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How I Wind Low and Medium-Z Pickups On the Cheap

CAUTION: I do not wish to pretend I know what I am doing. But this is what I am doing...

You can hear them on my videos.

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What NOT to do:

Let's get this out of the way. Do NOT do this.

 Make sure your desk is clean and free of metal shavings or STEEL WOOL. I learned of this hazard from a video done by Dylan of Dylantalkstone.com. As I watched that, it occurred to me that I had just finished taking pictures of winding a pickup, with steel wool in the background. THANKS Dylan. He pointed out what should have been obvious to me. This pickup is still alive now, but I can't help but think of Schrodinger's cat when I play this pickup's guitar...

The Project

I wanted to approach this experiment as I thought someone who had nearly nothing but a few tools and junk to work with. Being a somewhat poor boy myself, I had to compromise on a few things. I wanted to attempt to not only build my first pickup with a cobbled together winder, but do it as cheaply as I could. Better still would be to build the first one with things I had already at the house. I also wanted to do this as primitively, within reason, as I could.

Behold! The Winding Platform!

 First off, I built a platform that I could clamp to a larger surface, such as a table or bench. I had this scrap wood and a little MDF and did some gluein' and screwin' it together. I took a manual hand drill I had laying aand just nailed and screwed the drill to the platform with a metal strap and some old screws I had laying around. I used a half-dull ten-year old Stanley miter saw in the spirit of things. I then assembled it using more old screws and glue. never intended this thing to make more than one pickup. I'm a bit of an amature blues history buff and I kinda wanted to simulate what an old sharecropper/bluesman that had an unexpected pickup failure at a house party might do. Deal with what he had. That was the whole point of this exercise. To see if it was an exercise in futility for me, or if I could make it work. I guess corporate America calls it "feasability study". I call it fun. After probably two-dozen pickups, including single-pole diddley bow pups and odd-ball configurations. Almost all of them made noise. And I learned. Boy howdy! Did I learn.

 A word of caution here. I have seen several people online that use a rechargeable screwdriver or drill motor for winding. I have often wondered how many got halfway through and the drill motor died. Sounds like an aggravation I don't need. Murphy seems to find me too often.

I had an old empty teflon spool laying around and drafted into service for spooling up the wire. I cut a small piece of scrap wood into a square so it would fit in the hole tightly and drilled a small hole through the center and press fit it. That's where the spindle goes. I built a few different forks to hold the spindle and the wire spool before I settled for one.

Winding It All Up

 As you can see above, the nuts/poles are stuck to  the computer hard drive magnet which is stuck to the winder. I sometimes use earthquake putty to help hold it in place while winding..I usually lead off with about six inches of wire and tape it to the top of the pickup. I then wrap the core four or five times by hand. I check that everything is tight, straight and free of "FOD" Foreign Object Damage and start winding. I then wind until I run out of wire on the spool. I then tape about six inches of that end to the bottom of  the pickup until I am ready to start the soldering. The pictures at the end of this builder's log will show ways of attaching the leads. I have yet to settle on one method as they all have their own unique value and their own limitations and difficulties. If I find one "better" way, I'll post at a later date.

Pickup

My last pickup build was 800 winds of 34 gauge wire from a large 12v Wall wart. I got just under 100 ohms resistance from that. Took me about 20 minutes of winding with frequent quick breaks for a sip of coffee and make sure everything was tight and straight.

 I now usually take off-cuts from the neck of the guitar to make the top and bottom of the pickup, if I have any big enough. File and sand and sand and sand the wood slices down to 600 grit to make them ultra smooth. Even the slightest sliver in the wood WILL catch the wire and it can get messy real quickly. I didn't always notice when one got caught on something at or near a corner before I wound a dozen winds over it. I just gently got the wire off the snag and wound wire over it. They still work, so... If you break the wire halfway through the wall-wart, well, try not to. I typically get between 300-800 winds per transformer. Mine get from roughly 50-100 ohms, so you don't have much headroom for mistakes. Luckily, 34 gauge wire is a LOT harder to break than 42 or 43 AWG!  I generally use the wire that's between 31-35 AWG from the wall-warts. That's probably why these are fun to wind. Thicker wire = stronger. I have no experience using "proper" pickup wire, but hope to try that someday. I did get some .0035 from one wall-wart, but I dropped it ten seconds after I finished it. SOB! WHY ME!!! WAHH! NOTE: These things don't like to be dropped four feet onto concrete. No amount of whining, cursing, or crying will make it good. I know. I tried all, in that order.

