SG-1F build - The Red Lady

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Quote from keloooe on May 1, 2013, 18:30
Yeah, the cake looks great!!! I might ask for a les Paul style cake for my birthday (which is drawing near now, Adam *promised* me a ST-1 kit and DB *promised* me the body mod and the Cherry Flamenco, to get my mind off the LP... WHATEVER YOU GUYS DO, DON'T TELL EITHER OF THEM!!!!)

Back to the subject, the SG is starting to go a bit more of a blood colour, like you wanted Wiggles, maybe a bit more Mahogany and you might actually be fine!

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Your secret is safe with us Pest!!

Put on another coat of red base. Starting to look reallly good now :)

http://i.imgur.com/IEagul6.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/3f3f6w2.jpg

I also wanted to give a shout out to mytoolstore.com.au, they've got a bunch of guitar stuff available http://www.mytoolstore.com.au/categories/Guitar-tools/

I picked up a Stewart Mac radiused sanding block and it worked out cheaper through them than buying from overseas (once shipping is added). There was a hold up with stock when i ordered mine and they took the time to give me a phone call to let me know which was nice.

They also sell 3M self adhesive paper by the meter.

I had a look at the store, it is all STEWMAC stuff. A fairly hefty margin on some of the stuff but I suppose if you are only buying one item it might save you a few dollars, Stewmac shipping is so cheap anyway when you are buying a whole bunch of stuff like some of us do. But I will bear them in mind... good to hear they have carried on the great service of STEWMAC.

Yep, it's def stew mac kit. It was $17 postage on a $15 sanding block from stew mac direct, so it saved me about $4 overall to buy from the local mob.

I only needed the block. If i bought all the stuff i wanted, i'd have easily spent 3x as much on tools as i did on guitars!

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Quote from Wiggles on May 6, 2013, 13:28
I only needed the block. If i bought all the stuff i wanted, i'd have easily spent 3x as much on tools as i did on guitars!

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...and therein lies the danger!

I find myself adding 'tons' of stuff to my StewMac order that I 'might' need to justify paying the freight!

That probably is the best part of SM, the freight is flat rate $25 (or so I heard!), which means yiou can pile on some pretty expensive stuff and have minimal freight costs!!!

Hmmm, i just did a test checkout on their page, def. costs more than $25 postage!

SM postage rates go by weight. When you have spent as much cash as Gavin and I have with them, you learn how to construct your order to avoid a hefty postage.

Sure, they may not be the cheapest, but I can have my order delivered within 3 working days which is faster than getting it sent over from the "Far East"!

Just had a look at the site... OUCH! The mark up on most things is crazy! With the Aussie dollar being worth more than the US dollar, it makes good sense for me to shop with SM.

Ok, i've done the last few coats and the colour is now where i want it (finally!)

Do i need to do anything special when the clear coat? Do i steel wool in between coats as well?

Hey Wiggles,
A light steel wool between coats just to keep it nice and smooth.
Make sure that you put the top coats on really REALLY thin... about four or five coats with a 48 hour wait before you apply the last and she will shine!

Awesome, Cheers DB.

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[b]she will shine!

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I hope not, it's a satin finish! :P

So after a marathon long weekend effort, i've glued up the neck, wired the electronics and finished assembly!

http://i.imgur.com/Gp9oJcRh.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/VGwEMvMh.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/GlX7lHKh.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/JgWFJuUh.jpg

Looks great, plays... ok. Pickups sound great but the action is too high and i don't seem to be able to get it down as far as i'd like.

It's a little difficult to see in the pic, but there's approx 3.5-4mm of gap between the 22nd fret and the low E string. That measurement is with the bridge adjustment bottomed out and the truss rod adjusted to minimum relief (the low E and A strings are buzzing on the first 3 frets, so it really needs a more relief).

http://i.imgur.com/hByt4HKh.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/95NFR24h.jpg

Should i have done something differently during construction? or am i asking for absurdly low action? :p

The only adjustment i can see would be to file the bottom of the bridge where it contacts the adjusters, but that's a bit extreme.

P.s. Please ignore the little bit of bare wood showing at the neck joint, i made a slight miscalculation when masking up. The neck is definitely in the pocket all the way!

Hi Wiggles,
looking good, I built a SG-1F last month and forget what the action is like, I'll check mine out tonight and see if its as high as 4mm at the 22nd fret. Sounds like the neck needs a fret level

Thanks Wokka boy, that'd be great if you could measure it.

