ampage Tube Amps / Music Electronics	For current discussions, please visit Music Electronics Forum.

ampage archive

Vintage threads from the first ten years

various questions on winding

:

9/19/2002 9:50 PM

various questions on winding

Hello,

I intend to wind my own pickups and as I'm totally new at the subject I would have a few questions to ask.

First of all about...supplies! I nearly gathered everything so far but I still have difficulties to find wire with the rigth gauge (I'm living in France so if anyone knows about suppliers here or at least in Europe that would help).

I'd like to know if it is possible to cut magnet rod (say with a dremel tool or so) without affecting its qualities either to save cost by buying a long rod and cutting it or to make custom lengh for staggered pickups.

I also wonder if by hand wound it is meant that the process is motorised and the wire guided by hand or if some pickups were (are) actually wounded by hand only.

Finally I'd like to know what kind of material is used to make the blades of blade pickups.

By the way I could only find 0.05 mm wire so far, is it worth trying it and how many turns would you recommend for such a gauge?

Thanks.

9/20/2002 2:47 AM

"First of all about...supplies! I nearly gathered everything so far but I still have difficulties to find wire with the rigth gauge (I'm living in France so if anyone knows about suppliers here or at least in Europe that would help)."

There are so many wire manufacturers in Europe that I havent bothered to keep track of them all so the only one I know for sure is
Electrisola
PO Box 2120
51574 Reichshof Germany.
I know there is one in Belguim, dont know about France.

"I'd like to know if it is possible to cut magnet rod (say with a dremel tool or so) without affecting its qualities either to save cost by buying a long rod and cutting it or to make custom lengh for staggered pickups."

Maybe with alot of paitients, you dont want to overheat the material or you will degauss it also the dust will stick to the magnet so it would be a mess.

"I also wonder if by hand wound it is meant that the process is motorised and the wire guided by hand or if some pickups were (are) actually wounded by hand only."

There have been a few cases where people wind entirely by hand but generally it means hand guided.

"Finally I'd like to know what kind of material is used to make the blades of blade pickups."

You can use a magnetic stainless but most older blades are just steel that has been chrome plated.

"By the way I could only find 0.05 mm wire so far, is it worth trying it and how many turns would you recommend for such a gauge?"

Turn count is going to affect output among other things, if you want the same output as a coil wound with smaller wire then you have to match the turn count regardless of wire size, thats why you see alot of old pickups measuring 2K ohm that have as much output as a 7K ohms coil. (large wire low ohms, small wire high ohms per turn.)

9/20/2002 5:41 AM

Thanks a lot for the answers Jason and by the way thanks for your web site which has been helpfull to me (I actually did put an order these days for magnets and forbon : magnets where much cheaper than custom made ones that a manufacturer in France offered me. At least this manufacturer gave me an offer, because the most difficult thing is not to find the adresses of manufacturers but to have my requests listened to as I am just a end user!)
Another question : are ferrite magnets suitable for building pickup or are they to weak?

9/20/2002 10:23 AM

Yves,
Here are some other places you could try for enamelled copper wire - I don't know so much about any minimumorder or prices or if you can buy it in small quantities , 'cause I haven't been in contact with all of this places -

Netherlands:
Smith Technical Trading Company
http://www.smithbv.nl/
- a distributor for Essex and IsoDraht

England:
Essex International Limited
Ellis Ashton Street
Huyton Industrial Estate
Liverpool
L36 6BW
England
Tel: 0151 443 6010
Fax: 0151 443 6050
- a distributor for Essex

Wires.co.uk
http://www.wires.co.uk/
- have small quantities - 50g , 500g , 1kg - of solderable enamelled copper wire.

France:
Nexans
http://www.nexans.fr/
-maybe they got something for you , Yves !

Sweden:
Bevi
http://www.bevi.se/
- minimumorder - about $50-55
- they got in stock 42AWG and 43AWG Solderable enamelled copper wire.

Good Luck , Yves !
Gunno

9/20/2002 5:11 PM
Yves	Thanks very much Gunno, Wires.co.uk looks great to start with small quantities. I've tried Nexans by mail these days but it's quite a big company so a end user need is not much for them... Still I'm going to have another try by calling them. Thanks anyway. Yves

Page 1 of 1