filthyPierre's GR-1SF build

[filthyPierre]

So I figured it was about time I started on my build diary for my GR-1SF kit. Motivated by some questions I need to ask, thought I would show how much I've done so far (not a lot at this stage!).

The plan is to do a green body (more on this later on), finished with clear Dingotone, and the neck in Bloodwood DT, which should give it a nice vintage yellow look.

The kit arrived on the 23rd August 2016, almost a year ago. Here's some shots of the inventory (even though you've probably seen it all before, eh):



and:



and:



Here's a shot of attempting to test-fit the neck. This was as far as it would go and I didn't want to force it. For the time being I left it, but I tried again a few days later and managed to get it in (more shots later on).



Continued in next post....

[filthyPierre]

A shot of test fitting some of the parts.



A shot of the pickups how I would have thought they'd go - not sure which one is which. I would have assumed the one in the thicker mounting ring is the neck position, but it has the higher resistance (12.2k, red wire) which I would have thought would be the bridge pickup. The other one, in the slimmer ring, is 11.5k (yellow wire) which I would have thought would be the neck, but putting them in like that, the brige pickup is too high. Anyone know which one is which?



A few days later, while I had the parts out on the table, my daughter managed to knock the neck off the table, and it fell on the top corner of the heel end. This necessitated some repair work unfortunately, and there is a small chunk missing from the binding now :-(





Oh well.

Continued next post....

[filthyPierre]

At this point, I did a fair bit of body prep, spent a whole day sanding the body to smooth it out. After a bit of sanding, I realised there were some areas in the grain that would need filling:



and



Here's another attempt at fitting the neck. It eventually went in, but I'm not particularly happy with the fit - as you can see there are some large gaps around the heel.



and



continued next post....

[filthyPierre]

... another shot of neck fit:



Is this typical? The gaps seem quite large to me. Happy to fill them in, but I was planning to do the body in one colour, and the neck in another, doing them separately until near the end. Was planning to basically finish the body totally and fit the electrics before gluing the neck in. Filling at that stage would mean more sanding and colouring, and it would be hard to get a nice straight line demarcation between the body and neck colours.

I was going to work on it over Christmas, as I had some time off, but it became too humid and I didn't want the wood to swell, so I packed it up for a while.

In the meantime, never being one to leave well-enough alone, I ordered some extra bits for it:

Sperzel lockers, green anodised:





Gretsch Tim Armstrong pickups:



continued next post....

[WeirdBits]

Pickup rings slope towards the neck. Thicker ring is the bridge pup.

[filthyPierre]

... Wilkinson roller bridge (had heard that roller bridges work better with Bigsbys):



Pickguard from WD Music and Chinese eBay truss-rod cover:



Abalone-inlaid knobs:



U-Beaut water dyes (yep, that's what they're called):





...continued next post

[Kick]

Bummer about that neck (: Rest is looking very good! Are those knobs from Q-Parts?

[filthyPierre]

So, after 10 months in the box, out she came again. After the amount of effort I put into sanding and smoothing back 10 months ago, I was surprised to find that the grain had lifted in a lot of places and was very rough. Waste of time by the look of it. So, started again.

Here's a shot of the grain-filling process for the back of the guitar. Figured as I'd never done it before, it made sense to do the back first....



I am using Timbermate, from Bunnings, in natural finish, i.e. no colouring. It's sort of sickly grey colour in the pot. I mixed it with a fair bit of water to make it into a custard-like consistency, so that it would soak in and fill the chips easily (it is way too thick and dry straight out of the pot). It took a fair bit of mixing, even though they (Timbermate) say that it can be thinned with water, it's reluctant to thin out, and difficult to remove the lumps.

After about an hour or so of sanding:



Came out ok, but there's still heaps of places where it didn't take. Still, all the bigger ones seem to have filled up, as well as at the edge of the binding, where there were a lot of small chips out.



One thing I have also noticed: it's been a couple of hours since I finished sanding the Timbermate off. It was nice and smooth when I was done. Now, if I run my hands over it, some more grain has lifted, i.e. it feels rough again. WTF?

After reading the instructions for the wood dye, it seems I should have done this before using the Timbermate - it says to wet the wood before using the dye, with the express purpose of raising any grain that would raise up when using the dye. Once you've sanded it down again, you can use the dye. Hopefully, wetting it down won't hurt the Timbermate :-(

That's about it for the moment as far as progress goes.

Have a couple of other questions though:

1. The centre block that starts at the bridge pickup goes back about 10 cm, obviously there as a solid mount for the bridge. I feel it should be another 7 to 8 cm longer so that the screws for mounting the Figbsy have something more substantial to bite into apart from 1/4 inch of plywood. Thinking of adding in another bit of wood there. Anyone ever done this? Has anyone ever had the screws pull out of the wood if you get too enthusiastic with the whammy bar (which seems to me wouldn't take very much)?

2. Anyone ever cut a hole in the back to make it easier to access/mount the electonics? If the back was flat, I'd do it in a flash - would be easy enough to make another wooden plate to fill it in.
But with the curved back, it won't be so easy. I understand the electronics can be fed in through the neck pocket, but once the neck is in, the only way to get them out for maintenance (replacement of faulty parts) would be through the pickup holes.

Cheers

[filthyPierre]

Kick, the knobs are from Guitar Fetish, as well as the Wilky bridge.

WeirdBits - thanks, I guess it will look correct once I try it with the neck in.

Cheers,

Pete

[JB RETRO]

I like where I think you're heading. Interested to see this pan out