There was only one problem...
The coil winder itself is only *half* of the whole
machine.
A coil winder machine is actually made of two parts -
the coil winder itself and a wire tensioner
or 'dereeler'. The tensioner's job is to remove coil
wire from the
supply spool without damaging it,
while also putting enough tension on the wire to make
it lay down
neatly on the bobbin.
This is very
important,
because a pickup coil wound too
loosely or tightly
would
be
very
difficult
to play in an instrument
and in extreme cases might
not even work at
all.
This is where I seriously lucked out.
If
you look at
this original
photo of my
winders when
I bought them,
there are
actually two
kinds
of
wire
tensioners
shown here.
The coil of
red wire shown
in the center
of this photo
lying
down sideways
on this
machine is
really mounted
to the Model
20's original
1940's
'rotating
spool' wire
tensioner... but
this
tensioner is
bolted
down to
the tabletop
backwards.
Why? Search
me.
The
'lucky' part
is at the top
of the photo.
The four
objects mounted
onto the rods
at
the top of the
photo
are a
set of four
'fine wire'
tensioners that
were special
ordered from the
Stevens
company for
the 120M
winder...
and
could be used
with as
small as 46
gauge
wire!
This
made
them perfect
for winding
pickups - and
they're
even period
correct too!
One
of my friends
gave me an
original copy
of a
coil winding
textbook
written
by
the Geo.
Stevens Co. in
1954 showing
how to setup
and operate
a
coil winder,
including
the
setup and
operation instructions
for this
same tensioner.
Here
is a closeup
of one of the
unrestored
tensioners.
Luckily, all
four of
them were
still
complete and
unbroken so restoring
them to
original was
fairly easy. Ugly,
huh?
After
I restored
all four
tensioners, I
made this bracket
to mount a
tensioner
in its
correct
relative
position to
the winder's
body. I
later found
out that they
still worked
well even
loaded
with some
45
gauge wire I
had lying around!
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