Thanks for the correction Simon - I always get them confused.
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Thanks for the correction Simon - I always get them confused.
I'm not sure what meths/metho would do to it, probably evaporate too quickly to be much use as a thinning solvent, but turps is what everyone on here (including myself) has said they use to thin it.
Gum turpentine is the nicest to use, the sort you can get from art stores.
Thank you. I'll keep that in mind when I do the next full coats as I certainly don't see a need to be laying down a lot more beyond covering the sanding marks. The thicker it is the more I seem to need to sand back off anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Flattening out the decals yesterday seems to be making a noticeable difference now - I'm starting to feel like I might get somewhere trying to bury them yet. I'll keep adding layers over them every couple of hours and every few coats I'll gently sand over the decal itself until the edges vanish. I should have enough Tru-oil left to do a stack of coats over the decals and 2 or 3 more full body coats if I cut it with turps.
My last full body coat was only in the past day or so, so hopefully if I keep up regular coats over the decals I'll get it close in the next day or two. If not, I might knock the top off with 1200 wet before it gets too hard then leave it until I'm happy with the decals.
Attachment 41528
Progress. I put the neck on today.. mostly because I want my hanger back.
The decals are nearly gone under the TO. Hopefully another day or two and they'll be gone. I put the copper tape in the control cavity so that's now all finished. Really just waiting to get these decals buried then I'll do a 1200 grit rub down, add a fresh n' thin coat and let her sit on the wall for a few weeks.
looks great. what's holding it up? it kinda looks like you have taken the photo as it is flying across the room!
Love MOP too, classic!
Cheers! I made up a rig to hold the body up through the jack cavity and had the neck hanging until I put 'em together (wanted my neck hanger back). Close cropping to hide the redneck contraption that includes a pair of clamps, some old ali tubing, steel cable ties and part of an old guitar stand!Quote:
Originally Posted by Andyxlh
And yeah - MOP. It's the goods. I found an old boom box in ewaste a few years ago with it on cassette still in the player, and the van I was using for moving gear at the time had a tape deck still, so I started to get some appreciation for it again!
That’s a find!
Cool photo either way
Cheers yeah, certainly was. Worst thing was that I was a senior tech in a room full of young blokes who'd never really heard or seen cassettes before much less an old boom box outside of the movies. Boom box works pretty well too I gotta say. Not parting with that retro-ness (but then I still have my parents Technics stereo circa 1982-83 so ya know...).Quote:
Originally Posted by Andyxlh
Good pic cheers, but the damn thing sitting up there in full view is taunting me. I've determined today is the last day I'm going to keep adding coats over the decals. It's pretty damn close to flat, and buried far enough to not look like they've just been stuck on there. Next sand will be hard over the decals to bring em down a bit further, then a full body sand at 1200 followed by a full coat. If that looks half way reasonable, I'll leave it sit there for a few days then move it to the wall for a few weeks. I've got some leave in October, so will be gunning to get it polished, wired and setup ready to go.
Where this build is up to:
- Hanging on the wall post a 1200 grit rub down and recoat. The decals aren't entirely gone but they look like they belong there at least. I don't want to put any more TO on it - the amber is starting to overtake the red, and i know that I'll need more in the future. It looks like i should be able to polish that up nicely once its had some time to harden up properly.
- Pickups are *somewhere*. Possibly still in the US, possibly in AU waiting to be scanned in. Don't know. It's probably a good thing that they're not here yet or I might be tempted to put them in already and make my life miserable when I go to polish this next month.
Given the sheer investment into this guitar, I'm pretty keen to get it set up.
Build summary:
- TB-4 kit
- Gotoh mini black machine heads
- Babicz FCH bridge
- EMG 35HZ Passive soapbars + electronics
- Gotoh black neck plate
I could nearly have brought an Epiphone Thunderbird for what I've sunk into this so far, but I'd be stuck with pickups I didn't want, holes for a pick guard I hate and no real experience in doing anything.
Suitable pickups for this were a challenge to find. There seem to be few options - especially passive and the options that do exist are either cheap and unknown or just expensive.
