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21 November 2003

A Source for Very Fine Magnet Wire

Adapted from H. Peter Friedrichs, The Voice of the Crystal. How to Build Working Radion Receiver Components Entirely From Scratch.

I happen to have some old guitar pickups from my days as an aspiring musician. I knew them to be worthless junk, and a good source of very fine guage wire. Just the same, I would recommend that you never, never take apart an "old" guitar pickup until you've had an expert look at it. Vintage pickups are in extremely high demand by musicians and guitar collectors alike. It would be very sad if you accidently destroyed a guitar or pickup that had historical or collector value.

The better approach is to visit your local guitar shop and speak to the person that does their instrument repairs. Lots of low-end guitars are sold with very cheap (and lousy) pickups in them. Customers sometimes buy better pickups, and arrange to have them installed. What happens to the cheap pickups? They collect in a box under the counter. Sometimes a couple of bucks will free one up. Explaining your radio project may generate enough curiosity to get you an old pickup for free.

As I said, the wire inside guitar pickup coils is so fine that it's a little hard to work with. It breaks very easily, so anything that you can do to minimize stress on it as you transfer the wire to your voice coil bobbin is a plus.

The coil in the pickup is usually wound on a plastic spool, but the spool is oblong. The opening in it's center is narrow and rectangular. It becomes difficult to draw wire off of the pickup's spool, because there is no good way to provide an axle for it as it unwinds. I fabricated a little piece of wood that fit into the center of the pickup's spool. Then I drilled a tiny hole in it's exact center. I clamped a nail in my vise and slipped the spool onto the nail. It spun freely and I was able to pull wire off with little difficulty.