First builds: JK-1, MM-1Q

[trv]

I've always been a fan of the Rhoads shape; the color shift paint suits it perfectly. Nice job!

[FrankenWashie]

Its certainly looking the part of the 80's shred machine, Dragonfire pickups certainly sound like they fit the bill for this weapon. Great Job!

[Spychocyco]

Pickups arrived yesterday, and it got even more '80s. It's still going to be a few days before I get it wired up. I didn't like the input jack that came in the kit, and it was kind of bent up and flattened, so I'm waiting on a new one. I also finally managed to get an angle that shows a little of the color shift. Wish I'd wiped the finger smudges off first, but, oh well.

[Wayne.Mumford]

Ooh, very nice with the color shift.

[Spychocyco]

Grumble, grumble, gripe. Got the wiring done on the JK-1 over the weekend, but no sound. Wiggling the hot wire between the jack and the volume pot got me some noisy sound, so I re-soldered both ends, to no effect. When that didn't work, I just completely replaced the wire. Seemed like that did the trick until I screwed in the jack, put the electronics cover on and strung it up. Ready to rock, plugged in ... nothing.

So clearly, I have a bad connection somewhere. Opened it up and went back to wiggling wires again to try to find the problem, but the best I could get was loud hum with maybe just a hint of me hitting the strings every now and then. Busy week this week, but it looks like back to the drawing board next weekend.

[Andyxlh]

Hmm, look for a tiny hair of wire shorting out somewhere, which has caught me before. As the current Is so small, the tiniest earth will mess you up. Sometimes this happens between the pots as they are very close.
Perhaps you can use a multimeter to search out the bad signal path quickly, using the electrical resistance setting.
Either way, it won't be much causing the issue so you are most of the way there!

[wazkelly]

Sometimes it may need an earth wire added from back of each pot or could be another earth wire issue.

[Spychocyco]

Couldn't figure it out, so I pulled everything and started over. Got the neck pickup working great, but almost no output from the bridge. Drove myself crazy trying to figure out what the problem was and finally settled on it just being a bum pickup. I dropped in another pickup I had laying around, and it works. Sending the bridge pickup back to the company for them to check out and possibly replace. Almost there, though.

[Spychocyco]

The JK-1 was completed this weekend, and has had some good playing time. The issue was with the pickup, but they replaced it, and the new one works great. I still have to drill the strap button holes, but I've got a cliplock strap on the way, so I'm going to wait and drill the holes to match those screws instead of the ones that I have. The guitar is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's comfortable and sounds good. It's better than it has any right to be from a first build. Hopefully I'll have some sunshine later this afternoon to get it out and get photos to post tonight or tomorrow.

Now turning attention back to the MM-1 that I've been stalled on because I was reluctant to re-drill the neck holes. I plugged them and re-drilled last week, and luckily got them pretty straight without a drill press. I've got to buff up the finish on it and do the oil and wax treatment on the neck, then it should be ready for assembly, too. The Floyd install should be fun on that one.

Also working on a third non-PBG build/re-build of a BC Rich Warlock that I picked up for about $50. Looking to turn it into another '80s monster. Currently sanding it down again because of some problems with my first attempt at the paint job. The first sand-down was a nightmare because the original finish on the thing was almost bulletproof. This one's going much easier.

[Spychocyco]

Finally got some sunlight yesterday, so here's the finished product. Not perfect, but way better than it has any right to be.