Roll your own

[David Aubke]

Whenever I've seen discussions of dead pickups, the suggestion to rewind them doesn't seem to be made often. I can understand purchasing replacements when only one or two are dead but really, setting up a winding jig with a hand drill is not very difficult. The first time I wound pickups, I just taped them to a drill bit (probably about 5/16"). You don't really need to come up with a counting mechanism. You can measure the diameter with calipers and test resistance periodically as you approach the target - although you've got to re-insulate the wire with something like nail polish if you test.

I used the wrong gauge the first time - much thinner than original which resulted in many more wraps and a very hot pickup. I went ahead and used them, maybe backing them off of the tines a little, and now I can't tell old from new by sound. Point being: if you just want to get your piano back into action, you can repair your pickups without worrying too much about getting things exactly right.

For my current project, I've got a bunch of pickups to rewind so this time I built a counter using a computer mouse. This blog post goes into more detail about the whole project.

[Cormac Long]

When the apocalypse comes, I want to be near you!

McGuyver meets the Rhodes piano.. that is quite cool what you did there to count the number of winds!.. I've included one of your images below..

[David Aubke]

McGuyver meets the Rhodes piano.. that is quite cool what you did there to count the number of winds!.. I've included one of your images below..

Thanks. And thanks for posting a picture. I hope it's OK that I keep linking to my blog. It's not a commercial venture and I just don't feel like copying everything over to the message board when I feel I have something of interest to share.

[swenz]

That is brilliant!  I'm saving a link to the instructions on your blog for future use.  Thanks for sharing the VB program too.  If I may ask, where did you get your wire from?

[David Aubke]

If I may ask, where did you get your wire from?

Unfortunately, that wire seems pretty hard to come by (so in that respect, I guess the job isn't as easy as I suggested). You can get lighter-gauged wire from the place where I work (I wouldn't normally shill but I don't know of any other supplier) but I'd only use that as a last resort. If you use lighter wire, you've got to change the number of wraps. Even if you arrive at the same resistance reading, it will technically be a different-sounding pickup.. though maybe not much different.

I was able to find my wire on eBay. It seems I got lucky though as the sellers I found only seemed to have some one-off spools. Nobody just stocks this stuff.

I contacted our supplier at work to see if he could get me some 38 gauge. He couldn't and just suggested contacting MWS Wire Industries but warned that they probably wouldn't sell small enough quantities to make it practical for a hobby user.

Someone else here said the proper gauge is actually 37 AWG. I'll bet that's right. I  had a hard time fitting enough of the 38 gauge onto the bobbin.

[David Aubke]

I just contacted MWS Wire Industries. Their minimum order is $130 so, not out of the question but still a commitment.

I didn't ask but maybe they'll split $130-worth onto more than one spool and two or more interested parties could go in halvsies. I just picked up another spool from eBay so I'm probably set for a while. Hopefully, I won't keep finding pianos with so many bad pickups.

[David Aubke]

Someone else here said the proper gauge is actually 37 AWG. I'll bet that's right. I  had a hard time fitting enough of the 38 gauge onto the bobbin.

..but of course, that statement doesn't make sense. Why are gauge numbers inversely related to wire size? It trips me up every time.

[The Real MC]

Had to add this - scroll down to see how to rewind a pickup for a Rhodes 54

http://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/2338867/gonew/1/Rhodes_through_a_Leslie