CAD · Prototyping

Pickup Stencils & Bobbins

Custom guitars need custom hardware. For the luthier's work we produce two small but essential families of parts: routing stencils that guide pickup cavities by hand, and 3D-printed bobbins for winding bespoke pickups when no standard part will do.

Router stencils with an identical outer form, stacked on the bench

Set of pickup stencils for different cavity shapes

SLA-printed pickup bobbin ready for coil winding

Printed bobbins with magnetic pole rods fitted

Routing stencils

For each existing pickup the luthier needed a cavity for, we made a stencil: a piece of wood or acrylic that guides a handheld router to the exact shape. We keep the outer form of every stencil identical regardless of the cavity inside it, which makes them far easier to store, stack and sort on the bench.

Stack of stencils sharing one outer form for easy storage

Finished routed cavity beside the stencil that guided it

Pickup bobbins

There are only so many standard pickups a luthier can reach for, and custom hand-made guitars eventually call for custom pickups and hand-wound coils. We design bobbins to be printed in tough SLA resin, ready to be wound with copper wire and fitted with magnetic pole rods, the foundation for a truly bespoke pickup.

Services used

Tooling design
SLA print preparation
CAD for hand-fabrication aids

Deliverables

Router stencil set with a constant outer form
Printable pickup-bobbin models

Notable technical detail. Standardising the outer shape of every stencil while varying only the internal cavity is a small decision that pays off every day in storage and retrieval.

Part of Guitar Design.