I'm a fairly impatient bugger, and in lieu of being able to get any of 4 guitars finished due to bits all being in transit, a brand new TV that arrived broken (our old one recently died), and not much else to do.. I decided to get closer to finishing this off.
I gave a few areas a rub down with some 3000 grit, then gave it a fairly gentle hand polish with some Maguiars Ultimate compound before a quick layer of wax - including over the fret board. A quick run over the neck showed a few frets were a little high, so I filed them down, re-dressed them and got that sorted out.
The nut is now graphite. I'd ordered the bone when I ordered the kit, but decided I wasn't putting white on it.. and I wasn't keen on keeping the plastic, so I swapped that out yesterday.
The polishing was done - and its by no means perfect. I decided that too much shine would detract from the grain and the fact that I never spent enough time sanding is always kinda evident when you look carefully at it, so I don't see any point in aiming for perfection.
I decided then to get on with the hardware that I currently have - the tuners and the bridge. The bridge took some getting my head around. Thinking I had the action as low as it could go, I was trying to work out how I was going to get about another 3mm out of it - the action was quite simply too high. After staring at the gap between the mount posts and bottom of the bridge and thinking bad thoughts.. I realised that I could actually get more out of it.. and it's now down to an almost acceptable height. I'd really like to get it a fraction lower, but it's within a mm or so of my trusty old Yamaha so I can deal with it.
Attachment 41650
I threw on a couple of kit strings just to see how the action was going to look. When I'm finished they'll get tossed for a set of DR Blacks. Right now they're not even on the tuners properly - they're literally slotted through just to hold in place.
Comfort-wise, unless the pickups weigh about a kg, it's horrendously top heavy. I considered an anchor point through the neck plate to see if that would help it balance better but it appears not. I put the kit pickups in just to see how that would effect balance, but not where near enough. The balance point feels like its somewhere between the 12th and 15th fret, so changing the anchor point doesn't seem like it'll be enough to counter balance it.
I've ordered some truck tyre weights - lead.. just for their weight. Each block is 50g, I figure I'll create an internal barrier to go inside the cavity over the pots, then load line it with just enough weight to balance it out. Hopefully a couple hundred grams in the right spot will be enough to do the job, but I've got a kg worth coming just in case.
I completely stringed this up yesterday with the kit strings. I figured it wouldn't hurt to get a feel for it and see how it behaves.
I added a little relief to the neck as it was a bit buzzy when I started to dial in the action now that it's fully tuned. It's still a little higher than I'd like, but that bridge is bloody chunky and thick. The posts sitting up a couple mm over the body doesn't do much for that problem. I will look at some timber shims and see if I bring the neck up a bit and see if I can get that action down that way.
It's playable enough at its current height, but I think it's capable of being improved, so it's worth trying. It probably wouldn't have been a problem if I was using the kit bridge, but me being me wanting to use the Babicz bridge that is possibly the most ludicrously bulky bridge I've ever seen..
I have the same bridge on my EX-4. I had countersunk the holes for the screw posts before installing the bridge so that it sat flat against the body "full contact". The action was quite high but after adjusting the truss rod and the saddles I actually had to tweak the saddles to increase the action of a couple of strings because they were too low.
I am sure this is a dumb question and that you've already thought of it, but why not just shim it?
Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk
Yeah I reckon if I was gonna do another one using one of these bridges, I'd do that. I did think, about 2 minutes after I'd belted those posts down, that countersinking would have been a good idea. I didn't have anything big enough at the time to do that with anyway, but hindsight... a wonderful thing. I very much doubt I'll get them out without damage, so won't even bother trying. Not sure if I shove some timber over them and try to belt them down will get much more out of it with brute force. Just as easy to work around it I guess.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rabbit
I did suggest that in the middle, once :PQuote:
Originally Posted by fender3x
That'll wound up being the option I suspect.
There was a plate that came with that bridge that I think will fill the gap under it nicely too. The holes aren't big enough. Tempted to rip that bugger off, measure and see if I can find a bit big enough to rip through them. At least that might do something with restoring the "full contact" bit.