Poles are usually stainless machine screws of various lengths. If you go this route, make sure they have enough ferrous material in them to be strongly attracted by a magnet. Some stainless has no magnetic attraction. I've built with 3/8 - 1 inch screws. I either slap a computer hard drive magnet on the bottom of the nuts or put neodymium button magnets on the bottom of poles. In one, I drilled holes in the neck under the pickup in alignment with the poles and glued the button magnets flush into the neck. Then the pickup was mounted to the top just above magnets. .015 in.? Looking forward to trying real guitar pickup magnets some day. Thousands of possibilities... 

Some of my first experiments. One is still in a guitar and still working.

I have not wax potted any of the pickups that I have built, and fortunately, I haven't regretted it. I have yet to have much in the way of microphonics in any of the pickups, (tiny amount in some...), except for one that I brushed nail polish on the coils about every couple of dozen or so turns. That one is quite microphonic. It's not even the most powerful. Go figure.

I also twist the lead wires before installation to reduce the chance of interference. With the very low-z, there is already a VERY clean signal produced by the pickup. Some, I have read don't like the sound, but I found that an added buffer, or other type of boost will add color and distortion. A preamp works nicely here... I can plug our BR-600 into it before sending the signal on to our amp and it sounds more like a more conventional pickup, but cleeeeaaan unless effects are added. Or, just add a ton of gain and crank it.

Building the bobbin would be a lot easier if I could get some thinner hardwood stock, but I am using what I have... (obligatory grumble) I usually cut the top and bottom from 1x2 hardwood, often part of the neck. I cut them to the size that I want + about .02 inch in for tolerance. I file or shave the edges to fit the hole in the box when installing. I also build a wooden core. I usually cut the wood with a little excess to file away to give you tolerances for the drilling of the three holes for the poles. If you have a drill press, I would use it here. Make this puppy smooth. I used a little bit of glue to hold the wood core to the top and bottom, taking care to clean up any that oozes out of the gaps. This should help keep the wires out of any tiny gaps that might be there between core and top and bottom. I drill the holes for the poles a bit undersized. I like the screws to be just a bit tight when the whole thing fits together.

The Coil Wire

 There are a lot of sources for enamel wire out there, electric motors, solenoids, relays, etc.. I mostly have experience in taking apart wall-warts because it was the easiest way to access it that I tried. I never came up with an easy way to take one apart other than learning that the plastic case of the wall-wart breaks easier if it is cold. Cold garage works well, but summer probably  won't offer much of that... You can put it in your freezer for an hour or so before bludgeoning it to death if you wish... There are several videos out there on how to take them apart. I don't have any pictures of this process and I don't have access to an old, unused transformer right now. I put the transformer on the anvil of my vise with the seam placed vertical and whack it along the seam. Be careful doing this. If you don't crack the housing,  when you hit it, a light hammer can come back at you, fast! Once you get the cover off, it's relatively easy to see what needs to be done, there is no easy way, I use a chisel to start the outside leafs of thin sheet steel to tap them out of the plastic frame. Once the thin plates start coming out, sometimes a pair of pliers will help.

In the picture below you can see the wood hub I made that goes through the transformer frame. Then place the thing into the wood yoke so it can spin freely while giving up it's wire to the teflon spool. If you have any questions about this or anything else, please ask. 

The Connection

 My skills at soldering are about average when it comes to automotive-sized wiring, but I have a problem with soldering electronics. First of all, there is this strange sucking noise that starts up as soon as I start to solder the enamel wire of the coil to the leads, and doesn't stop until I stop soldering... Partly because of this, I have tried quite a few tactics to master this elusive task. I can DO this, it's just an iffy proposition and I have to redo it more often than I'd like to admit. For this reason, I am going to highly recommend you do your own thing on this. You are probably more adept at it. I do know one thing. Using a disposable lighter to burn the enamel off the wire works until you get below about .007 of an inch thick, but anything less than that is likely to go up in flames. For the thicker wire, .007 to .011, (thicker wire nets very little volume of sound), I use a lighter, then very fine sandpaper 600+ grit or higher to rub off the ash. For thinner wire, I carefully use the sharpest blade I have to scrape the enamel off and/or use 600 grit and carefully rub it off.

