Winding a 10" by 40" secondary in 15 minutes

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Original poster: "Kelly & Phillipa Williams" <kellyw-at-ihug.co.nz> 

Hi all,

I just finished winding a 10" diameter by 40" wound secondary with
24 AWG (about 2000 turns) and I did it all in *15 minutes*!!

My father works at a large timber mill, and in their fitter-turner workshop
they have a lathe about 5m long big enough to turn a naval gun barrel.
I put the PVC form onto the chuck at one end of the lathe, and I maufactured
and end-cap out of plywood for the other end. I drilled a hole in the
end-cap and
inserted the lathe's point grip into the hole.

This method of winding requires three people. One holds the reel of wire on
an axle
parallel to the PVC tube. One person holds the wire with gloves as it winds
onto the pipe
and guides it, making sure not to get crossed turns or gaps. The last person
(the one with
the lightning reactions) holds the lathe on/off lever.
I taped down the wire at the end of the tube to hold it in place (I'll now
gradually replace the
tape with polyeruthane or pour-on) and whirrr..... the person holding the
wire as it winds around
the tube angles the wire toward the turns that are already wound to ensure
that there are no gaps. We taped it down at the top once we'd finished.
Soon I'll remove a *little* of the tape, replace it with poly, remove a
little more of the tape,
replace it with poly, etc.

There are almost no flaws in the winding - no gaps or crossed turns, just
two turns are a little
bit loose, but poly'll fix that.

If anyone wants a picture of this process, I can send one to them by e-mail,
but contact me off-list - kellyw-at-ihug.co.nz

(It looks *awesome* and dwarfs my previous 4" by 20" secondary!!)

Thanks for bearing with me,
Alan Williams