Scatterwinding.......

[richard]

Who started it then ? When did someone first advertise scatterwound pickups ?

[Telerocker]

I guess in the early days of Leo Fender pickups were handwound. Seth Lover's PAF's were.

[Elliot]

I guess in the early days of Leo Fender pickups were handwound. Seth Lover's PAF's were.

Fender had a pool of Mexican-American women hand/scatterwinding pickups until about 1963-64 when they bought automated winding machines (and still continued to handwind pickups thereafter).  Basically, the old spaghetti logo Fenders are hand wound.  PAF's and P90s were never handwound - Gibson used a number of automated winders including the Leesona 102 winding machine from the 1940s.  However, those old machines do not operate in the regular way that modern computer controlled winders operate and scatterwinding captures some of that.

 

[gwEm]

Its true that the first pickups were hand/scatter wound.

Richard's question is a good one though - I wonder who was the first to revive it. Quite a few manufactures offer it now.

[richard]

Yes gwEm, that's what I was getting at. If early pickups were scatterwound it was by accident rather than design. Did someone look at these old pups and decide that they preferred the sound of those with a more random looking wind ? And who first started marketing the virtues of a scatterwound pickup ?

[Twinfan]

I have some David White "Old Glories" Strat pickups which I bought from David in the early nineties, sometime around 1994 I think.  They were wound on a machine controlled by a ZX Spectrum computer, which used a random program to generate "scatter winding".

That's the earliest reference I know of...

[HTH AMPS]

Those Old Glories were well thought of I recall - always wanted a set but never did.  They still get a pretty penny when they crop up on ebay occasionally.

[Elliot]

David White of Old Glories never advertised his product to be 'scatterwinding' though - his marketing get up was VTP (which was, I believe, a ZX Spectrum controlled winding machine).

[Twinfan]

True, he called in variable tension pattern or something?  It was scatterwinding as we know it today though...

[Philly Q]

I have some David White "Old Glories" Strat pickups which I bought from David in the early nineties, sometime around 1994 I think.  They were wound on a machine controlled by a ZX Spectrum computer, which used a random program to generate "scatter winding".

That's the earliest reference I know of...

Isn't that brilliant, something which was (briefly) cutting-edge technology but now seems as quaint and antiquated as those Fender ladies hand-winding pickups in the late '50s.  :D

(No offence to the ladies, calling them antiquated!)

[Silent Rumours]

Are BKPs actually Scatterwound by hand or machine these days?

[gwEm]

Are BKPs actually Scatterwound by hand or machine these days?

"Making the ultimate sounding pickups is our goal at Bare Knuckle and we don't do that by cutting corners. All of our pickups are completely hand-made, one at a time, and nothing but the highest quality is acceptable. We make each pickup to withstand a lifetime of playing and that life starts out with handwinding."

[blue]

but of course hand winding still requires a machine.  the difference is that the wire is guided by hand, so the operator can control it.  i would imagine a computer programme memorise a winding pattern as an operator did it, then replicate it precisely.  what would that be then?  wound by machine, but identical to, say, a particular Mule or Apache.

[Afghan Dave]

1) PERFECT Darth Vader mask made from new tooling featured in Epi 3




Looks WRONG!



2) IMPERFECT Darth Vader mask made by old molds + hand



Looks SO right!


FEEL the Force of the BKP side!

[JDC]

Old Darth is better because he's more shiny