First Guitar Build - EXM-1 Explorer

Hi all,

So I've just got my first guitar kit, EXM-1 by Pitbull Guitars, turned up over a week early :D

As advised I've decided to make my own thread in the build diary.

So background for me...
I'm a musician in the UK so, super impressed by the delivery speed still.
My main is bass guitar and I own several already including a custom builds so can't justify making a bass which will never be as good. Current brands are Fender, Sandburg, ESP, Tokai.

My guitar department however is rather lacking so I've decided to make the plunge and build my own. Terrifying right!
Currently I have a slightly upgraded squire strat...

So in terms of build experience this is my first complete build and I'm looking forward to it, I've never had the time, but always wanted to!!
I do have a lot of experience with repairs and electrics and used to be a school technician so plenty of guitar setups and have done a few repaints but nothing on this scale.

Decided to go for the Explorer after a love of the limited edition run of Tribal Explorers Gibson did a few year back.
This one is going to be vivid orange though because why not?

The kit has just got here in great condition and I am currently doing a mock build (photos to follow). The quality looks incredible and the neck fit is perfect. Got a few days of sanding and priming planned before setting up a spray booth in the garage.

If this all goes well one day I'm hoping to build a cobain style Jaguar with dual humbuckers but with some crazy paint job and kill switch, one step at a time though...

Right wish me luck

J.

Hi Jack and welcome!

Just note that the EX kits have a slightly different control setup to a real Explorer, so if you want to fit a scratchplate (the kit doesn't come with one) you'll either have to make one yourself or get a custom one made as the standard ones have a hole drilled for the selector switch on the lower horn. Or modify the guitar as I did (see link in my signature) to get back to the original layout. Not that difficult if you've got a router, and know how to use it (I was learning as I went). As you are going for a solid colour, it's easy to plug the old toggle switch hole and re-drill for a 2nd volume control.

I've almost finished the finish on mine, just touching up some areas where I sanded through to the primer on the edges.

Hi Simon,

Thank you for the warm welcome. :)

When I was originally looking at the different kits I did notice the alternative toggle placement and considered the alterations to build an authentic replica however I think for my first build I'm going to embrace the alternative style and keep it easy. That way if I "mess" it up, it can be a "deliberate" decision aha.

I'm also thinking if by some miracle this goes well, then due to the placement of the toggle on the scratch plate then I would be able to rout the body after the full build without visible damage to the paintwork, hidden under the scratch plate. As for the larger hole, if I do decide to go replica then I should be able to reduce the hole with some filler and also hide the work under the large original Gibson dials.

That however is a long way of as this for now is a bit of a budget build. For now I have a bit of sanding to do, as the neck is just a touch to to tight to do a mock build and I want to check the neck angle and get this perfect ready to prime as soon as I get a warmer day.

I love your idea of a star wars decor and am interested if you went with it. As you probably can tell i'm a fan of the white explorers such as the tribal and lzzy Hale's white with gold trim. So looking forward to seeing yours finished.

Unlike yours, I'm going for a rattle can finish, can't justify buying an airbrush kit for one guitar, though future builds will go that way. So this is going to be a slow and steady build sanding out drips as I go etc.

If this goes well I think I'll get a jag next and go for the replica and maybe even try the tribal explorer but this one initially is staying stock.

Well glad to have a friendly UK based luthier to advise me along the way :)

Wish me luck

J.

I went for plain white in the end, with silver and black fittings. I couldn't decide on a design that I wouldn't tire of.

It's worth waiting a few days before sanding the neck as the changes in temperature and humidity during storage and air transport can cause the wood to shrink and expand. So wait a few days and see if things get less tight. You don't want to sand now and then find out it's a loose fit in a couple of weeks time because the wood has contracted.

The PBG kit control arrangement is more logical to than the true Explorer one. Having the selector switch on that lower control knob isn't the most ergonomic position for it!

A very good point Simon, I had planned to let it settle for a few days but completely forgot that it had been in air transport so may change quite a bit more than I anticipated.
I will return to it in a few days and see if theres a difference :)

Hi, so I guess it’s update no.2 but quite a bit has progressed since.

Firstly, I left the guitar several days to settle as advised, which is always a good idea, and this gave me some time to research my process, work on my design and just think about everything to come.

I did mention earlier that the neck fit was incredibly tight on my kit and though it did adjust a lot, it was clear that it wasn't going to change enough so after a few days I gave in and did a bit of subtle sanding to the neck (just enough to mock build) the fit is still incredibly tight and it took a lot of force to separate the two. I am going to have to look into this at a later step of the build as currently it would be too difficult to glue the neck without opening the join a little bit further (but too tight is definitely better than too slack).


So back to the waiting.

First big reveal this gave me was just how porous mahogany as a wood is, so after a mock build and a thorough sand I began building my workstation ready to fill the grain with some filler. I opted for the Rustins mahogany grain filler and compared to the horror stories i had read online about the smell and gloop this was relatively odourless and a painless experience. (though I may have ruined a pot or two mixing the grain filler and white spirit).

