Hey Mac, I'm a guitarist too!! I actually took an apprenticeship this past summer, and built a Telecaster from scratch.. Got to keep the Tele, it is suchh a nice guitar! Still haven't put the finish on her yet, have to fix a couple small bugs first...
Oh, you're a Luthieren. Just funnin'. A serious avocation. I walked away from a red honey-necked Strat in the 70's, my last band. Just dropped my gear, left my rig and walked. Good financial choice. LOL Spent most of my life studying classical and Brazilian styles as hobby rather than as a professional. Have had a few close friends who were. Started playing gospel and blues as a teen. Had beautiful Martin stolen, along with my car, at Washington Square. Guitars are a history. You become them and where they've been with you. But it's been a long while since I always had one tagging' along and spent hours at it each day. Now it's a forest of mech's that follow me wherever I go. And I study them with the same passion.
Not to get off topic again though.. I don't know why my coils come out so much even on the needle compared to the drill-bit.. Think it has to do with my 1st wrap somehow. I need to figure this out because the smaller coil seems to give me more flavor
I deployed some 15 builds in the last few days. I'm hardly torching anymore. They need to look like this every time…
Unfortunately, I don't have time to play with the gear as much as I'd like. The coils just have to work. To save time I bypassed detail winding as I described a few posts early. Down and dirty.
Your first wrap won't matter. You're turning 14 to get 9. The more the merrier and the tighter the remaining become. Hold the spool in one hand, hold the screwdriver bit with the other as you wind, tension by pressing lightly against the screwdriver shank with thumb and or index finger. Can't get any simpler really. And very natural to release the rotation of the spool with the lower three fingers of the hand. A very natural motion. Not requiring a lot of dexterity. Just a steady modicum of tension. And above is how they come out. One after the other. Ready for installation and compression burn in, wicking and vape.
You'll notice too that I simply affixed one leg of the wind to the grip with a bit of scotch tape. Helps to keep from jabbin' yourself. Cuts off neatly with the retractable razor cutter in the background. Usually available in most dollar stores, or equivalent. If not, CVS etc. for a few $.
Next is a quick shot of one of the test Nextel wick/flavor tanks. This one through two washes, 5-6 fills, still firing true. The product in this one XC-132 which I dry fire in place. It extrudes some dusty juice sediment to the sides of the coil as that happens. I tend to leave the ends a tad long to allow me to pull the wick from the coil slightly first one side, then the other, for a bit more dry burn. That clears the remainder of the residue. The wick is then restored in fact better than the top wicks which I torch separately. They tend to get scorched by the coil more easily and earlier than the primary wick itself. But I've lost count of how long that takes. So although I like Ekowool, it saturates incredibly
like cotton, it's flow doesn't come close. And I can't imagine doing the above to an Eko wick without seriously degrading it.
The third pic isn't just gratuitous color. That's one of the replacement grommets from Lighting vapes after about three cycles, the initial fill and two subsequent washings and reuses. Perhaps about 8-9 fills on that build. No burns or excessive compaction of the material. However, on several builds I've installed the head into an ohmmeter or at the point of setup in the tank and had the entire coil twist in location. VERY SURPRISING. Never had that happen to that extent. Now I don't know if this material slips more with moisture or the fact that I'm no longer annealing. It's a bit disconcerting but easy to rectify by removing the head and manual rotation of the grommet or grommet and pin, re-stabilizing and tensioning the coil again in place. A few minutes but shouldn't happen. And certainly not after a fill! You're ready to kick back and vape.
Also I've found that when winding, if you line up both legs pulled straight towards you…think Rip Trippers makin' 'em straight…grab one leg with the forceps and tension it tightly while holding the coil taught in location on the shank. Still both legs tightly towards you. If you tension the coil from the one leg enough the wire will do a precise 50% turn, or 180 degree rotation, around the shank when you release it (open the forceps). No need to tension dewind, as may be seen on various videos, which sometimes can release more turns than you want spinning abruptly i.e. releasing tension. Just consecutively pull and release the twist instead as I just described. You end up with coil legs pointing in opposite directions. Invert the coil when you reach your target count +1 and you will have a perfect, let's say, 8/9, I mean perfectly tight. Still on the screwdriver, pull the legs from the high side down into the cup head to end up with the perfect 8 wind install. No lift up whatsoever of the ends (because you've pulled down from the high side, the normal end turn tops). I know. Sounds utterly counterintuitive, right. But it just works.
Like I said I don't have the time I'd like to just play. The steps I describe above save time and each contribute to the tightness of the finish.
Good luck!
