Michael's First PBG Build - TL-1

[wokkaboy]

Hey Muzza, I have seen Bman put a clamp in between the neck and bridge pup cavities then think he hangs the clamp with wire.
I use another method of shaping the hanger to fit in the neck pup cavity and drive a wedge shape piece of wood in the back and one in the bottom of the neck pup cavity works well but still not sturdy enough to put the hanger in a vice to work on.

@ Michael, sorry to hijack your thread. Uluru red will look great. Black pickguard will work better than white. Good luck with the sanding when you find time

[michaelS31]

Found a few moments to try a quick mock up, and found issue 1:

My Wilkinson tele bridge pickup won't fit into the hole.





Not much bigger than the hole, but enough that I can't force it. I also want a bit of wiggle room to be able to locate the bridge properly. So the hole needs to be bigger.

I guess I can use the dremel or a chisel to do this - but would appreciate any advice before I start chipping away. Surely others have had this problem?

[Dedman]

I used a drum sander on a drill, a couple of diff sizes. As you say it's not much to take out

[tonyw]

Use a piece of dowel and sand it out, like i did on my 12 string build.

I had the finish on so i used a glue stick but a piece of dowel is firmer.
http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...l=1#post101046

[michaelS31]

Thanks guys for the quick tips!

[michaelS31]

Been reading through Andy40's ash tele build diary and have been inspired to do string through holes. I'm going to try some test runs on scrap wood first, and see how accurate I get. Then will give it a burl on the real body. Friday is getting closer!

[keloooe]

On the hanging of the guitar, I have been using a screw hook drilled where the bottom strap button will go, with the same size diameter as the strap button screw itself and I have some hooks already in the pergola outside so I can hang it nicely. Also works for necks!

[wokkaboy]

Hi Michael, good stuff, a string through looks really cool. I'd get some sanding flap wheels from a hardware that attach to the drill - get a few different sizes and you should be able to enlarge your bridge pup cavity with that. Chisels can easily split the wood so avoid that unless you have lots of experience with them,
Mark where the bridge should be placed to give you intonation - let me know if you need some tips on that. Fit the pickguard to get an idea also

[michaelS31]

Rightio, thanks for the tips on the routing and body hanging everyone! Gonna hit up the hardware store for some sanding drums on the weekend.

Meanwhile, finished a quick mock up. Nothing is screwed in yet, just playing with the spacing. Neck fit is snug and appears to be on straight - i followed the neck positioning guide in the instructional forum.



@Wokka for bridge positioning, I measured the distances from the flat face of the nut (fret side) to the crown of the 12th fret - 322mm. I then moved all the bridge saddles as far forward as they could go, and positioned the bridge so that the high E saddle was 322mm from the crown of the 12th fret. Is that correct? I feel like there's no room for correction if I needed to move the high E saddle forward during setup?

I'm going to order some string through ferrules tonight, and will order a black pickguard, and some DT wax and neck finish soon. Kinda hard to choose a neck finish though, not all the finishes on the site have sample photos. Any recommendations on a neck finish to go with the uluru red? I was thinking a mission beach or bloodwood. Or even colourless and let the maple be as nature intended it? Decisions!

Plan for the weekend is to route the bridge pick up cavity and locate the bridge so I have an idea where the string throughs are going to be.

[michaelS31]

Productive day today. I did a mock build, but decided to locate and screw everything down. I wanted to know how much I needed to route out the bridge cavity, so thought I should locate everything properly first. Sorry for the low quality mobile phone photos

First step was machine heads. The holes aren't exactly straight, which seems to be a thing with some of these necks, but honestly not enough for me to replug and redrill.



Next was neck attachment. I widened the holes on the body for the neck plate screws, so that I only threaded into the neck (not the body). I then placed the pickguard and control plate.

I lined up the bride using the E and e strings, pretty happy with the location. Spent a bit of time making sure the spacing between the pickguard and bridge was even.



For reference: distance from nut to crown of 12th fret was 323mm, so I placed the bridge so the high e string saddle was 323mm at maximum length.

I was able to mark out how much to route the bridge cavity. I went with @wokka's tip - got some flywheels on my hand drill, took about 4 minutes of careful removal, but the pickup fits now





I strung her up and had a strum - getting heaps of open string buzz.


I haven't tried any set up or anything, but it looks like the strings are pretty much touching the first fret. Is this something I should look at now, before starting sanding and finishing?