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So this is the direction we're going. Unfortunately, my expectations usually far exceed my abilities. Nevertheless. RIT dye wine/black fading to wine fading to Colortone cherry. Plan to clear coat with Minwax Wipe-On Poly, after a thin coat of rattle-can spray poly to try to avoid smearing the dye. The neck is stained maple, then about 24 coats of TruOil. Fretboard will get lemon oil. Attachment 42880Attachment 42881
Tru Oiled neck looks good. 24 has been my "magic number" (or at least my minimum). Probably end up closer to 28 or 30 because I regularly forget to write down my tally so just do another coat for good measure and start counting from there!
Good idea to spray and lock in that colour on the body too! Should look great with some gloss on there!
Thanks, McCreed. A very light and fine sanding of the neck leaves a kind of matte-looking finish, and a nice feel. After the TruOil was well cured, I attacked the headstock with Meguiars Compound and Polish, and wow! I really like the depth and gloss that it shows. Put about 5 coats of MinWax wipe-on poly on the body using a foam brush, then wiping off the excess after about 5 minutes. The foam brush leaves a lot of bubbles, so a final couple of coats were applied with cotton cloth. That will cure for a week while we head for the canyons of southern Utah for an annual hiking trip. Then, Meguiars and start the assembly. Photos to follow then.
Back from safari (or walkabout) in the red rock canyons, and the polished body looks pretty good. Now wiring, and another question. The pots have a little tab, about 2 mm or so, which sticks up from the pot body in the direction of the knob. So the pots do not sit level against the back of the scratch plate. What am I missing, or how do I handle this? Appealing to your greater wisdom. Thanks.
It's an anti-rotation tab, which is designed to fit into a small hole on a panel or scratchplate so that a) the pot still works (for a while at least), if the nut comes loose and b) the pot body resits rotation so the fixing nut is less likely to come loose in the first place. Some guitar manufacturers do make a hole in the scratchplate to locate this tab, but it's far more normal to just get a pair of pliers and snap it off so it sits flush.
Thanks, Simon. I love easy fixes. Glad to know the the thing won't fall apart when I clip that little tab off.
Next question: PBG did not send quite enough copper shielding tape to completely coat the pick-up and switch cavities. I got the pick-up cavities and the space under the pots pretty well covered. There are a couple of small areas of bare wood up under the 3-way switch. I priced the copper tape at the local electronics shop, and nearly burnt my fingers! Wow, pricey! Am I OK as it is, or is there an affordable alternative to finish covering the cavity interiors? Thanks again.
The tape should be dirt cheap. Often sold as slug-repellant tape on Amazon or eBay, but shielding is often mentioned. You should be able to pick up a long reel of 1" or 1.25" wide tape for around $10. Just make sure it's stated it has a conductive adhesive.
e.g. https://www.amazon.com/KAISH-Conduct...s%2C151&sr=8-3
Thanks and thanks again, Simon. The only thing I could find locally was at Standard Electronic Supply. A small roll of half-inch wide copper tape, which must be a more specialized item, $57 U.S. I just placed the order with KAISH.
OK. Try to stump the panel. I finished the MKA last week, and put everything together. The neck pickup, humbucker, works just fine. The bridge pickup, single coil, not at all. Must have wired it backwards, right? So I took it apart and switched the wiring. Checked all the connections. Still nothing. So I took it in to House of Guitars in Salt Lake City, as I've found them to be pretty good. Tony phoned today to tell me that he had done troubleshooting on the single-coil pup, but could not make it work. He put in another pick-up, one that he knew was good, but still no sound at all, and no reason why. They are baffled in there, too. Anyone have any suggestions? The guitar is still playable, with the humbucker only, so it's not a fatal flaw. I would welcome any ideas. Thanks.
Possibly the kit ‘box’ style selector switch. These are never as reliable as your standard Switchcraft open-frame lever switch and whilst they can last for years, I’ve found they can suddenly fail. Sometimes for no apparent reason, but normally because a knock on the end of the switch has damaged the contacts.
I can’t really think of anything else it could be if the other pickup works as you’ve got common volume and tone pots. There’s a vague possibility some grounded shielding could be touching a signal wire, but that’s very unlikely as HOG will probably have tested the replacement pickup out of the guitar.
Thanks, Simon. You suggested the only solution left untested. But. At House of Guitars, he re-wired the whole thing. He put in a new single coil right out of the box. He wired in a new 3-way switch. And these steps one at a time, of course. The single coil gives kind of a dull, muted sound, sounded to him like it was out of phase. Problem is, there is nothing for it to be out of phase with. It's just there by itself with only a hot lead and ground. So I brought my one-pickup guitar home last week. The neck pickup works just fine, so I guess that is what we will go with. Thanks to all for your help and encouragement on this project. Photos will follow.
Very weird. If you hadn’t changed the pickup I’d have suggested that maybe the pole pieces (or bar magnet depending on the construction) weren’t properly magnetised.
I got nothin'...
Other than sorry to hear of the difficulty. It's a headscratcher for sure!
Photos as promised. Only you and I will know that it's not fully functional, and it doesn't sound too bad with the neck PUP alone.
thanks again for a lot of help and advice. My family is pretty impressed with the looks of this one. Pretty much stock PBG with D'Addario locking tuners.Attachment 43233Attachment 43234 So I am signing off until fall and project #4. If you want to see what we will be doing next week, check our www.nationalponyexpress.org. The mail gets to us in Utah next Sunday morning. Attachment 43232
A worthwhile cause. Hope you have a great time.
I wish I could work on your guitar. It must be a solvable problem, unless you have a localised space/time wormhole which one end of the pickup is connected to.