First pickups production wave

Posted on March 4, 2018

Now that I know the pickups work properly, and that I have a plan to create the sound sculpture, it’s time to produce multiple pickups.

First steps are to prepare for spooling. I used solvent to glue the two layers of flatworks together, then I glued the eyelets. Afterwards, the next step is to glue the magnetic polepiece to the bottom flatworks, so that it holds in place while spooling the copper wire on the machine.

I must have more experience now, as I failed less times while spooling those pickups. It does still take some 45-60 minutes to wind each pickup.

After connecting wires to the coil ends, these new pickups must be potted.

And I end up with quite a few new pickups! Two of them were broken along the way, so I’ll have to redo those. I also ordered more polepieces from StewMac, which will allow me to create more pickups!

With those that I have in hand, I can test Garnet Willis’ theory that they can work properly for my homemade signal generator. This will be my task for the upcoming week.