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Stephen's ES-1G and other stuff (plus TL practice run)
Hey everyone I thought it about time I started my build diary, I received my ES kit as a birthday present from my loverly wife, with, surprisingly no prompting at all, as a matter of fact she had no idea that I had been thinking about purchasing kit for a couple of years. She just suddenly just showed me the PBG website and said pick one :) (yep thats easier said than done, that process took about a month) I eventually chose the ES-1G, I've always wanted a semi-hollow body, and I really do love the look of the ES.
Now as this would have been my first build, and in an effort to not stuff things up completely, I decided to pick up a somewhat less expensive TL kit elsewhere to make all the usual "novice" mistakes on, so I found a suitably inexpensive TL kit elsewhere, but unfortunately, they only had one left, and it was one that had been returned due to a twisted neck, so I grabbed it for a ridiculously inexpensive price, and then purchased a loverly 21 fret maple TL neck from PBG. So now I had a Neck and Body from 2 different suppliers what problems could possibly arise :eek:. Turns out the neck and body were quite well matched, the neck fits into the body with about 1-1.5 millimetres to spare in the pocket, "excellent", time to do a trial fitting everything together to see if everything lines up. Now at this point the smart thing to do would be to clamp the neck to the body to make sure everything lines up, so after I screwed the neck on (did I mention I got this guitar to make the novice mistakes on :rolleyes:) nothing actually did line up, turns out a 1-1.5mm gap in the neck pocket equates to quite a big distance at the head stock, also the pocket was about 1-1.5mm to shallow. So after some deep breaths delicate measuring and some epoxy resin (to fill the screw holes in the neck heel) and I managed to repair and line everything up (I'm so glad I started this one first).
In amongst all that fun my ES kit arrived which gave me a little bit of a scare initially. The kit arrived and of course I unpacked it and did a bit of a trial fit (with a clamp this time) so I tried to fit the neck to the body, and there was absolutely no way that heel was going into that pocket :eek: and I certainly wasn't going to force it. so, on the the forum to get some ideas and possibly ask about how I was going to fix this problem, now the best bit of advice I gained from that was to do nothing for two weeks and let the timber settle, the neck now fits perfectly :) I quite early on decided not to do anything with the ES kit till I had finished the TL so it remains nicely packed away in the cupboard for now.
The TL is now coming along nicely, I decided on a solid colour (Nitrocellulose Sea-foam green) with the green also on the face of the headstock and a Tru-Oil finish over the rest of the neck (i've also replaced almost all of the components that came with the kit, I think its just the switch plate and the knobs that are original) I've added a couple of photos, I know its not technically a PBG kit but I'm very excited about how good it's looking. :) Id add some pics of the ES but i've done nothing to it apart from testing some wood dyes on a piece of balsa I had lying around to try and create the colour I want.
Anyway thanks for reading my long winded ramble :) updates to come
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