Stratocaster Pickup Wind
I have taken my Stratocaster through many mods chasing that elusive voodoo tone. I have rewired and replaced several sets of pickups some were just too much and others anemic.
My Strat is a MIM which had pretty hot pickups in it to begin with of the ceramic magnet type. I tried rails and humbucking overwinds but all were void of tone or diminished the
familiar chime of the Stratocaster even if they were hot pickups. I finally purchased a set of handwound pickups that were great sans the bridge pup. The bridge was less than
steller in relation to the other two pickups. Always one for balance and improvement in equipment I tossed around the idea of winding my own pickups and I do know my way
around guitar builds. I researched what was involved, the particulars and equipment needed and set out on hand winding a custom set of pickups for my Stratocaster.
First thing on the list was a winder and in a previous post I had discussed purchasing vs. building my own winder which I opted for the latter. Cost wise I may could have purchased
a commercial winder cheaper than my build but this was all about making my own custom made pickups both for use and for retail as I will be offering these on the webstore.
I liked the features on the Thomas winder and drawed ideas for my own design from it the Schatten and the Mojo winders all of which are good commercial winders for hand
winding pickups thge automated winders are another story all together. So I bought a 6" x 6" aluminum square tube for my tower and to house the wiring, motor and mechanical
features of my winder. I made several purchases from robot supply houses which had custom beams and wheels, pullys adapters and hardware I would need to complete the project.
This was being formulated as I went forward with my build and adapted to changes in the design. I puchased a reversible motor, speed controller and the needed hookups.
I had a power supply already so I went with a 24v DC system instaed of a 120v AC sewing machine motor. I checked the varible speed of the motor and calculated the pulley ratio
needed to bring it within the 2000 rpm range (I didn't want it too fast but eneough to make a fast winding) I purchased my counter and set the winder up with guides.
Mounted it on a platform and made a combination tensioner and wire guide from a cymbal clamp and some fishing rod eyelets (see pic below)


So what I needed now were materials to wind with. I needed the flatwork Alnico 5 magnets (unmagnetized) and 42 AWG polywire the original Strats were wound with Formvar.
Though it may be period correct there were issues with pickups going dead prematurely so I opted for a modern soultion. I was going to build pickups modeled after the
'59 Stratocaster which had a DC resistance of 5.95K wound with Formavar wire. I am planning on shooting for the same spec in the neck and increase by 5% tp 10% going
to the bridge what I am shooting for is Neck 5.95K, Middle 6.3K and Bridge 6.9K. As the windings get hotter they will trim some of tyhe brightness and the bridge pup
of the Stratocaster is very bright with no tone control attached to it. The original '59 had a winding of 7925 turns which I will base my start, read the pickup and make adjustments.



I bought my Neodymium magnets to charge the Alnico magnets in the pickups and have passed them through the filed and have obtained the 25 gauss reading for the pickups.
'59 Strats were oriented N-S-N in magnetism and later in '60 they went S-N-S does this make a difference? Probably not much but the winding of the middle pup
certainly does as it allows to cancel hum on 2 and 4 positions. This is the unit I made to charge the pickup magnets you can see N/S markings to identify direction.



I also have my 25%-75% Beeswax and Paraffin combination so I can pot the pickups afterwards to eliminate or reduce microfonics the dreaded downfall of pickups.
I am still waiting for my heating pot to arrive as of this writing but I will take the wax combination to 140°-150° to pot the pups.



Next weekend I plan on starting my first windings and finish up with a fresh install on my Strat if all goes well I will market the result.

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