So many questions...I'm thinking of building something that resembles a miniature lap steel guitar . Here's what I'm thinking -

* 6 string instrument tuned open D 

* very short scale length (roundabouts a concert/tenor ukulele size - around 23 - 26"

* no electrics, just a deep resonator box made from very thin plywood.

It's more of an experiment than anything else but I'm really stuck with what gauge strings to use. I've always used medium-light strings on my guitars but would these still be too heavy for such a small instrument? Would I have to use ukulele or classical guitar nylon strings to get the right tension without snapping the thing in half?

My thinking is that steel strings are better at sustaining the note played on them than nylon - especially important with a small acoustic instrument.

Am I mad or is this imaginary instrument do-able? :P

If anyone could share any insight on any of this I'd be very very grateful!!

I've been meaning to have a go at this for a while. I have seen it done a couple of times before. As always, I don't consider this to be entirely my own work or research, but rather a collaborative effort with others in the community. Let me share with you how I did it:

The benefits of this technique are:

• Improved ergonomics, indeed, the Novak guitars which famously used fanned frets were 8 string guitars. The fanned frets make the wider neck more comfortable to play.
• A different scale length for each string means that you have more control over individual string tension.
• Last but not least, it looks cool. I'm not ashamed to admit that this is the main reason I wanted to try this!

Making a fanned fretboard is certainly more involved, but not too difficult. The easiest way to explain how is that you want to measure the fret locations for a different scale length on either side of the fretboard. I measured the frets for a 630mm scale on the bass side and 600mm on the treble side.

The other consideration at this point is where you want the two scales to meet, i.e. which fret will be at a right angle to the neck. I chose the 12th, but it is possible to chose the nut (zero), or any other fret if you wish. I marked out the frets on the bass side first, then positioned the ruler at the 12th fret and measured backward from there from the treble side.

When cutting the frets, I marked them as usual with a pencil, then scored with a knife. When cutting the slots with my fret slotting saw I used wooden blocks clamped in place to get them as accurate as possible.

(Another very important consideration at this point is that if you are intending to taper your neck, mark the taper first, then the fret locations along where the final limits of the fretboard will be after tapering. It will not work the other way round! I had to make the fretboard twice, but fortunately I realised before I glued it) :-)

Is this making sense so far? This leaves us with a nut and bridge which will be on quite an extreme slant. This was tricky!

Both cutting the nut to shape and filing the slots was a real pain. Took a couple of attempts.

So that's about it really. This is the finished guitar:

So, is it nice to play? Absolutely. I feels really natural, and not at all weird. Is it worth the effort for a 3 string? Sure, why not! Would I try it again? Yeah, probably, although there's nothing wrong with good old fashioned straight frets. This was the most fun I have had making a CBG in ages. I think its the fear factor - I spent the whole time thinking 'this might not work' :-)

Give it a go if you fancy a challenge!

Richey

Hi folks,

I thought I'd share a few of my tricks and techniques which I employ on my builds to make them sound and play better. Obviously to some of the more experienced builders out there these may seem obvious, but that aside these are all things I wish I knew when I began making these.

1. The nut

The nut is an extremely important part of any guitar's construction, and has a huge impact on the intonation and the clarity of the tone. All of my guitars are fretted so I set up my builds to play with fingers rather than slides. Some of these steps are unnecessary if you intend to only play with a slide.

My tips for nuts would be:

• Use a hard material. I always use bone these days but a hardwood/corian works fine too
• When you file the slots, do so at an angle down towards the headstock so that the string rests on only a tiny area right where the nut meets the fretboard. I use the same size small triangle file for all the slots and it works just fine.
• The 'break angle' at the nut is important - the strings need to slope downwards towards the tuners. This will help open strings ring true. Where possible wrap the strings around the bottom of the tuner shaft a few times before feeding them through the hole
• When setting up intonation, use your tuner to ensure that if the open string plays a G, the first fret plays a G#. If the note sharpens when fretted, you need to make the slot deeper. Be careful not to go too far of you may get buzzing on the frets, which would effectively mean a new nut
• When you are happy with the intonation at the nut, take the strings off and sand down the nut so that the strings are resting in a shallow, rather than deep, groove - I tend to find they ring out a bit better this way

2. The bridge

Much like the nut, the bridge is very important for both intonation and allowing the strings to ring out as they should.

