Dude, this is the most bare bones, basic set up I've seen! Kudos!! There are a number of videos with pretty sophisticated winding contraptions, counters and such. Elmer Zeilhofer!! Great guy!! His videos were the first I encountered for flatpups about 4 years ago!
I also wanted to add that I just tested several that I'd made recently to see if winding more than Elmar's 900 ohms was worth it. It really isn't. If you wind more than 1500 ohms worth, the pup gets too thick to mount easily under the strings and so you have to cut down into the box which puts the pup further away. So 900 close to the strings sounds the same on the same guitar as 3600 1/4" further from the strings. But I broke 2 miles of pickup wire figuring this out.
Of all the pickup winding videos I've watched, you're the only person who showed how to set the spool of wire to keep it from breaking. I've tried to allow the wire to roll off the spool horizontally, and it breaks constantly. I'll be setting the roll vertically from now on. Thanks so much!👍😎🎸🎶
I'm glad you found it helpful even though on the video since it was difficult to film using my computer, I dropped a tiny bit of solder on the pickup wire spool below and it snagged and broke the wire. Figured, I'd show that and how to fix. Have you built any yet?
@@bartblankenship1314 yep. That drop of solder helped me a lot! Lol. I've made a few 3 pole pickups for cigar box guitars and used neodymium magnets. They sound pretty good! I just recieved some bobbin material and brass eyelets. I'm going to try to make a 6 pole single coil for one of my Strat style guitars next. Thanks again!👍😎🎸🎶
Thanks for the vid. I'm curious about one thing. When you switched the pickup around, to wind the second end, you mentioned the wire was wrapped "in the same direction". In order to do that, you would have to switch it, and then run the drill in reveres, wouldn't you? I'm sorry if I didn't catch something
Yes. And this method has half of the windings reversed. Even though the drill is still going in the same direction, because the pickup you're making is inserted first on one side and then on the other, it the fine wire in the opposite direction. If you want to put another set of magnets on say, north when the rest are south, I'd suggest using smaller magnets as too much magnet will give a constant tremolo effect. I hope that helps.
@@bartblankenship1314 I understand what you did with the winding, since you flipped it around and ran the drill the same way you had reverse windings on one side. But in a traditional humbucker, wouldn’t you have separate magnets for each winding? A North Pole clockwise and the south pole counterclockwise? I am curious, if you used six magnets, with three under each winding, and the poles reversed, would you have a thicker and beefier sound?
You know more than I do about humbuckers. All I know is that traditional ones have two sets of magnets. When I try making one with two sets I'll look back at this response and wind them in the directions you said. Also, since the video I've started using smaller wire and the resistance went way up. @@KirkDickinson
44awg is .0022 wire and I use the kind that the insulation melts off with soldering. I use 1mm thick and 8mm wide magnets. But commercially some are using bar magnets. I’ve had issues with some where I get a tremolo effect all the time because the magnets are too strong and thus the pickup needs to be moved further away from the strings. Hope that helps. Send me a video of what you make and playing! Please.
@@bartblankenship1314 Thank you very much! One question came to my mind now. When to stop, I mean, as it's impossible to count turnings, so how to guess that it is time to stop winding? and thank you again, greetings from Canada.
How much is enough? Since I am copying the original Flatpup, I try to go as thick as Elmar does, but since he uses a fancier machine to wind and I use a hand held drill, I have to go thicker. I test the resistance when I’m done, off the soldered on lead wires. If I’m at 2k ohms I’m happy. But even 1k will work n you’ll just have to turn up the volume. People have complained about the low resistance as most pickups have more but these are thin and meant to be mounted close to the strings. If you need you can put a shim under it to get it closer to the strings. Hope that helps.
@@bartblankenship1314 Thank you! Surely helped, and makes a lot of sense to keep it thicker to compensate the number of winding due to the inefficiency of the drill to get it tighter as the proper machine would. Thank you.
@@folchandre feel free to contact me via email if you like. Also, I hope you will make some of these pickups and post a video of it. I know I was proud of my effort the first time. Actually, each time it seems a miracle, like I should be wearing a wizard's hat! bartblank@yahoo.com
I start with the black wire and tape and glue it to the metal of the pickup body. Then I wrap the thin pickup wire around the stripped end of the black wire and solder it. Since the pickup wire is insulated I only buy the kind where it’s insulation melts off when soldering. But if you don’t heat it long enough it won’t melt off and won’t connect. In testing several pickups in the end if there is no connection then I solder it again.
By putting the pickup in the drill on the other end it winds in the opposite direction. Try it with string and a popsicle stick in your drill if you don’t understand.
Have you seen the Q-tuners? I wonder how close that design is to this one. Have a look if you haven’t. Curious about your thoughts. Thanks again! Stay safe and stay healthy.