Second big reveal is that I had obviously picked one of the more difficult guitars for a first time build due to the glue in neck. In all my time of playing and setting up guitars, it never occurred to me once that taking truss rods and bridge heights and all the other normal adjustments out of the picture (though I have had to shim bolt -ons before) there was a huge importance on the angle that the guitar neck sits in the body and although PBG have already shaped the neck pretty spot on, I did decide to invest in a few additional tools so I could check the angle throughout the process, IÂ’ve been told that the explorers tend to sit between 2.5 degrees and 3 depending on the year.

Anyway that's the boring math stuff out the way, the bigger revelation is that I have decided on the colour, after all if it all goes wrong you at least want your disaster to look good!

So colour wise, I have 100% decided to go a bit creative and have gone for two tone gloss orange and jet black. I was already going in at the deep-end, so thought I might as well jump. The body is going to be a solid 1 colour bright orange and if I ever upgrade it in the future it would be black hardware and scratch plate, but for now itÂ’s orange.
The neck is where I get creative with a jet black headstock and neck with an orange trim around the sides of the headstock, and pin striping alongside the fretboard to join the whole guitar together. If I do it right, it will hopefully give the idea that the whole guitar is one.
That also allows me to finish it with a custom decor in orange on the headstock (although I have no idea what to name it yet, hopefully it will name itself when it goes together).

So this is where I reach a bit of a decision point. The prep work is done and other than the neck join (which is a little terrifying) I now have everything I think I will need ready to begin priming and painting.

I have my glue, clamps, primer, spray, paint station (sheltered from sun and wind), the perfect weather outside, every type of sandpaper and a thousand videos and guides to follow but I have to make a decision.

Glue first then paint or vice versa?

I was originally going to spray them separately and join them at the end, if the neck was bolt on this would be my choice but seeing how others have made set neck guitars now I'm considering gluing first. i have enough tape to do them together but as the neck is an alternative colour i still feel like separately is an option and then seal them together after there glued.

So, glue then spray or spray than glue. So forum pros and cons, what should I do next?

The EX is a large guitar due to its pointy shape, which makes it difficult to manhandle easily/cleanly once the neck is glued on or if it's been sprayed and you want to move it. So it's best to do as much as you can with them separate before gluing. So certainly grain filling and any primer. It's the neck joint area that benefits most from being filled and then sprayed so it's a smooth join. But if you are doing body and neck different colours, that is less of an issue, though you will need to work out how you are going to do any gap filling/join smoothing. Maybe a brief 'burst' transition from one colour to the next rather than a straight neck one colour, body the other. But you can then still do the body and neck separately, and then just spray the join area once they are glued together.

The neck angle is set to get the right amount of string clearance above the body so the selected pickup/pickup rings and bridge are the right heights. As the EX-1 neck sits a few mm higher above the body than a Real explorer neck does, then the neck angle won't need to be quite as great as on a real one. Not by much, but bear it in mind if you think of trying to alter it to duplicate the real thing (unless you are also cutting the neck heel height down to match). Always best to use a straight edge laid along the neck to see where it will hit the bridge. The bridge will typically go about 2mm higher when set-up than where the straight-edge hits the bridge position. You don't want the bridge having to sit too high off the body.

Any slight wind can upset the spray pattern, so make sure your spray area is sheltered from the breeze. It always gets up just when you don't want it to. It also makes the guitar move about if it's hung up. Insects sticking to the paint are also a hazard at this time of year.

Just the advice i needed Simon, thanks :) Thinking about it i barely have enough room to paint it as it is so joining now would be a nightmare.

I have filled the neck join cavity as i wanted to make sure that it didn't cause any issues further down the line.
I was under under the impression that other than grain filler you wouldn't want to get any primer in the neck cavity, do you think i should primer the cavity as well to help the join?

As for the neck advise i don't really want to go as into it as adjusting the heel so its good to know about the slight difference, i did get the straight edge out on the mock build and am looking at using that bit of extra height as part of the paint job feature.

I never even considered the damn bugs xD, I've been keeping an eye on a couple of spiders edging closer to my spray booth, hopefully they will do there job and keep the flys of the paintwork!

Brilliant advice as always and thank you for your continued support.

No paint in the join areas. And you don't need/want grain filler there - that's just for paint/finish. Both PVA and Titebond adhere to the cellulose in the wood, so putting any paint on the contact areas really weakens the joint. I normally tape up to about 1mm from the edge of the areas, so the paint will go over the edges for strength/adherence, but you minimise the amount of gluing area affected. The bottom of the neck is the main glue joint as that's the surface you can tightly clamp together, with the sides providing supplementary support. You'll find that the glue acts as a lubricant, so the neck will slip in a lot more easily than it does dry.

I bought a cheap pop-up toilet tent for my outdoor spraying booth. I've now made (badly but it works) a square wooden frame for it at the bottom, so I can have it on the patio and not just on the grass.

Few glad i checked, Disaster averted, i have got a bit of an overlap on my filler into the cavity (Hopefully not to much that it will cause an issue but well one way to find out). I was gonna tape it directly to the line but will leave a bit of an overlap now so hopefully it will look the part. and yeah I've gone the titebond route seems the easiest to use and the tried and tested route.

Your wooden frame structure seems like a great idea, mine is a broken work table, with a wooden pallet attached to the top with the most impressive box fort you have ever seen as the booth. but the guitar hangs well, has plenty of light, ventilation and protection from wind and its all built in the corner of the garage so i can get a nice sun burn on my legs while working :P