I saw a pickup kit in the stewmac catalog. I'm interested in making one of these kits. But do I need to have a pckup winder for this or can I do it by hand? those winders are like $350, plus I would just prefer to do it by hand because i like doing that kind of thing.
Can I do it by hand?
You can do it completely by hand, but I wouldn't. That's a huge number of winds. If you can find an old hand drill (the kind with a crank and gears), then you can clamp that to the table and attach the bobbin to the end.
So, (A) Would it sound different by hand, and (B) how would you know how many turns you have on with the drill, and (C) has anyone here ever done it before. As you might have guessed, i'm interested in making new pickups for a strat.
Here's an option from StewMac Pickup Winding
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It wouldn't sound different by hand, as long as you followed the same wind pattern and made the windings appropriately snug. With the drill (or by hand), you'd just have to count (!). I guess you could construct a counter if you're the type to do that kind of thing.
EDIT: Like that linked article says, you could use an electric drill. I didn't want to suggest it myself, since the hand drill would be a tad easier to control, but you can try an electric one if you like.
fun fact of the day, feel free to ignore;)
as for the number of windings:
the old gibson PAF's have inconsistant number of windings
'they had a machine that kept going until someone thought it was "full"
and started on the next.. maybe you can get lucky;)
some pickups got an extra few (monday morning pups maybe) and some got a few short (friday afternoon ? ) and some are still sought after for their unique tone.. strange eh
Never call a shovel "an ingenious hole-digging instrument"