I use a floating bridge for all of my builds, as they are super easy to set up and I like the way they look. There is good information on setting bridge intonation all over the internet so I won't go into that here. My tips for bridges:

• As with nuts, hard materials will transfer sound better than soft ones. I use bone and hardwood for mine. I made a blog post on how I make them here
• I make the slots for the strings to sit in using a small triangle file. They are very shallow, with the break angle towards the tailpiece holding them firmly in place
• I sand my bridges to a point at the top - this way the string is only resting on a very small area at the top. If the string is sitting on a flat surface this can cause buzzing
• I tend to find bridges with a smaller amount of surface area contact with the soundboard (or cigar box lid) sound better (but please don't ask for the science behind this!)
• You may have noticed my bridges are rather high (this one is 3/4" tall) - see number 3.

3. Back angle

I started using a back angle on the neck on roughly my 12th build. The difference in playability compared to a straight neck is huge. It is actually quite easy to achieve and well worth a try.

As you can see, using a back angle on the neck allows for a much higher bridge, and the action stays nice and low all the way up the neck.

• Imagine that the neck is resting on 2 blocks, which are at either end of the box. Make the block at the front of the box slightly lower than the one at the tail, and you have a back angle. Easy! The tail block on this guitar is 10mm taller than the front one.
• If you're a bit more of a perfectionist you can cut the blocks at an angle to the neck rests flat on them (recommended)
• Coupled with having the fretboard sitting higher than the box, you will achieve low action and a good amount of clearance between the strings and the soundboard, making the guitar easier to play with fingers or a pick.

4. String gauge

Although it is standard CBG building practice to use strings 3,4 & 5 from a 6 string set, I have found better result using strings at equal tension, which is probably more important on instruments without truss rods to prevent the neck warping over time. I also find equal string tension easier to play.

• I use the MPUSTC String Tension Calculator to work out which strings I need for a particular build. It's easy to use; just enter your scale length and tuning and it does the calculation for you
• For this build I used GDG tuning, and went for 44,28 and 20w, with each string having a tension of between 10.4 and 10.8kg over the 630mm scale length. I tend to find anything below 9kg to sloppy, and over 14kg too tight
• I also find that using equal tension makes setting the intonation at the bridge much easier. I usually manage to achieve close to spot on intonation at the 12th fret
• If you want to give equal tension a try, just go to your local guitar shop and ask for the individual strings you need. If anyone's going to understand your needs, it will be a fellow guitar geek!

Well, I hope this is of some help to those of us just starting out with this rewarding hobby. I suppose my best tip would be not to think too much about it, otherwise you'll end up like me :(

Cheers!

Richey

For those new to cb fiddle building, permit me to share some hard-earned tips to get you started right.

1.   Getting Started:   If you want to build a full-size (4/4) violin, it is critical that you get the correct measurements for the string length from the nut to the bridge, and the height of the bridge must be the same as a real violin. Bear in mind that a violin has an arch top, which raises the bridge height. Your cigar box will have a flat top, so to compensate, you must angle your neck to match the correct angle of a violin. If you do not get this right, your strings will not be the correct height on the neck or at the bridge.

2.   Choosing A Box:   You want to find a box that is long and narrow; the body of a 4/4 violin is about 14" long and about 5 1/2" wide at the bouts. It is critical that it be as narrow as possible, close to a real violin, or your bow will hit the sides of the box when playing on the G or the E strings. Also, a real violin is about 1 & 1/2 " deep, and if you want to attach a chin rest, you will have to cut down the height of the box in order to fit it on.

