These are what we’d consider “budget” Humbucker bobbins – and, maybe, that’s overly harsh on what is, essentially, a hunk of injection molded plastic, but, for the sake of honesty – this version simply aren’t as well made as our usual Humbucker bobbins

Available in Slug and Screw type, 52 and 50mm pole spacing, and in Black, White, Ivory, Blue, Pink, Green, Orange and Chrome.

Why are the budget?

In short, whilst they’re actually finished to a decent standard, and their size and shape are “correct” – the holes are oversized to what they should be, and this isn’t going to make your life easy frankly.

The main “problems” are as follows.

The pole holes on the slug bobbins are slightly oversized – they are 4.9mm diameter, rather then 3/16”, so, obviously, a standard 3/16” (4.75mm) humbucker pole is simply going to fall through.
And

The pole holes in the screw bobbins are, also, slightly oversize – they’re coming in at 2.9mm – so there isn’t quite enough “meat” for an M3 bolt to bite into the material and engage the thread (remember, M3 bolts aren’t 3mm… Metric threads have “effective diameters”, and on an M3 bolt? That’s 2.7mm)

So, we can see exactly what’s happened here I suppose – an injection molding factory have been commissioned to make these things, they’ve assumed 5mm and 3mm holes, rather then “holes for” 3/16” and M3.

And, honestly? Normally, I wouldn’t have touched these with a barge pole, because we subscribe to the “if its not right, its not OK” way of thinking, and, whilst they “budget” (and certainly not likely to be the greatest money spinner Axes has indulged in!) – they’re not really that cheap (I wish they were cheaper frankly!) – slightly cheaper than the “good” bobbins, certainly, but not exactly the steal of the century (and the problems are going to cost you more time, and if your winding pickups for a living? Please, get the good bobbins! Save the headache!)

So, why have we got them?

To put it bluntly – its because they’re available in mad colours and in small quantities!

The “good” bobbin factory will do any colour we want (and we already do a decent range in those!) but the minimum order quantity is in the thousands.

These bobbins? The Minimum quantity we have to buy, is 20!

Now, as much as I’d love to carry Pink, Blue, orange and yellow bobbins in the “right” bobbins – it isn’t happening. It’s a niche part, seldom requested, and, considering we DO carry them in Red, Purple and Green? I know that, really, they weird colors don’t sell in thousands unfortunately - we aren't taking the risk.

So, the budget bobbins that aren’t quite right BUT they come in weird colours and small quantities?! I can overlook the niggles, and if you can too? Maybe not they're worst thing in the world!

And that’s basically the long and short of it – if you’ve been commissioned to wind a pair of pink and green humbucker, need the bobbins tomorrow, and can make it work with less the perfectly sized holes? Your in luck!

How to make it work
As drastic as I’m making this sound, its not hard to bodge it into a workable situation thankfully.

Screw side – 5/40 bolts are your best friend! 3.1mm effective diameter is going to fit into those holes without any problem – such an easy fix, its not really worth worrying about really.

Slug side – super glue! Slugs in bobbin, blob of superglue on the back of the bobbin, let it cure, and they’re in there. They’re not going to be centralized, but its not all that noticeable.

The “logical” solution would have been use design a 5mm slug pole to go in there, but that actually doesn’t work believe it or not – the way humbuckers are designed, to have both bobbins “meet” in the middle, means you use a 12.5mm wide bar magnet, a 3/16” (4.75mm) slug and under the screw bobbin sits in a 4.75mm keeper bar – which gives you a “pole to pole” width of 17.25mm between the two bobbins – and with humbuckers bobbins being 17.5mm wide, that’s 0.25mm “wiggle room” to get everything lined up properly. The under carriage of a humbucker needs that 0.25mm spare to align everything and account for variance in manufacturing tolerances between slug/magnet/keeper bar manufacturers - so, a 5mm slug wouldn’t actually work! (Furthermore, it’d likely deform the bobbins hole too – its 4.9mm top to bottom, the “good” bobbins are 4.75mm top to bottom, but have a small flange in the middle that holds the slugs in place – that flange isn’t present on the budget bobbins.)

In Closing

Wouldn’t be my first choice of bobbin personally, and if I was wanting a colour that was available in the good bobbins? That’s what I’d use, all day long – BUT, if you need mad colours? The budgets are about the only choice you’ve got I’m afraid! Not the worst things in the world, and certainly opens up scope for some crazy colour combos, but they wouldn't be my first choice if i was assembling 100 humbuckers and looking for perfection, for that? Its the good ones!

They are too, cosmetically, similar enough to our usual bobbins to be used side by side – so you can use them both on the same humbuckers.