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Next I had to recess the plate.
So first I marked the outline:
Attachment 7206
Then routed with the dremel (I love that thing!):
Attachment 7207
And here's the plate in place:
Attachment 7208
Attachment 7209
Attachment 7210
Not a perfect routing job, it could be tighter in places. But it was my first one, and I'm pretty happy with the result!
Once the cover plate was sorted, next step was to install the bridges.
I forgot how hard it is to exactly line up individual items... whether on a wall, or on a guitar!
I measured it all up, and checked with the high and low string and all was great:
Attachment 7211
And then I went to drill them as close to exactly as I thought...
But a single mm out of line here and there means that they were not aligned and it was pretty visible:
Attachment 7212
So I tried again, moving everything toward the neck by 3mm (I had plenty of spare), and here's an IB-5 version Swiss cheese:
Attachment 7213
I filled the old holes with wooden skewers sticks and sanded them flat. They won't be visible anyway, so not too stressed about these...
Attachment 7215
And then I installed the bridges again. Not perfect, but better than the first time and I really can't keep trying to make it perfect... I'll have to live with that:
Attachment 7214
And finally, I was able to do an almost complete dry build:
Attachment 7216
Attachment 7217
Attachment 7218
Pretty happy with how the gold hardware looks. The eBay supplier managed to ship me one of the bridges with a different saddle, but they're meant to send me another one, we'll see...
I also wanted to prepare the neck before I started applying Dingotone.
So I removed the plastic nut (I got a bone one cut by DB):
Attachment 7219
Then I leveled the frets with my trusted expensive fret leveling tool (a bit of wood with 240grit sandpaper stuck with double sided sticky tape):
Attachment 7220
I then reshaped them with a small file and polished them with sandpaper first, and then with the dremel with the polishing wheel. They're pretty shiny now. I'll do a final polishing at the end anyway but I wanted to get them in a good shape to start:
Attachment 7221
I then went back to the bridge as I had not worked out how to shield these individual bridges...
For the 2 x higher strings, I managed to drill straight down and find the hole that was pre-drilled in the factory, that goes from the middle bridge to the control cavity.
I ran speaker cable in these holes:
Attachment 7222
I then had to find a way to connect the 2x lower strings, so I routed a channel between them and the middle one and ran more speaker cable:
Attachment 7223
I then only had to fill this channel and level it (final sanding will make it smooth):
Attachment 7224
Attachment 7225
These 5x cables meet in the control cavity where I twisted them together.
Attachment 7226
I tested them and I've got good continuity between the control cavity and each bridge wire, so I should be good there!
After that I finished sanding, and I'm now ready to start grain filling and then staining!
Great job with the brass cover plate and kudos for your perseverance with the individual bridge pieces, that part would have driven me nuts. Also loving the Gold hardware and how the whole colour scheme comes together.
Hey Fred, with the individual bridges they're not too hard to intonate. I have them on my Ibanez BTB08LTD, once you get the hang of what's gotta be done it's fairly easy :) I've just gone from some cheap eBay .040 - .95 to the EB hybrid slinky .045 -.105, literally finished my intonating yesterday!!
coming along nicely Fred, that gold hardware looks hot. What stain colour will this be ?
Love the control cover and nice mods for the individual saddles !
Thanks guys for the comments.
@ShazzRandom: I'm not sure the individual saddles I got off eBay will be as nice as the Ibanez one... I tried to find Ibanez spare parts, but couldn't, so I went for the cheap eBay alternative. We'll see!
@wokkaboy: I'm going for a dark walnut effect. I got some walnut Dingotone so should stay natural! :-)
Hopefully they go ok!!Quote:
Originally Posted by FredA