G'day all

[johnnyrotten]

I met Adam at a guitar swap meet last Sunday and I'm now the proud owner of a hollow body kit. It was an impulse buy to say the least but I have done a few cigar box guitars and a uke kit so this was the obvious next step.

I'll do the diary thing & i'm sure i'll have lots of questions as I go along but I do have one straight away.
It's to do with binding, do I try to mask it before staining or try to keep it clean as I go along? I've viewed lots of videos and there doesn't seem to be a hard & fast rule. I'm sure this has been asked loads of times before so my apologies but I would welcome some help on this.

Cheers for now
Johnny

[FrankenWashie]

Welcome to the party Johnny!

[Sonic Mountain]

Welcome aboard. You can go either way in regards to the binding. It will probably need a tidy up from the factory anyway, so painting over it and then scraping it back carefully with a razor blade can be part of that clean up process.

Taping can also work if you are really patient and careful. Have a look for Teamjeffo's latest build, RC 4 build. He tapes it on that and it looks really tidy.

There is generally more than one way to skin any of the guitar building cats you may come across.

[wazkelly]

Welcome Johnny and never mind the bollocks around here.

Cheers, Waz

[JohnH]

Welcome aboard!

[Andy40]

Welcome to the forum Johnny. good on you for picking up a kit

[johnnyrotten]

Another dumb question but here goes.
If the neck is supplied with a slight convex bow surely running a straight edge with wet & dry is just going to sand down the centre frets?

[Sonic Mountain]

Hi Johnny. You would want to straighten the neck via a truss rod adjustment prior to doing a fret level (I'm guessing that is what you are talking about?)

There will then be tension applied by the strings that you may have to re-compensate for with another truss rod adjustment.

If the neck is convex you need to adjust it anti-clock-wise (looking down the neck from the top of the headstock). Do a small amount at a time, around a 1/4 turn, and give it overnight to settle, then recheck.

You can use a straight edge against the frets, but it's a better idea to knock up a notched one from aluminium flat bar. Which is about $8 at the big green shed. This is one I made with the F style scale on one side and the G type on the other.



They are very handy for really seeing what is going on.

I wouldn't worry about it too much until after assembly. I like to get it finished and playing before getting the setup right. The initial play is a good jump off point for working out where attention is needed.

[Simon Ashford]

Nice idea. I assumed that this was too much of a precision piece of equipment to make yourself. Did you just touch it with an angle grinder after marking the frets out from the neck?

[Sonic Mountain]

I marked them then notched it with the edge of a flat file, then used a round file to enlarge them to sit over the frets. The aluminium bar is very straight so works fine as an edge. You just need to make sure the notches completely clear the frets.