First hand wound pickups, success at last! Updated

WezV

so likely a break in the wire then

Roland

mrchi said:

I'm not getting anything from the multi meter ...

Do you mean no resistance, which means a broken wire, or no signal?

OilCityPickups

WezV said:

so likely a break in the wire then

Lol I meant a break during the wind is pretty much impossible to miss ... 

the eyelet thing is a pain. You need a pointed iron tip, plenty of heat for a very short time ... enough to burn off the wire coating ... but not enough to weaken the wire. It gets even harder when using plain enamel PVA coated wire like old Gibsons (and some old Fenders). Strictly speaking you are supposed to scrape/sand off the coating prior to soldering. In reality you just apply the iron for a bit longer and watch for the tiny puff of smoke as the coating meets it's maker  

Too much 'puff' and no wire ... particularly with 43awg. But if Katie can master it as a girlie ...

xmrchi

@TheGuitarWeasel, that sounds like a definite possible solution, thanks guys and @WezV I def need to have a day or 2 off, wise words sir!

xmrchi

@Roland no signal bud

OilCityPickups

Roland said:

mrchi said:

I'm not getting anything from the multi meter ...

Do you mean no resistance, which means a broken wire, or no signal?

If there's healthy resistance there will be signal ... if the pickup is open circuit there can be a very weak signal too confusingly.

xmrchi

@TheGuitarWeasel was right I didn't take off the enamelling from the wire, (they never say anything about this on the YouTube videos, or Internet pages!)
So I hope this thread will be some use to people who want to try this out for themselves,
all the info that's go me through is on this thread courtesy of some very knowledgeable people


Thanks again to TheGuitarWeasel thats the 2nd pickle you got me out of, so I have built up a parts caster to test out the pickups.
In the neck is my alnico 5 with 8040 winds middle ceramic telecaster pickup with only 6300 winds due to it being really thin flatwork and in the bridge, alnico 2 with 8040 winds.

Compared to my custom shop 59 reissue with Handwound josephina wound pickups my ones blow them out of the water......... Obviously I'm joking, :-D

My neck sounds great, with a lovely plummy tone and decent sustain, the middle a bit non defined could do with some more definition and the bridge nice bright tone but possibly a bit to bright so improvements to be made on all.

http://i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag268/mrmatthewharper/Mobile Uploads/20150315_213135_zps0vhkiags.jpg
http://i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag268/mrmatthewharper/Mobile Uploads/20150315_213211_zps7suywnh8.jpg

http://i1370.photobucket.com/albums/ag268/mrmatthewharper/Mobile Uploads/20150315_213404_zpshtcknuxu.jpg

Sassafras

That neck looks good. Where did it come from?

xmrchi

eBay @Saffafras it was a 2nd and only cost £28 quite, its a stella neck tho, been on 3 Partscasters so far as its that nice

Sassafras

I love the honey, amber colour of it. Very nice. What a great buy.