I use an old-fashioned hand drill, with the coilform secured to the chuck, and the drill itself clamped to the benchtop, with the wire spool sitting on the floor and fed upwards. Is it efficient? Not at all. I suppose I could put together or buy some sort of mechanized device and automatic wind-counter, but am I in business? Not at all.
I get about 4.25 turns of the chuck for every turn of the handle, and can get about 60-80 handle-turns a minute, or roughly 250-340 winds per minute. If I could simply keep going and had an automatic counter, that could technically make it possible to hand-wind a Strat pickup in 20 minutes. But, you get hand cramps and need to stop and shake your hand a bit, as well as write down how many turns you've added since the last stoppage (I usually go for 200-300 hand cranks at a shot), so a full Strat pickup takes around 35 minutes in total, barring any wire tears. Most definitely not fast enough, nowhere near reliable and repeatable enough to run as a business, but as something I do for myself maybe 4-6 times a year, it's enough. It would take me at least 45 minutes to get in the car, drive to the nearest music store, spend $80 on a Seymour Duncan or DiMarzio pickup, and drive back home again. Sometimes my results fail to impress, and sometimes they are as good as the best out there. And for the time and money it costs me to wind a dud, it's a loss I can easily live with. I lucked into a great supply of quality magnet wire from #36 through to #43 at a local wreckers, for $2/lb, so I now have more wire than I can ever possibly use in my lifetime. I don't have an endless supply of polepieces, flatwork, or bar magnets, but more than enough to occupy me. Occasionally, people on the pickup-makers forum at MEF will post that they bought more polepieces of a given type than they needed and offer them for free or for sale.
Pros will pot using a vacuum process. I simply lay the finished coil on its side and melt wax onto it from about 8" away, with a heat gun, and use low heat to further melt the wax on the coil to let it seep in, repeating the process on the other side. The windings are generally tighter on the inside of the coil and at the ends, so potting the outer 40% on each side won't make it absolutely microphonic-proof, but reduces noisiness by at least 80%, if not more. Once potted, I use teflon plumber's tape to further tighten up the coil, as well as protect it from the adhesive of whatever tape goes on the outside of the coil. Works great.
I get about 4.25 turns of the chuck for every turn of the handle, and can get about 60-80 handle-turns a minute, or roughly 250-340 winds per minute. If I could simply keep going and had an automatic counter, that could technically make it possible to hand-wind a Strat pickup in 20 minutes. But, you get hand cramps and need to stop and shake your hand a bit, as well as write down how many turns you've added since the last stoppage (I usually go for 200-300 hand cranks at a shot), so a full Strat pickup takes around 35 minutes in total, barring any wire tears. Most definitely not fast enough, nowhere near reliable and repeatable enough to run as a business, but as something I do for myself maybe 4-6 times a year, it's enough. It would take me at least 45 minutes to get in the car, drive to the nearest music store, spend $80 on a Seymour Duncan or DiMarzio pickup, and drive back home again. Sometimes my results fail to impress, and sometimes they are as good as the best out there. And for the time and money it costs me to wind a dud, it's a loss I can easily live with. I lucked into a great supply of quality magnet wire from #36 through to #43 at a local wreckers, for $2/lb, so I now have more wire than I can ever possibly use in my lifetime. I don't have an endless supply of polepieces, flatwork, or bar magnets, but more than enough to occupy me. Occasionally, people on the pickup-makers forum at MEF will post that they bought more polepieces of a given type than they needed and offer them for free or for sale.
Pros will pot using a vacuum process. I simply lay the finished coil on its side and melt wax onto it from about 8" away, with a heat gun, and use low heat to further melt the wax on the coil to let it seep in, repeating the process on the other side. The windings are generally tighter on the inside of the coil and at the ends, so potting the outer 40% on each side won't make it absolutely microphonic-proof, but reduces noisiness by at least 80%, if not more. Once potted, I use teflon plumber's tape to further tighten up the coil, as well as protect it from the adhesive of whatever tape goes on the outside of the coil. Works great.
