Excerpt from Premier Guitar on hand wound vs machine wound. “ In the early days of our instrument, pickups were wound by hand. They did have a motor to rotate the bobbin, but there was always a person standing next to the machine, guiding the wire by hand, which would lead to less consistent or loose windings, while an automated machine keeps tension and density constant. Handwound pickups are also called scatterwound, as the wires often crisscross diagonally over the bobbin. The theoretical result would be a slightly higher resistance, since more wire is used, and, thus, a minimally lower inductance and capacitance, but the differences are rather marginal since the lower density can lead to parts of the wiring being farther away from the stronger field. Practically, all these differences are hard to measure, and there should not be an inherent difference between handwound and machine-wound pickups.”