EDIT: Maybe not. That's about 1.5mm higher than the gap. Don't care to make that any worse. :eek:
Yeh I kinda didn't bother using that plate, I figured the bridge would be high enough without it. I don't know off hand what timber the body of the t-bird kit is, but to remove the posts you could use a long bolt and just keep tightening them once they bottom out. If the timber is hard enough the posts should start to back out.
Interesting idea. It's basswood, so not sure if that is hard enough to cope with that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rabbit
I've removed many a post with that method because I keep forgetting about the bloody grounding wire to the bridge without drama. If you're worried about it, there's another method I've used that requires a correctly fitting bolt, a bit of PVC pipe (or the like) that's a little bit bigger than the post hole, a washer between the head of the bolt and the pipe and another washer or two to site between the pipe and the body that's also bigger than the post hole but of course has a smaller inner circle than the pipe. A rubber washer is good for the bottom washer to protect the body. Assemble it all over the post hole and slowly screw the bolt into the post which will ever so slowly and neatly extract the post and it will come out nice and straight. I had to do this when removing the posts from an old Gibson I was restoring as they were really small posts and the first method just wouldn't work.Quote:
Originally Posted by lunaticds
Thanks for the tips. I found a bolt long enough to get it up a couple of mm, so I knew it worked. I dropped a long but small screw down head first then put the bolt back in and screwed it down and the posts came straight up.
A couple of seconds with a stepper going real slow and the posts are countersunk. Now to see what happens with the strings on...
And... that looks much better. It'd be really nice if I could keep the action that it just restrung at, but I suspect I'll need to come up slightly. So far, much improved.
Weights arrived today. I managed to fill the entire cavity and still couldn't balance it terribly well.
In the end I wound up biting the bullet and moving the strap point to behind the neck at the heel. It made the balance much more improved. It's less inclined to take a dive by itself, though its a bit cozy with the strap. It still feels "too light" in the body and I there's still a little too much weight in my left hand, so I'll still add some weights in.
Next thing will be to find something interesting to do with the original hole for the strap holder. I've debated just finding a black screw and shoving it in there, but that seems kinda lame.
Well, it's time to call this one finished.
The pickups arrived yesterday.
There's a few minor tweaks to make.. little getting the pickups to sit level and filling the old strap lock hole, but otherwise its good to go.
Attachment 41885
When I put the pickups in I was fighting an interesting earthing issue - any time I'd touch anything earthed around the guitar it would buzz. Especially if I dropped the volume down. Finally dawned on me that it could be the cable that I haven't used in years. Ditched that and problem went away.
I may revisit the weight I've added to it and see if it's still necessary with these pickups in there. It's still not overly heavy, but it's now magically sitting exactly where I want it. I've had some left shoulder issues, so trying to juggle weight vs playability is a thing.
I might do a little more to the back of the neck just to help make my hands move across it a little easier, but it's generally acceptable.
Next on the list to consider (when I can afford it) is: https://www.pitbullguitars.com/shop/...bra-wood-copy/
I'm inclined to hit this with a green or red colortone and see what happens. Not entirely sure on the colour yet, Finish will probably be TruOil again.
Go with the rosewood fretboard, black hardware. Maybe upgrade the tuners to some Grovers or Gotohs. I don't care much for vintage style. I tolerate them on Fenders.. because.. Fender. Pickups I'll go away and think about. Not sure what the kit PBG pickups are really like.
I'll eventually need to make a decision on that but I really need to put in some time with what I've got before I know what I'm chasing. Between putting some time into the Thunderaptor and doing some work on my old Yamaha and changing its pickups for my Aerodyne's stock set, there's potentially a whole lot of new tone to explore there before I know what I have. I never truly appreciated the impact different pickups have until I swapped the stock PJs out of the Aerodyne with a set of EMG GZRs. That took a pretty versatile bass and transformed it into something that was awesome for hard rock/metal that needed to be hot and aggressive but didn't need a really clean and smooth bottom end, so I'm getting to a point where I need to get a little more focused on what it is that I'm chasing.
Looks good Lunaticds.
How heavy is it with the weights?
Cheers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trevor Davies
Looks to be a smidge over 4kg, so not light. Wouldn't mind trying without the weights to bring it down a bit, but more concerned about trying to get it balanced first. With the weight at least it sits pretty well and no dive.