Thats one rabbithole, but mine might be worse. I recently made my first pickups.

First I made a coil winding machine, after lots of late night research. I bought an old sewing machine and took it to pieces for the main components. After my first build I improved my machine with some 3d printed parts.

Then there is the process of choosing and sourcing the components, coils, wire magnets, wax...

Then the actual process of getting the winding done...lots of broken wires later...my tele has an awesome set of pickups which sound so clear. The neck pickup is very non standard, more like a strat pickup.

What a stupid hobby!