Hi Pablo. I hadn't heard of them but just checked them out. They use a bar magnet but are wound similarly. I've also started soaking mine in epoxy as it does protect the wires. They have done a lot more research than I have. I've just watched Elmar's videos and recreated to the best of my ability what he had going although he's much neater than I can be with my hand held drill. Thanks for your comment!
Cuando se está bobinando el alambre de cobre, y este se revienta, no es necesario botar lo hecho, se solda cuidadosamente ( se puede soldar, yo lo hago) la punta de lo bobinado con más alambre y se sigue bobinando.
Great video, just my spreed, no fancy tools. I want to make one for a 6 string acoustic so I don't have to cut a hole in it. I don't like the way piezos sound. I don't necessarily want it to sound like a natural acoustic, maybe just like a semi hollow body. Any suggestions?
The ground is to the wire at the end of the winding. But then, I solder a wire from the volume pot case and connect the other end to the bridge or at times even us a bb split shot fishing sinker to crimp it to a string. And then as long as part of you is touching the string below the bridge, it's grounded. Let me know if that helps.
@@bartblankenship1314 Thank you for the reply, I was over thinking. i'd just installed some emg pickups which have positive, negative and ground wires and I got confused. I'll be taking the emg's out (don't like them) once I make these flatpups. Thank you again, its much appreciated.
@@colinduffy9055 Just remember that the ground wire is soldered to the end of the windings. I mistakenly made up a dozen for a workshop and put the ground on the start of the thin, pickup wire, and while all the guitars worked, there was some hum. It wasn't until I got home and built my first shovel guitar like Justin Johnson's famous one and couldn't get it to work that I realized the ground wire should be on the end of the windings. I don't know how many times I've read Elmar's instructions and watched his videos. And I don't understand why it makes a difference. But it does. Good luck! And don't get discouraged. I break perhaps a third of all the ones I build.
All of the flatpup style pickups I’ve seen that have windings on the second coil reversed are called humbuckers and don’t have a second set of magnets with the poles reversed. But I think I’ll try it on my next wind and see if there is less hum. Thanks for your question.
@@bartblankenship1314 I wondered because that's the point of a humbucker, to cancel the hum. Not just being two coils. You are right, all flat pickups have it that way.
@@argi0774 Yes. I know it's a clever name and made to cancel hum. I won't know until I build one with two sets of magnets, and the reversed coils if it is the magnets or the direction of the coil windings that have the most effect. Also, mine and Elmar's flat pickups use neodymium magnets with the polarity's north and south being above and below the pickup. But many of the knock offs use bar magnets with the polarity 90 degrees from Elmar and mine.
@@bartblankenship1314 If this is true, then the knockoffs do it the right way. That's how a fullsize humbucker is built. The polarity of the magnet sideways. For humcancelling, you need both at the same time: reverse wound AND reverse polarity.
This wire is insulated so you can't just twist it together and continue. What I did was solder it to another wire just as you would the lead wires which melts the insulation.
Greg Martin that’s how I learned. But I wanted to post a more thorough how to video on it. I’d broken one of the ones I bought from Elmar n so looked up his video n bought wire and rewound it.
Yes, you are correct. I do hope that it's clear enough that you can now build your own. I've looked at other videos building Flatpup style pickups and though they leave some information out and also use expensive winders.
![Digital Circus Episode 4 [TRAILER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/abZtsmMUbJo/mqdefault.jpg)
Dude, this is the most bare bones, basic set up I've seen! Kudos!! There are a number of videos with pretty sophisticated winding contraptions, counters and such. Elmer Zeilhofer!! Great guy!! His videos were the first I encountered for flatpups about 4 years ago!
I also wanted to add that I just tested several that I'd made recently to see if winding more than Elmar's 900 ohms was worth it. It really isn't. If you wind more than 1500 ohms worth, the pup gets too thick to mount easily under the strings and so you have to cut down into the box which puts the pup further away. So 900 close to the strings sounds the same on the same guitar as 3600 1/4" further from the strings. But I broke 2 miles of pickup wire figuring this out.
Great stuff. Thanks
Of all the pickup winding videos I've watched, you're the only person who showed how to set the spool of wire to keep it from breaking. I've tried to allow the wire to roll off the spool horizontally, and it breaks constantly. I'll be setting the roll vertically from now on. Thanks so much!👍😎🎸🎶
I'm glad you found it helpful even though on the video since it was difficult to film using my computer, I dropped a tiny bit of solder on the pickup wire spool below and it snagged and broke the wire. Figured, I'd show that and how to fix. Have you built any yet?
@@bartblankenship1314 yep. That drop of solder helped me a lot! Lol. I've made a few 3 pole pickups for cigar box guitars and used neodymium magnets. They sound pretty good! I just recieved some bobbin material and brass eyelets. I'm going to try to make a 6 pole single coil for one of my Strat style guitars next. Thanks again!👍😎🎸🎶
@@74dartman13 Good luck. I'd love a link to what you come up with!
