin or coil. To increase the number of turns in a particular bobbin you could use a smaller gauge of magnet wire, thinner insulation or increase the winding area of a bobbin or coil. Increasing the tension can allow you…

Scatter winding is also called hand winding where the magnet wire is guided back and forth onto the coil by hand. This process is still used today especially for rewinding vintage guitar and bass pickups. Scatter winding is usually done on single coil pickups and is normally not done on plastic humbucking bobbins. Humbucking bobbins…

When reading the DC resistance of a pickup you find differences in the reading or ohms that you read with volt/ohm meter. It is commonly thought the coil that has a higher reading will give you more output. This can be true in some situations but in others it can mean that the magnet wire…

When I wind pickups I usually put the top of the pickups facing left towards the winding machine. As the pickup is wound the top of the bobbin comes towards me and I use the term “Top Coming” or TC. Looking at a pickup from the top, the magnet wire is wrapped “Counter-Clockwise” around the…