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Be careful, the wire can easily break. If this happens early on, the best thing to do is to change the rotating direction of the drill, unwind the wire, throw it away and start all over again. If you have already progressed a bit further in the winding process, you can either do the same and start from scratch, or you can solder the broken wire. If you choose to do the latter, twist about 10 to 20mm (1/2" to 3/4") of the wire ends together so that they remain joined and heat this area with the tip of a soldering iron until the joint begins to shine silvery (when solder is applied). When heated, the coating will evaporate and the copper wire will come to the surface. Alternatively, you could also first sandpaper the ends of both wires and then twist them together. This is certainly a case of precision work, and although there is unfortunately no possibility to test the joint made, it should be fine if the solder has been heated sufficiently and sticks on the wires. Before you continue winding with the drill, start again by making a few windings by hand. Anyway, I'm convinced that with a bit of care and practice you will manage to wind up all the wire in one go and without making it break so that all of these mending instructions may well be superfluous.

After some time you will become more confident and will probably want to increase the speed of the drill. When you do so, be patient and do not go over the top. The maximum speed I use is 10 revolutions per second. At this speed the one-but-last digit of the counter changes every second, and winding 6000 turns takes only about 10 minutes. You should be able to work with maximum concentration over such a relatively short time-span. Winding faster, makes it difficult to keep things under control. I also recommend that you use a bright background to relieve the straining effect of having to keep your eyes fixed on the thin wire for quite some time. Depending on how you hold your head, the wire can be seen better or less well. When you approach the end, switch off the winding jig early enough as it will continue to rotate for a short while. The last few windings can be made by hand and should always be placed on the base plate.

For more in-depth information on pickup-winding I can recommend a book written by the American Jason Lollar. He gives exact measurements of standard pickup bobbins, explains how to make them and describes how to build a comfortable pickup winder that winds unattended (see the section on literature).

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Counting the windings

Counting the windings to reach an exact number of turns is not really important when making a singlecoil pickup; just keep winding until the bobbin is fully covered with wire. Mathematical calculations will not get you very far, and only the end-product, the finished pickup, will reveal the tonal qualities. Remember, however, that the more windings there are the higher the d.c. resistance will become, and with it the sound less clear.

In some cases the exact number of windings does matter, though: when making a humbucker, for instance, both coils have to be identical, and some way of counting the turns has to be found. One possibility would be to couple the bobbin with the counter of an old tape recorder or a bike speedometer. If the counter has only three digits, each new start at “000” has to be noted. I use a four-digit counter (1) that is linked to the bobbin with a rubber band. If the bobbin and the counter shaft diameter are the same, the number shown on the counter equals the number of windings on the coil.

Other counters have a lever which has to be operated with each winding that is added (2).

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How many turns?

The number of turns depend on the wire you use and the sound you want to achieve. Here’s a rough guideline when using AWG 42 wire: use about 8,000 turns for a single coil and about 5,000 turns per coil when making a humbucker.

To equalize the output single-coil bridge pickups can have more turns (e.g. 7,800) than neck pickups (e.g.

8,200). Humbuckers used at neck position could have 4,500 turns per coil and if used at bridge position 5,000 turns.

When the desired number of turns has been reached and winding is finished, the hour of truth has come. Break the wire and carefully remove the finished coil from the winding jig (1). If you have not yet put the two ends of the wire into the contact eyelets (2) and soldered them into place (3), do so now. If necessary, remove the insulation with a bit of sandpaper; the insulation is gone when the wire color changes. Alternatively, you can also do this the way I do, which is to continue soldering until the insulation melts. After this, set the function switch of an ohmmeter to the 100K-ohm position to start with and bring its probes in contact with the ends of the wire. If the ohmmeter shows a figure, the coil is fine. If, on the other hand, it shows an “infinite” ohms reading, or “OL” on a digital multimeter, there is a problem and only one hope left, which is to reheat both ends of the wire. If there is still no connection after this, the wire connection is broken somewhere in between and all you can do is destroy your piece of work, remove the wire and start from scratch. If the coil is fine, mark the ends of the windings (S=start, E=end) and solder two contact wires into place (4), making sure to fasten them in such a way that they are exposed to as little pull as possible.

Microphonics will be a problem when pickups are wound too loosely and the loose wire subsequently behaves like a microphone, generating an additional alternating current inside the magnetic field and thus making the pickup susceptible to feedback or causing it to pass on fretting noises or clapping on the body. To fix the windings in place, immerse the finished coil in hot, liquid wax of a maximum temperature of 65 degrees Celsius (150°F). At this temperature, the pickup is absolutely safe and nothing can go wrong. A deep fryer would be ideal for this purpose, but it is probably not worth ruining one for the sake of just very occasionally immersing the odd pickup in it. I put a metal container into a hot water bath to heat the wax (5).

Always use a mixture of paraffin and beeswax for potting pickups. Pure paraffin wax is too brittle and pure beeswax has a melting point that is too low. By adding about one part of beeswax to four parts of paraffin wax, you get a perfect mixture. Always check the temperature, for instance with a meat thermometer. As the wax can be much hotter close to the container walls and at the bottom, try to steer clear of these. By putting small pieces of wood at the bottom of the container, you can make sure that the pickup is safe from making contact with it. Leave the pickup in the wax-bath for 10 to 20 minutes, but at least until there are no more air bubbles rising. Wear eye protection when placing the pickup into the wax-bath, just to make sure.

Pickups can also be encapsulated with epoxy resin. This kind of treatment, however, has the disadvantage of making the pickup inaccessible afterwards. Apart from that epoxy resin does not penetrate the windings as well as wax but just sticks to the outside of the coil. Wax is also easy to remove by re-heating the pickup. Immersing the pickup in wax is an environmentallyfriendly method used by a lot of manufacturers.

Because wax is extremely flammable, I recommend that you always pot your pickups in a safe place outdoors and that you keep a lid at hand for quickly covering the pot in case of fire. Always use a thermometer to ensure a temperature of 65 degrees Celsius (150°F) is never exceeded. Since paraffin gases can easily catch fire, you must never even attempt to heat the wax in a microwave oven.