Back in 2019 I tore apart an old sewing machine to turn it into a pickup winder. After that I wound a first pickup as just a test to make sure everything was working and see if I could make my own pickups. Well the test was successful, the pickup sounded great, and then the sewing machine pickup winder got stored on the basement shelf for almost four years.
With the building of my acoustic telecaster it seemed fitting that I also wind my own pickup for it. So I got out the machine, bought a deluxe mini humbucker kit from Stewart MacDonald and got to work.
The instructions that came with the kit were really invaluable. They had step by step instructions as well as detailed information about how changing certain perimeters would affect the final tone. Armed with the kit and some 42 gauge enameled wire I set out to build my own mini humbucker.
Enameled Wire: https://amzn.to/3WTMAHP
Following the instructions I ended up with 4521 turns on each bobbin. after potting one bobbin had a resistance of 3.318kohm and the other 3.305kohm. I would consider that pretty good but I don’t really know if they should be closer. The final resistance of the pickup was 6.7kohm.
After assembly was complete I could install the pickup inside my new acoustic telecaster and combined with a journey instruments piezo pickup the guitar sounds fantastic as an electric and acoustic.
To watch the process and hear the pickup in action watch the video below.

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