New Build, First Build - JZ-6 Baritone

Hi all,

Ordered a Baritone earlier on this year, took a while to arrive but that can be expected during this time.

Watched plenty of videos on YouTube so I knew what I was aiming to do and in what order. It did give me too many ideas though and my head was swimming with the amount of information available!

Attachment 36490

So far I have cut the headstock to shape, sanded the neck down to a final grade, and began oiling. I'm finishing with a Danish Oil as I like the feel of 'unfinished' wood, even though it is actually finished. For the headstock stape, I've gone for a slightly rounded Firebird / narrow Stratocaster hybrid shape.

Attachment 36488Attachment 36489

I'm now going to go onto body preparation before looking to start the finish. My idea for body finish is something along the lines of the below image, a sort of distressed / relic'd look.

Attachment 36487

I'm basically going to paint in layered colours to build up the finish, before carefully sanding through the layers to reveal my design!

Watch this space!

Hi and welcome. Great headstock shape!

Keen to see how you go. This is my next planned build (after I build something for my daughter).

Long time for the 2nd post but here goes.

I sanded the body down to a smooth finish (up to around 800 grit). I was aware that some of the grain seemed to be slightly deeper than I expected. I had checked the item description and it said Basswood body. Having read up on Basswood, general consensus was that it didn't need grain filling as it was closed grain. It became very apparent after the first white layer that the grain stood out an awful lot BUT, I actually quite liked that look so I ploughed on regardless.

I have since looked at the item on the website again and there is conflicting information. In the item description it says the body is Ash and in the full item details it says the body is Basswood. So who knows!!!

Anyway, the body has had it's sanding sealer, white layer, red layer and now I'm onto black.

Attachment 36743
This is after the final layer of Red.

Attachment 36744
This is after the first layer of black.

Once I have finished the black layer I will leave it to dry for a while before commencing sanding / scraping to get to the final relic'd / worn design.


QUESTION!!!!!

I am looking at replacing the bridge single-coil with a hot rail I have from a previous guitar. Should I...

a) run direct to output jack and lose the volume / tone controls for this pickup

b) run through the pots as they are (250K) and lose some top-end for the hot rail

c) Other option?

3) Other. Personally I'd swap to an audio taper 500k pot for the volume control. The pickups aren't in the optimum position for a baritone, so the bridge and mid pickups won't sound as bright as they should if they were positioned nearer the bridge. I'd leave the tone pots at 250k as they'll probably be connected to just the single coils unless you vary from Strat-style wiring,and they'll tame the single coil treble a bit.

Attachment 36845
So I've done a little bit of testing on the back, in an inconspicuous area, to see how my idea would work. And it works! The teat area needs a little bit of tidying up (smoothing scratches and cleaning up the bare wood area), but I'm happy with the result and will be starting to work on the front of the guitar soon.

I did notice, at some point after the final black coat, that the neck angle (neck to body angle as apposed to break angle) is slightly off by about 1mm. At the 22nd fret the low E (or equivalent Baritone tuning) string is 1mm further away from the edge of the fretboard than the high 'E' is. I did check the alignment before finishing but I obviously didn't do a thorough enough job. I don't think it will affect the playability at all but it will just be slightly annoying that the strings won't run perfectly parallel to the fretboard.

You can normally loosen the neck screws a bit, push the neck so it's straighter and then do up the screws tightly. Can hlep to have an assistant to do this, but it can be done by yourself.

Attachment 36977 Attachment 36978

So, I'm having a grounding issue. If I plug the electrics in, there is a lot of hum, mainly from the middle pickup. If I touch any of the grounding points on the guitar (selector screw, bridge, control plate etc.) then the hum goes away.

When I first took the control plate out of the box, the blue ground wire came off almost instantly. I re-soldered this to the top of the volume pot, I think this was correct. I also think I've got the blue ground wire soldered to the selector switch in the correct place.

Everything else looks ok to my very novice eyes, can anyone see any different?

Looks an interesting build.
Will be great when finished.

One observation on the wiring.
I would reposition the wires connecting to the jack socket. The wire wrapping around the plug could be asking for trouble some time down the road and the black wire needs to be bent such as it is not near the plug when inserted.
(If you see what I mean).
All else looks OK to my amateur eyes.

Cheers
Ricky