3.   Creating A Template:   I know this next step is time-consuming and counter-intuitive for those who just like to jump in and build, but neglect this step at your own peril! Once you have chosen your box and adapted it for the correct height, (and this is how I do it: I take the box apart at the hinges, and cut out from the middle section all around the sides, so that when I re-section it, it will be 1 & 1/2" tall.) Next, I stand the box on its side on a large sheet of drawing paper, and draw the outline of the box. Then I locate where the bridge will fall on top of the box, which is determined by the correct tail piece spacing, copied from a violin. I draw the bridge to its full size dimensions. I then lay out the neck, paying careful attention to the correct height of the strings to the neck at the nut and the bridge, and also by getting the correct string length from the nut to the bridge. I transfer all measurements from a 4/4 violin neck so that the neck and fingerboard thicknesses will be the same for the custom neck I will build. NOTE: YOU MUST CREATE YOUR OWN CUSTOM BUILT NECK, as it will be longer than a real violin neck, to make up the difference in the length of your box to that of a 4/4 violin! Once I have drawn out my cb violin to its full size, I can then transfer all measurements for my build, and confirm that the neck is properly angled to be playable.

4.   Building The Neck:   Building the neck is without a doubt the hardest and most time-consuming part, but if you get it right, you will be rewarded with a beautiful violin that will actually play like a violin! I go the whole route, hand carving and tooling the scroll volute by copying from a real violin. It is critical that you make templates for the peg holes from a real violin, and transfer them over. NOTE: CAREFULLY DRILL THE HOLES SMALLER THAN THE PEGS, and use a round file to carefully enlarge each hole to fit the peg. Bear in mind that the peg hole will be slightly larger where the peg goes in than where it comes out, so take your time with each hole. Get it wrong, and you will have to plug and re-drill the holes, which is time-consuming and not as pretty! I create my neck out of 2" x 2" poplar stock, and splicing together two pieces to get the neck angle, but it would be better to use a 2" x 4" piece of wood to cut the neck out of in one piece. This would also make the neck stronger, but either way, the joint will be re-inforced once the neck is glued into the box. At the part of the neck inside the box, I cut away some of the bottom portion, leaving only a bit to touch the bottom of the box at the front and back of the inside of the box. This lets the box sound better and have more volume.

5:   Finishing Up:   Once you have the neck correctly built, the rest is easy! You will follow through much the same as building a cb guitar. I do use a piece of 1/4" dowel rod to build a sound post, set just to the back and right under the bridge. Soundholes can be made up of the same kind of things you'd use on a cb guitar, or you can make a "f" hole template from a 4/4 violin, and cut them out with a sharp knife. If you find that your bow will hit the sides of the box when playing on the outside strings, you may have to cut out some of the top of the box where the bouts would fall. Otherwise, if you have chosen your box carefully, it will be narrow enough to play without too much difficulty! You can create your own fingerboard and tailpiece and pegs, but I prefer to order mine for a more professional look, and you can find these sets online. EBay is a good place to get an entire set for less than $20.

Hope this helps, good luck with your build!

There is a reason we have children. In today's world it is called technology.

I have been building CBGs about a year now and finally feel good enough about my builds to think of selling them. Also health problems make my going back to work after being on medical leave for six months questionable. Even if I can go back the medical restrictions may be such I may need transferring to a whole new job category and need to learn a new set of job skills. So, I need a "PLAN B"!

Vola' I can build and sell CBGs now and you guys have been so much encouragement to me! The problem is how? That is where a tech and business savvy daughter comes in the picture.

Our daughter Katrina Ryon who is co-owner of Sunlight Mountian Inn in Glenwood Springs Colorado is visiting with us for a week - God is so good! If you like Ski Resorts, do Elk or Moose hunting, snowmobile or horse back tours, or just a mountain experience, or a place to relax or even get married I highly suggest you check out Sunlight Mountain INN! They have the most wonderful "Defiance Bar-B-Que"!

Kaje, as we call katrina, has spent the weekend helping me set up a FaceBook page and GoDaddy page for my business. My full name is "Hiram Franklin Tennyson III" so my wife, Kathy, suggested HFT III Strings. Thats what it will be under in FB and hft3strings.com.

Now, my medical problems center around memory and confusion issues. Including time lapses and what my neeurologist refers to as "Mental breaks". My son's daughter, my granddaughter, Linsey, who I nicknamed upon her birth "Little Bit" has a bad case of Atrtention Deficit Disorder "ADD". After seing "Up, Up, and Away" we kid her that she wwill start introducing herself and say, "Hello, my name is ---- Squirrel"!

