1st timer building an ESB-4

[PeterSik]

Gday all..

I'm new here and to guitar building.. so i decided to get me a semi-hollow bass to start me off..

The kit arrived yesterday with a nice fat bill from our local customs (not very funny)
i was pleasantly surprised by the look of the parts.. and at 1st dry fitting the neck seemed to fit the body perfectly.. so tight in fact that i could pick the whole thing up by the neck..
On closer inspection however i found that the neck wasn't properly aligned.. it would have been off by a full cm at the bridge had i mounted it like that.. oh well nothing a file and a bit of sandpaper can't fix.. other than that i just started the sanding yesterday..
today i decided to tackle the wiring.. so i made myself a little carboard template and started soldering.. even for me (a novice solderer) it was pretty easy..

anywho.. next up is some more sanding so maybe tomorrow i can start with the staining.. i'm going to try a blue stain over a sanded back black (also a 1st for me) and to make it more interesting i'm thinking of using regular pen ink for the black..

will try to post pics soon as i have something to show that you haven't seen before.

[stuzl873213]

Customs is a real pain, cost me about £70. What was real pain was Parcel forces automatic £16 mandatory charge for paying the customs!!

[andrewdosborne]

Welcome Peter!

[JB RETRO]

G'day Peter. Start a build diary with lots of photos. Always someone here to help out if you feel the need for support

[Fretworn]

Welcome Peter

[Simon Barden]

Hi Peter and welcome. A pretty international crowd here, so it helps others if you put your location in your user profile.

Just a few quick points to note, but starting a build diary in the build diary section is recommended.

1) You've got a veneer top that is very thin (0.6mm) so really won't take much sanding. You can use a dark stain to help 'pop' the figure, but unlike with a solid top where you can sand back to remove most of the black stain, you simply don't have that luxury with a veneer top. So you can stain, leave it a short while to soak in a bit, then (assuming water-based stain), rub as much off as you can with a damp cloth to get a similar effect.

2) Before any staining, you need to check for glue spots, as any glue smears put on the guitar at the factory won't absorb stain. Use white spirit, turps or methylated spirit on a cloth and wipe the surface of the guitar with it so that it wets the surface and darkens the wood (these won't lift the veneer). Any light spots will be glue stains which need to be removed with a proprietary glue remover (such as Goof-Off). Once done, then you can start staining.

For the rest of the body, the outer layer of basswood ply is thicker than the veneer layer so will take a bit more sanding, but it is still possible to overdo it and break through to the layer underneath. So take care.

3) The veneers are held on with a non-waterproof PVA glue, so avoid getting them too wet otherwise the veneer can lift and bubble. With a solid wood top, you can wet them properly, but with veneer, use damp rather than soaked cloth for stain application.

4) Any wetting with water will raise loose grains so some light sanding once dry is required, but use maybe a 220 or 240 grit and drag, rather than push it over the surface.

5) When first sanding, don't use too fine a grit sandpaper on the wood before staining as it can inhibit the uptake of stain and you can get very patchy results. I'd stick to below 180. You can get the wood pretty smooth with this size grit. You can then use finer grits on whatever clear coat you are planning to put over the top.

6) You can use normal pen inks - but they have to be the permanent type otherwise the colour fades quite quickly over time and will also bleed into any other stain applied over the top, weakening the effect.

Could you explain your '1cm' out description of the neck fit. Is this sideways or vertical alignment? As said by others, pictures of the issue will help.

[stuzl873213]

May be irrelevent, but with respect to the alignment, I have seen in another thread that it was the veneer that was misaligned, so a trial fit before sanding is always sensible.

[Simon Barden]

Yes, unfortunately the factory aren't that great at getting the veneers centred correctly.

[PeterSik]

thnx for your replies guys..

in my case the veneer is pretty much spot on (measured at a couple of locations) the problem was.. when i put the neck in and put a known straight along the sides of the neck they would not be centered on the holes for the bridge.. i did read another thread where the bridge holes were off but that isn't the case for me (luckily) so i must conclude the neck was slightly off straight.



Also there's another alignment issue where when i mount the neck and put a straight edge on top of the frets it will stick out over the bridge by about 3 cm.. the neck also had quite a bit of back bow to it but that was fixed mostly with the truss rod.. i plan on fixing that alignment issue when the thing is finnished so i can mount the bridge and measure more accurately.. basically i'll just file and sand the heel of the neck untill it sits where i need it to.. then sand off any finish on the neck that could get in the way of the glue in the neck joint and stick it all together. atm i'm not sure what finish to use on the neck but i'm thinking that can be done after i mount it, the body is going to get a laquer that will get done before i mount the neck.

I did just check for glue spots (thanks for that suggestion) but i think i'm good.. here's some pics of the body with the spirits on..




The ink i'm going to use is water based so no probs there, i may need to thin it down before applying. i did a test on a scrap piece of wood and found the ink need just minimal sanding for the effect i like. i'm also going to try a bit of a burst.. will try that on the back 1st if it doesn't work out i can just make it completely black... because.. guess what.. i've never tried that before either..

The electricks were pretty easy.. just make a carboard template and follow the diagram..




well.. that's it for now .. back to the sanding.. and dressing the fret ends.. i found them to be a bit sharp..

p.s. i also found 2 frets that weren't seated properly.. couple of taps with a hammer.. problem solved

[Simon Barden]

I'll be making an ESB-4 kit for a friend in the future (it's slightly customised so it won't turn up until November), so I'm keen to see how you get on. 3cm is pretty high, so yes, sounds like some neck heel/pocket work is required.

You may find that the neck joint settles after a few days. My ES-3 neck didn't fit in the pocket properly on first opening the box, but after putting it aside for a week or so, I then found that it fitted really nicely. All that air travel with its associated climate changes can really mess about with the wood.