Official Luthiers Forum!

Guitar fetish has good pickups: http://www.guitarfetish.com/

and a more personal recommendation is there VEH pickups: http://www.guitarfetish.com/VEH-Vintage ... c_172.html they have audio for it

I made some a few years ago with the stew mac kits. I built a winder and referenced Jason Lollars book to wind them. They turned out ok, but I haven't pursued winding anymore. It takes so much time to really know what you are doing when winding that I never figured it was worth it when I can buy Seymour Duncan's for just a little more than the kits/parts to wind my own. There are a lot of boutique winders out there as well that I just decided to buy pickups. That being said, if you want to get into winding, the kits are a good place to start.

-John

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John Thiessen
http://www.iszacguitars.com

hey filippo, i think if you really wanted to get into it, you'd need a winder.
i guess you could build one somehow,
then you'd have to get into design of pick-ups and all that.
might be fun!
somewhere i read that the old pickups were handwound, and they sound better because the wires aren't uniformly wound, but crossed over each other, hmmm...
might be true, or myth.
i like da sound of "morelli pickups"!

I made myself a winder out of an old motor I had lying around and have wound 7 pickups so far. I learned through youtube and the various forums how to wind, and although my work is not as sophisticated as that of some of the people who are really serious about it, I think I have been able to pretty easily wind a pickup that sounds as good as or better than most of the after market pickups out there, and for a fraction of the price.

As far as the Stew Mac kits I have wound two, one strat and one tele bridge and I am pleased with their quality of manufacture and with the end results; I would definitely buy more from them. I have also sniffed around the local guitar shops for any burnt out ones they had lying around. Doing this I have been able to wind some really cool pickups while only having to pay for the coil wire, but YMMV.

Soon I am sure that someone more experienced will chime in, but I think that winding pickups has been one of the simplest and most rewarding parts of my DIY guitar journey so far.

I have heard that Jason Lollar's book is the one to get and that he was re-publishing it (it was out of print) but I have never seen a copy cheap enough for me to buy even though I would love to get it. Amazon has one used copy for sale right now for $224.

Filippo,

I got two humbucker sets from Stew Mac for my first electric. I was fortunate in that I had use of a winder (not my own). Definitely not easy, but there's something very rewarding about winding your own pickups. People have always been impressed when they ask what pickups are in it, and I say "mine".

As for sound/quality, there's something to be said about scatter-winding. People say they sound more "organic" or "natural" than machine-wound (evenly-wound) pickups. My ears don't notice much on that, but they sound like perfectly good, vintage-style pickups. Not too hot, pretty even over the tonal spectrum. I also have on-on switches for each pickup to coil tap them and I was very pleasantly surprised by how well that worked. The neck pickup gets that nice bubbly single coil sound, and the bridge pickup gets veeerrry twangy.

Best of luck! If you go the hand-wound route, just take it slow and be patient and careful (I had to splice the wire a few times because it split on me in the middle).

I love the terms of purchase:

"By making this purchase I agree that I will not call Lollar for technical support about pickup winding, pickup winder building, material sourcing, or any technical question related to this book. "

Jim

I've used the stew mac kits as well as some of their parts for my own design. I think the kits are a great way to learn about pickups. You can use an old turn table to wind, it's especially good if it has 78 RPM. You can count the winds by the time you've been winding. A strat pickup is about 8K winds. Each coil of a Gibson HB is about 6K, at 78 RPM -- well you can do the math.

John

I just saw this helpful tutorial, and thought of this thread. Happy winding, enjoy.

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/just-pickups ... orial.html