Linsey has fallen in love with the idea of making the guitars. She does have some business sense, and is a child of the tech age. When she was a teen  she lived with us and made life so easy for us "Old Folk" programming our phones, remotes, VCRs, and such. She carries on her conversations while playing "Angry Birds and checking and updating FB". Short story long, Linsey is going to start helping me with building the CBGs and keeping the sites updated, and tracking orders and such.

All this has happened literally overnight, one day I was wringing my hands wondering how to go about starting and online business, then Kaje drops in and the Colorado Kid starts doing her impression of Donald Trump. No wonder Sunlight Mountain Inn has been such a success!

Yes, I love my childern, and grandchildren, and the fact of this wonderful generation gap that exists between us. But I love that we have common loves, these crazy wooden boxes that once housed cigars which can be transformed into sweet sounding musical instruments to rival, dare I say out perform, Gibsons or Martins. They love blues and old bluesy country, just like I do and that is what these open tunings are so good at. At least today, I am a Happy Poppa and Grandpoppa!

I listen to CBG on YouTube and CBN at work. It appears others Eaves Drop on my music. A co-worker comes into my office to "Chill" occassionally and he really likes the music. I like the old delta blues and just CBG blues in general. He likes the music where the notes are crisp and sharp.

I'd mentioned I had built two CBGs. He asked me one day if I build "those guitars". I replied "Yes".

He asked what did I get out of them. I said $75.00 unfretted and $100.00 fretted. Of course I was pulling numbers from you know where. He said he definetely wanted one. So I said I'd build one and let him see and hear it and them see if he wanted it.

So. I dropped by Lowes. It has to be a cold day you know where to go by Home Depot. Don't ask - its a philosophical stance. I spent close to $30.00, my profit margin dwindled. The box I'm using cost me $10.00. That's colse to $40.00 right there. So not counting labor a $35.99 profit. Not very good.

So, I went to a very well known supplier's site and looked up materials and cost. Fretted neck, Strings, Hinges, Latch, Handle, Corners, Bridge, Sound Hole Covers, Jack, Pot, Knob, Piezo & wire, Single coil pickip, Tuners, Frets, Cigar Box, Misc. Total Coat of Materials = $145.55.

So, I'll never quote a CBG build again for less than $199.95. That will allow me $50.00 in profit, not including labor.

The prospect of building one to actually sell puts a whole new perspective on the whole idea. It is no longer a hobby, it is a source of expense vs income. and usually at first more expense in our ignorance.

It is one thing to spend money and give the things away, that is giving away gifts. It is another thing to lose money on a transaction. I know we all understand that concept though it is hard to put into words. It is an ego thing, it insults our intellegence, makes us loose face, makes us feel like dupes.

However, it is a good lesson. And once we figure out we have cornered our self we start looking for ways to recoupe, making us come up with ways and alternative ideas and techniques to cut cost, not corners. We want the quality product, the pride of craftmanship, but we want to say we made a profit to boot - bragging rights.

Life goes through a paradime shift. We start looking in the building pages, on Google, looking for ideas, networking, looking at everything in Lowes, doing Bling searches and hitting images to see what others have donel.

Oh, if we could only take it back! "No I'm not doing any more builds at this time. See me in about a month and I'll let you know then what I'll do one for". and then check with everyonne selling CBG on CBN! But NO, we open mouth and insert foot, speak first and think later, let allegator mouth override bunny butt.

Sigh, well, that's the CBG life folks, better get use to it.

   I've got an ocean of gin to the right of me,   I've got a river of whiskey to my left,   And just like a donkey, for the life of me,   I can't figure which one is best.   I feel just like a stubborn donkey,   Stuck between two bales of hay,   No matter which way I turn my head,   I have to let something sweet slip away.

• a tack-head banjo, built on half of a straight-sided salad bowl I found at a thrift store
• a round-bodied reso, using the other half, along with a cool tin bowl I found at the same thrift store;
• A baritone ukilele (with my son), with a salvaged neck and a small but beautiful box he found while we were on vacation;
• a nearly-finiished fretless four-stringer, which is pretty, but not quite sounding right yet.