Frets are level, i spent quite a bit of time leveling and polishing them Saturday :)

Hi Wiggles, no worries, sounds like a truss rod adjustment then.
From memory I had to screw my bridge down to the minimum height, also the angle that the neck is glued will affect the action. From memory I couldn't get my action super low but I'll confirm tonight and get back to you tomorrow

Hi Wiggles, did you follow the intonation thread here when setting up your guitar?

http://pitbullguitars.com/?page_id=4...iewtopic&t=186

and did you do a proper fret levelling as shown here:?

http://pitbullguitars.com/?page_id=4...iewtopic&t=179

Perhaps you can take another picture at the bridge area because the glare had hidden the detail. I think your action is way too high.....

Hey Wiggles.

Easy work around time!
TOM bridge saddles are often a touch too high, so to drop the action you can file the bridge grooves deeper.
Normally these grooves are just deep enough to hold the strings.
Start playing a few Pete Townsend wind mill power chords and the strings will probably jump out of the grooves :)

Normally you would files the saddles with nut slotting files, but with some care you can do the job with fine jewellers files.

File the saddle grooves one at a time, just pop the string out of the saddle, give it a few strokes with the file pop the string back in and check the action. Repeat until the string is at the right height and move onto the next string.
A small amount of filing can end up being a massive drop in action, so take your time.

Hi Gav,

Yep, frets were leveled as per that thread (well, i didn't remove the nut). I did the texta trick and lightly sanded with a 12" radius stewmac block. Cleaned them up with some 800 and 1200 paper then polished with 0000 steel wool. The factory nut may be a touch high, havn't tackled a nut change before.
The fret buzz i mentioned was because i lowered the relief a litle further than optimum trying to lower the action (not the correct way to do it i know, i thought it might just do the trick) - i'll reset it back to proper neck relief.

http://i.imgur.com/muGGCEeh.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/oqYQaIoh.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/w731ja2h.jpg

(Sorry for the dodgy photos, my phone doesn't like close-ups. I'll try and get a hold of something better if you need better shots)

Haven't done the intonation yet, was trying to get the action down to final height before i tackled that job - as adjusting relief and action would change intonation.

Good looking machine, well done. Another sub-$200 kit that looks like a $2000 guitar!!

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[b]
Easy work around time!
TOM bridge saddles are often a touch too high, so to drop the action you can file the bridge grooves deeper...

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A-ha!
Sweet, i'll set the neck relief properly and have a go at filing the saddles.

Cheers mate.

Before you start filing the bridges, and this was the reason I asked for additional pictures, just check for me that the bridge posts are properly seated. The 'glary' and now 'out-of-focus' shot seems to indicate that the bridge posts are protruding higher than I would have expected....

You might simply need to seat it properly and that will save you filing the saddles!

Ah, i see.

Nope, they're definitely home.

Ok, it just looked to me like the fluting that surrounds the base of the bridge posts seemed to be protruding. I would have suggested carefully deepening the bridge post cavity. But since this is not the case then proceed as DB suggested.

Ah, got you. It's probably the knurling on the adjusting wheels that you can see.

Looks like i don't have suitable files, i'll have to track something down. doing some measurements based on the info from your link says that the nut height is a touch too high, so i'll have to look at that before i start filing things down.

Although i do have a full contact hardware tune-o-matic on my other guitar that could come over for a visit. It has individual string height adjustment...

Hi Wiggles,
I checked my SG-1F and the bridge is set about 3-4mm above minimum height and string height at 22nd Fret is about 2.5mm so not sure why your bridge is at it's lowest setting and isn't low enough.
Is it possible to remove the adjusting wheel and the bridge sits on the post ? looks like there's just enough clearance for the beveled part of the bridge, otherwise maybe replace the adjusting wheel with a thin washer so bottom of the bridge is just above the body.
Might look a bit funny but could be a simple solution to drop the strings about 2mm
Let us know how you go

Wokka - Nah, not possible i'm afraid. The thumb wheels are part of the adjusting post, so no good there.
I've put on the height adjustable bridge i've got and even bottomed out it's still a touch too high. I'm thinking that i should have installed a small shim under the neck, but it looked ok during the dry fitting. In fact, i thought the pickups would be too high!

Oh well. I'm away for work the rest of this week, i'll have to have a look at it next weekend.

Oh yer forgot the thumb screw was one piece. How about replace this with thread the same diameter, screw this into the bridge plug ?