@@bartblankenship1314 ok...if I make a video, I'll let you know.👍😎🎸🎶
Good video. your detailed instruction helped me understand the wiring. Thanks.
Very cool! And you should use the copper to make a Mohawk then say "Pity the fool!" to anyone who comments LOL
Thanks. So many pickups ruined! One weekend trying to get too much resistance I broke 2 miles of wire. Now I use 44 gage n easily get 4K ohms.
Thansk for sharing mate....great video and instruction....cheers...subbed
Many thanks.
Maybe I could take all of the wire that I've broken and make a wig, too! Things are gettin a little thin on top!😂👍😎🎸🎶
Thanks for the vid. I'm curious about one thing. When you switched the pickup around, to wind the second end, you mentioned the wire was wrapped "in the same direction". In order to do that, you would have to switch it, and then run the drill in reveres, wouldn't you? I'm sorry if I didn't catch something
All that copper wire for a wig, your new nickname will be Lightning Rod. Great video by the way
I have been hit by lightening way up a mountain in Colorado and lived to tell about it. Perhaps it explains a lot.
don't regular humbuckers have reverse wind and reverse magnet polarity for each side?
Yes. And this method has half of the windings reversed. Even though the drill is still going in the same direction, because the pickup you're making is inserted first on one side and then on the other, it the fine wire in the opposite direction. If you want to put another set of magnets on say, north when the rest are south, I'd suggest using smaller magnets as too much magnet will give a constant tremolo effect. I hope that helps.
@@bartblankenship1314
I understand what you did with the winding, since you flipped it around and ran the drill the same way you had reverse windings on one side. But in a traditional humbucker, wouldn’t you have separate magnets for each winding? A North Pole clockwise and the south pole counterclockwise?
I am curious, if you used six magnets, with three under each winding, and the poles reversed, would you have a thicker and beefier sound?
You know more than I do about humbuckers. All I know is that traditional ones have two sets of magnets. When I try making one with two sets I'll look back at this response and wind them in the directions you said. Also, since the video I've started using smaller wire and the resistance went way up. @@KirkDickinson
44awg is .0022 wire and I use the kind that the insulation melts off with soldering. I use 1mm thick and 8mm wide magnets. But commercially some are using bar magnets. I’ve had issues with some where I get a tremolo effect all the time because the magnets are too strong and thus the pickup needs to be moved further away from the strings. Hope that helps. Send me a video of what you make and playing! Please.
I think you're great lol. and thank you for that great tutorial
I'm glad you liked it Andre! Next, I'll post one on if there is a difference in sound between north facing up or south on the magnets.
@@bartblankenship1314 Thank you very much! One question came to my mind now. When to stop, I mean, as it's impossible to count turnings, so how to guess that it is time to stop winding? and thank you again, greetings from Canada.
How much is enough? Since I am copying the original Flatpup, I try to go as thick as Elmar does, but since he uses a fancier machine to wind and I use a hand held drill, I have to go thicker. I test the resistance when I’m done, off the soldered on lead wires. If I’m at 2k ohms I’m happy. But even 1k will work n you’ll just have to turn up the volume. People have complained about the low resistance as most pickups have more but these are thin and meant to be mounted close to the strings. If you need you can put a shim under it to get it closer to the strings. Hope that helps.
@@bartblankenship1314 Thank you! Surely helped, and makes a lot of sense to keep it thicker to compensate the number of winding due to the inefficiency of the drill to get it tighter as the proper machine would. Thank you.
@@folchandre feel free to contact me via email if you like. Also, I hope you will make some of these pickups and post a video of it. I know I was proud of my effort the first time. Actually, each time it seems a miracle, like I should be wearing a wizard's hat! bartblank@yahoo.com
Could you describe how the 2 coils are connected to the black and red wire?
I start with the black wire and tape and glue it to the metal of the pickup body. Then I wrap the thin pickup wire around the stripped end of the black wire and solder it. Since the pickup wire is insulated I only buy the kind where it’s insulation melts off when soldering. But if you don’t heat it long enough it won’t melt off and won’t connect. In testing several pickups in the end if there is no connection then I solder it again.
Many thanks !!
By putting the pickup in the drill on the other end it winds in the opposite direction. Try it with string and a popsicle stick in your drill if you don’t understand.
Excellent!
Have you seen the Q-tuners? I wonder how close that design is to this one. Have a look if you haven’t. Curious about your thoughts. Thanks again! Stay safe and stay healthy.
Hi Pablo. I hadn't heard of them but just checked them out. They use a bar magnet but are wound similarly. I've also started soaking mine in epoxy as it does protect the wires. They have done a lot more research than I have. I've just watched Elmar's videos and recreated to the best of my ability what he had going although he's much neater than I can be with my hand held drill. Thanks for your comment!
