Introduction. First post. FS-1

Hello, I am James. 64 years hobby woodworker for a few years, sloppy garage band guitar player.

I just bought the FS-1 kit. I have always wanted a Starcaster and now I’ll have one. After unpacking, a few questions come to mind; feel free to chime in if you know the answer. If anyone has built one or similar I know I’ll feel better having a wing man on this effort. The things that came to mind:

1: set neck looks like it has no definite position to be glued into. Is the only way to be sure to get a tape measure and determine scale length from the pre drilled post holes for the bridge?

2. How good are the electronics and pickups? With dime-sized pots, I’m thinking of replacing all electronics. What about the pickups? Who makes them, and how do they sound? I’m prepared to get what I payed for here and spend as much as the kit on a set of Wide Range style pickups.

Anyway, I’m excited and looking forward to the project.

Things a I have built:
Partscaster Tele: EBay neck, Guitar fetish body
Slabcaster Tele: Body from a maple slab i shaped, mighty mite neck, guitar fetish electronics.
Acoustic Guitar build in Woodcraft 3 day class.

Regards,
James

Hey James, Welcome Aboard.

We highly recommend starting a build diary and posting your progress (with lots of pics :) ) and questions in there. We all like to follow along and might spot problems before they occur. You will also get better answers to your questions if people can see what you are doing.

To Answer your first two:

*Copied from an earlier post of mine*

1. Yes, you need to determine the scale length and glue the neck accordingly. The tang on the end of the neck pretty much never gets pushed hard up against the pickup cavity, so there is room there to mark it.

You want 628mm ( I believe) from the inside of the nut to the high E saddle on the bridge (don't measure to the 12th and then from 12th to the bridge, the fret placement is fine, the overall measurement is more accurate for this), with the intonation adjustment wound most of the way forward. You can wrap tape around the posts to temporarily install them without pushing the inserts in. This is also a good time to check neck alignment by temporarily installing the low and high E tuners and running some ordinary string down to the bridge. Make sure they run with an even gap down each side of the neck and you are all good.

Here's a pic of me doing that on an ES kit (Lying on the bench is better, this one had a really tight neck fit so it could sit in the stand)

You can see the neck tang stops short of the back of the neck pickup route.

https://i.imgur.com/gVKU0pl.jpg

Also, just be careful when glueing and clamping, You want to make sure there is enough break angle on the neck. If you clamp too hard on the tang of the neck you can greatly reduce that angle which will cause action problems later. Good contact at the heel is the most important.

You can check the break angle with any straight edge like this with the neck clamped.

https://i.imgur.com/BZcdnua.jpg

Different guitar in that pic, but same principle - you want room to have the bridge posts wound out a bit so the bridge sits up off the body.

2. The kit electronics are absolutely fine, but are nothing special. I have a number of guitars that use the kit covered chrome humbuckers and I actually quite like the sound out of them. The pots likewise are totally serviceable, but are probably likely to wear out a bit quicker than better quality ones. In terms of pickup upgrades the Toneriders that Pitbull sells are pretty highly regarded, but really its something of a personal taste thing, so you might know better than us what you'd prefer, or might have to spend some time trying different ones to find what you are after.

These hollow body kits are a bit more mucking around installing electronics, but it's not terribly difficult to upgrade down the track. There is a lot of work to do to get it to playable guitar so it's certainly something you could leave for now and focus on getting it put together and playing well first.

Welcome James.

Welcome to the madness James, take your time and enjoy the build.

Your comments are appreciated. You included some things I had not thought of or done that I will,definitely put to use.Many thanks. Yes, time to start the diary.

I like the tape on the bridge post idea. I fit things together and verified 628mm. One question: any finishing, like the top, before gluing the neck on, or do everything after?

I have read there are pros and cons with both ways, but LARGELY finishing before gluing in the neck, seems to be the best way, and if you stain/paint before fixing the neck, make sure you leave the glue surface area of the neck joint free of any finish, otherwise the glue won't bond as intended. That's it in a nutshell - others with more finishing experience than me can give more detailed reasoning behind the pros and cons of whether to finish before gluing the neck.
Personally, I'm staining, then finishing in shellac with my build, so I'm going to sand/stain, then glue the neck, and then finish the finish, so to speak, after filling in any gaps in the neck joint area.