MIMF

I just wound a tele bridge PU with 9800 of 42 PE. I am getting weird reading off of it. It will flash a good reading of 7. something K and then skip aroun in the Meg range forever. Not my meter because I checked it against another I just wound and it reads and calibrates fine. Hooked it up to a jack and I do get some sound when I tap on it.

What might give here?

Thanks

Broken wire, bad insulation, twisted wire causing a short. Could be anything, probably will be a rewind (unless it sound great and is the next rage in pickup winding design...)

Sigh, I figured as much. Going to rewind. I just hoped for a reprieve from the winding gods.

That sound very much like a bad solder joint, reheat them both before you rewind. When I reheat I suck all the existing solder out of the joint and apply fresh solder. That takes care of it 90% of the time. Make sure you are getting the joint hot enough to melt the insulation away if you are using Solderon i.e.poly-nylon insulated wire. The joint needs to get to 775º which is 300º hotter than the temp at with solder melts.
If you are using forvar or plain enamel wire you obviously will need to sand it off first or the solder won't take.

If you have your tension set up correctly you should never have a broken wire with 42AWG. If you're using a felt tensioner you want 5-10 grams of tension. Many folks look up on the manufacturers table and see a max tension of 24g or 32g and go with that but that's asking for a guaranteed failure and will buckle the bobbin to boot. At 25g x 10,000 turns you looking at 250Kg or 580 pounds of compression in the ends of the bobbin.