Great info on pickups! And you might have something there with that wig idea! Haha! 😂🤣🤪
Thanks. It's super frustrating breaking a wire especially when you've played the pickup for a month and then tinker with it just a bit and .......
Cuando se está bobinando el alambre de cobre, y este se revienta, no es necesario botar lo hecho, se solda cuidadosamente ( se puede soldar, yo lo hago) la punta de lo bobinado con más alambre y se sigue bobinando.
Si. Para mi, yo probo esta peri no tranajo. Por mi, necessario usar pecano wire mad gande Por la connection. Pero usted esta correcto.
Great video, just my spreed, no fancy tools. I want to make one for a 6 string acoustic so I don't have to cut a hole in it. I don't like the way piezos sound. I don't necessarily want it to sound like a natural acoustic, maybe just like a semi hollow body. Any suggestions?
It's an acoustic with f-holes not a big
round hole.
Just make it with 6 magnets n hope for something above 4K. I’d pot it in wax or epoxy so it’s not microphonic. Let me know how it goes!
How about dipping the pup in hot wax to seal it all or coat it with laquer
I've done that and also poured epoxy over it once it's in the frame. Less fragile then.
thank you.
Ps, if you use thicker wire the pickup won’t be as hot and will have to be closer to the strings.
Great video and thank you but ive just one question how do you earth/ground the pickup?
The ground is to the wire at the end of the winding. But then, I solder a wire from the volume pot case and connect the other end to the bridge or at times even us a bb split shot fishing sinker to crimp it to a string. And then as long as part of you is touching the string below the bridge, it's grounded. Let me know if that helps.
@@bartblankenship1314
Thank you for the reply, I was over thinking. i'd just installed some emg pickups which have positive, negative and ground wires and I got confused. I'll be taking the emg's out (don't like them) once I make these flatpups.
Thank you again, its much appreciated.
@@colinduffy9055 Just remember that the ground wire is soldered to the end of the windings. I mistakenly made up a dozen for a workshop and put the ground on the start of the thin, pickup wire, and while all the guitars worked, there was some hum. It wasn't until I got home and built my first shovel guitar like Justin Johnson's famous one and couldn't get it to work that I realized the ground wire should be on the end of the windings. I don't know how many times I've read Elmar's instructions and watched his videos. And I don't understand why it makes a difference. But it does. Good luck! And don't get discouraged. I break perhaps a third of all the ones I build.
You wound the coils in opposite directions but the magnet polarity is the same for both coils. So how can this be a humbucker?
All of the flatpup style pickups I’ve seen that have windings on the second coil reversed are called humbuckers and don’t have a second set of magnets with the poles reversed. But I think I’ll try it on my next wind and see if there is less hum. Thanks for your question.
@@bartblankenship1314 I wondered because that's the point of a humbucker, to cancel the hum. Not just being two coils. You are right, all flat pickups have it that way.
@@argi0774 Yes. I know it's a clever name and made to cancel hum. I won't know until I build one with two sets of magnets, and the reversed coils if it is the magnets or the direction of the coil windings that have the most effect. Also, mine and Elmar's flat pickups use neodymium magnets with the polarity's north and south being above and below the pickup. But many of the knock offs use bar magnets with the polarity 90 degrees from Elmar and mine.
@@bartblankenship1314 If this is true, then the knockoffs do it the right way. That's how a fullsize humbucker is built. The polarity of the magnet sideways. For humcancelling, you need both at the same time: reverse wound AND reverse polarity.
Can you make the plate bigger
Yes and I do especially for lobo guitars and shovel guitars. I was just copying the original Flatpup.
If you snap the copper wire can't you just twist the two ends together and continue again?
This wire is insulated so you can't just twist it together and continue. What I did was solder it to another wire just as you would the lead wires which melts the insulation.
What gauge was this wire it’s hard to make out on the video
It appears to be this: Remington Industries 42SNSP.25 42 AWG Magnet Wire, Enameled Copper Wire, 4 oz, 0.0026" Diameter, 12828' Length, Natural from Amazon.
42 AWG that I buy by the pound from Remmington,
This guy cuts twice and measure once!
Cool but your a bit late to the game.the originator of the flat pup posted video of how to build them around 10 years ago.
Greg Martin that’s how I learned. But I wanted to post a more thorough how to video on it. I’d broken one of the ones I bought from Elmar n so looked up his video n bought wire and rewound it.
good intentions, bad camera work
Yes, you are correct. I do hope that it's clear enough that you can now build your own. I've looked at other videos building Flatpup style pickups and though they leave some information out and also use expensive winders.
Strange how your face is more prominent than your working hands. Yikes.
That's because It's very intense winding with crude tools.