Kits Guitars settling in, ageing etc

[enikoy]

I was playing my kit ES3 acoustically this morning and it struck me that the tone of the guitar has really improved to my ear over time. I also noticed that the minimal poly spray that I used seems to have really hardened up over the 2.5 years since building (it initially felt a bit soft). The strings are so old they should be beyond dead, so they cant be given the credit. The body seems more "tap" resonant as well, like an acoustic.

http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=5618

It really has me thinking that the both the timber and finish contained some moisture that has now dried out and seasoned, allowing this jazz box to really start resonating. Might be my imagination, but I'm happy :-)

Has anyone else had a similar experience with long term use?

[Marcel]

I got the same impression with my ES-1TL build. It has always played and sounded fine yet it's almost like it needed a little time to become accustomed to its new existence of being a Shellac finished guitar and it seems to have mellowed just a little. It could also just be me getting more accustomed and forgiving to it....

[DarkMark]

I just read your build diary enikoy, great looking result.

[Alm_63]

There is a school of thought, (ie some bloke told me once) that it takes about 18 months for the finished to bond with the body.
After this the majority of the sound improvements happen, after about ten years it doesn't get better.
Mind you he was talking about acoustics, I trust his opinion he's a very good builder.
Bruce

[Sonic Mountain]

Yeah I totally agree with this. Not just in regards to the finish, but having the neck settle in as well. I think it usually takes about 3 good setups over a couple of months for them to really come into their own. My first build is just over a year old now and the set up has been refined a couple of times. It's now pretty much the number one guitar people grab to play when they come around.

I've heard it said that guitars are 'tempered' instruments that really need to be played and used a fair bit to season. This seems pretty true in my experience.

[FrankenWashie]

Yeah I totally agree with this. Not just in regards to the finish, but having the neck settle in as well. I think it usually takes about 3 good setups over a couple of months for them to really come into their own. My first build is just over a year old now and the set up has been refined a couple of times. It's now pretty much the number one guitar people grab to play when they come around.

I've heard it said that guitars are 'tempered' instruments that really need to be played and used a fair bit to season. This seems pretty true in my experience.


For sure, its been 6 months since i finished the Korean Deluxe, I had the neck and the scratchplate off it over the weekend to do some neck adjustment (Bloody heel adjusters! Whose genius idea was that?). It has moved a lot under 11-52's in that time.
Getting things dialled in is a long term process and an ongoing maintenance task I find.

[MusicStudent1]

I realize this is an old thread but I've been playing my EX-5 bass a LOT since I completed it. It’s been almost a year and time for the stock strings to come off (they did amazingly well).

I moved the bridge because the saddles were almost all the way forward and each string was still a little flat.
I swapped two tuners that were mismatched temporaries because the originals had stripped.
I got my somewhat expensive D’Addario string set ready to go after conditioning the fretboard with Dunlop lemon oil.

Here’s where the comedy begins. The replacement tuners barely fit in their holes and it took forever to tighten them down. The B string wouldn’t fit through the bridge hole so I had to take the whole thing off and drill a bigger hole. Yay! That worked! I get the B string cut and inserted into the tuner and start turning....SNAP! The inside of the B string broke rendering it unusable. It was from a super long scale set (So the G string would be long enough) and the thick part of the string shouldn’t go through the tuning hole.

I got another string, this one works. I re-set the action and it’s time to check intonation...now everything is sharp with no room for the saddles to go back any further!! I get it barely passable without wrecking the screws.

Time to fix that loose connection...I find out the wires in the control cavity were pushing on the bridge pickup volume control and causing it to short out.

Well over 3 and a half hours later, the bass sounds great. Those new strings made it so loud, they’re distorting my practice amp...cool!

That was the worst “set up” I’ve ever done. It was more like rebuilding the kit. I play an hour a day and the EX-5 is sounding sweeter every day.

[Simon Barden]

That’s why I’d always recommend fitting a set of proper strings and just throwing away the Chinese kit strings as they really are terrible. You moved the bridge that first time for no reason apart from those awful strings. IMO, PBG would be better removing them from the standard package that goes out (along with the awful jack lead), even if they had to replace them with some other cheap, but acceptable, set.

[MusicStudent1]

That’s why I’d always recommend fitting a set of proper strings and just throwing away the Chinese kit strings as they really are terrible. You moved the bridge that first time for no reason apart from those awful strings. IMO, PBG would be better removing them from the standard package that goes out (along with the awful jack lead), even if they had to replace them with some other cheap, but acceptable, set.

You’re absolutely right, meticulously calculating bridge placement, setting action, intonation, neck relief with strings you aren’t going to use retularly does not make sense!

That’s what I like about building these kits - this is a real learning experience.