rjl's JMA 12-string

I received my kit in the mail on Thursday. Here's the woodwork items.

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I specified the JMA body, so I'm assuming that this is ash rather than basswood. I understand from the build blogs that you treat these slightly differently, so let me know if you think it ain't ash! Custom order is drilled for tuneomatic and stop tail, so no rout for whammy / springs. Nice work!

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The neck looks nice. I like the headstock profile and the scarf joint is almost invisible. The nut looks to be well prepared. There are some minor irregularities in the positioning of the holes for the machine heads, but nothing to make me want to plug and re-drill here. I doubt I could achieve even this level of precision...

Apparently each post can only include 5 images - so let's move on to the hardware in the next post.

The loaded pickguard and control panel are standard JM.

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I have no idea of the quality of the pickups but am happy to save any swap outs for down the track. I am mildly dreading doing the shielding - I copper shielded my G&L ASAT many years ago and that wasn't much fun - hopefully I'm a bit more patient nowadays!

The pickup selector is a 5 way. I've downloaded the Pit Bull wiring diagram but I haven't tried to analyse the combinations, so am assuming standard strat configuration. I put Kinmans in my G&L Legacy a few years ago. Kinman supplies a wiring diagram which configures the three pots as master volume / master tone / neck pickup blend, so you can get 1 + 3 (which I like) and 1 + 2 + 3 (which I seldom use) as well as the regular 5 position options.

Here's the JM pot plate:

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Any wiring / rewiring is obviously some time away, but happy to hear any comments or tips.

Here's the stop tail and tune-o-matic.

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They both appear to be chunky and well made. There's no individual compensation on the 12-string bridge, but I figure a) that would probably cost as much as the rest of the guitar and b) I'm probably not going to head up to the dusty end on the wound strings anyway, so my attempts at 8 Miles High are unlikely to be thwarted by this particular feature!

Acting on advice to a newbie, I checked the machine heads as shipped and - we have six of one and half a dozen of the other! Haven't tested them yet - am confident they will be fine...

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I laid out the components to get a feel for how the ensemble will work together.

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Having watched a couple of videos on finishing, I'm inclining to go with the DingoTone, but haven't decided between clear natural or possibly the Coolangatta yellow. Natural is ahead by a nose at this point.

No rush with this... happy to take 6 - 8 weeks. Will keep y'all posted with my progress and / or procrastination.

looking good Rjl, I think a stain will look better than natural but your choice. Have a look at some of the Dingotone colours available. Something like bushfire sunrise would look cool with the red pearloid guard

Looks like a great kit RJ. I have never considered this combination before, but I like it! I do love a 12 string in any configuration and a JM is as cool as it gets. The body wood does look like basswodd to me ata glance, but I could be wrong. Will be following your build with interest!

cheers,
Gav.

How freaking cool is this build!!!!!

mega mega mega mega.

I know what you mean about being undecided about a finish, i've been back to the drawing board on my SGD-612 so many times its not funny. But its worth it to get it right as most probably it will stay that way forever.

Can I just mention one thing about DT that you may not have considered. I think the stains are by far eons better than a multitude of options i've tried. One thing that does not translate in the photos is the lustre of the stuff. I often take my LP-1SS (Karijini Red) and hold it under the light and twist it back and forward, the wood grain looks like silk and shines with the turns.

Anyway, its all info for you man. good luck.

Yep, as Gav said, the body is Basswood. It is a lot softer than Ash but can still come up with some surprisingly nice grain at times. The standard wiring for the JM is set up as a master volume with two tones, but it can be easily modded to master volume, master tone and blend with the stock parts if you want.

Ok, so I've sanded the body with 180 and 240. I'll do the neck tomorrow and then start on the 400.

All seems to be going well, but I'd appreciate any tips on the best technique for sanding the inside of the cutaways (apologies if this is covered in a standard tutorial that I've missed).

YES! more people need to build offsets... and this is extra different, love it.

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I've been dutifully sanding away - I'm sure there's more to come - and am wondering what to do about this mark on the headstock.

Some of it has come out with 180-grit sanding - do I just keep going?

Is there any real risk of taking off too much wood with a 180 grade assault?

Or should I be trying some kind of bleach?