After I plugged it in to test I was happy to proclaim, " it's alive!"
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After I plugged it in to test I was happy to proclaim, " it's alive!"
At first I had to do a quick wire up to test that all parts were working, this was a pickup test: pup, volume, tone, jack; then I repeated with the other pickup
Electronics checking out, I ran wires thru the body and out the pickup hole. Attached the corresponding wires to jack and pots and fed the whole thing back thru the pickup hole to their new homes. I was able to use my youngest son to stick his whole hand in thru the neck pickup hole and line up the master volume and the pickup selector, making it a family affair.
Electronics installed on to the hardware
And here it is. Not entirely finished but fully playable.
So here I am holding my first ever built guitar, I am really happy with how it has all turned out so far. Now that she's been "born" it's time to get back into finishing off some of the small but personal details. Also it's developed a little fret buzz on the low E that I will have to address. Glad to get some pictures to everyone so you all can enjoy the build with me.
Looks fantastic. Love this one.
Looks Far King nice. Damn now I'll have to finish mine
PK
Wow Jeff, that looks seriously awesome. Great job! A huge want from me.
cheers,
Gav.
Excellent work Jeff, I'm sure the start of a life long hobby :) How good is it when you get to plug in your first hand built axe and it all works!
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Looks great Jeff! The moment when you plug your first kit into an amp for the first time is just nuts, looking back at all the hard work you put into a wonderful axe, and it's finally playable! Now you need to buy another kit!
Great looking build Jeff well done. Sure you will be ordering another kit soon!
That's awesome Jeff, looks so good now I want one of those as well.
Fantastic result Jeff, it looks great.
Is the wiring working as intended? I completely forgot about that diagram and meant to follow up with you to make sure it worked with your specific balance pot. I did the pot config from memory in original diagram as I didn't have any on hand at the time, and while that would match some brands of balance pot, other brands like Alpha actually have a reverse configuration. Basically, the ground connection needs to be on the resistive side/end of each layer of the pot.
Here's the alternate diagram for Alpha style balance pots, just in case:
Attachment 3357
Again, congrats on the build.
Looks great man. Reminds me of a restored Holden FJ turned hot rod that cruises around my area.
Great job Jeff. And you appear to have come through the wiring process with your sanity intact. Hopefully your son didn't get nightmares about being swallowed by a guitar.
that is so good Jeff, you really nailed the satin/matte black look - not an easy thing to do
Wierdbits, yes it is working! I'm not 100% sure if it's as intended but that might have to do with pickup height. Select rhythm, roll the pot all the way to the neck pup and get about an 7 out of ten on volume. Nice clean sound and when I hit a chord I can turn the whole volume off and on by switching up and down on the selector, a fun option. Select treble roll the pot all the way to the bridge pup and I get ten out of ten on volume, but if I switch Back to rhythm I still have it at about 6 or 7 volume. It's definetly a fun setup that I'm enjoying playing with.
good stuff Jeff, once its set up, intonated and the neck played in it will be a great axe to play.
Have you used stock parts ?
hey Woks, yeah mostly all stock parts except I got shielded wire and a push pull pot for the pup balance. Here is a shot of one of the pickups that had a big crack in it and a bent screw. Didn't seem to have any negative effect though
Well done Jeff your guitar looks magnificent - well done I am totally jealous and envious - I love it!!
Cheers,
Alan
Just a question, does anyone have a recommendation on where to get cheap hardshell case that would fit the Grs-1sf?
Jeff
good question Jeff, might be worth sending Adam an email to see if he can order some cases for these size semi hollow axes.
These GR-1SF kits have been very popular so sure there will be a few forumites who would like a case.
I'll be building an ES3 next few months so would be interested in a suitable case.
Let us know if you find one elsewhere
Jeff, this is my standard every acoustic or semi acoustic case that I got free with another purchase. Including 335 shape and dobro style geetars.
Fits like a finger up yer....
Attachment 3476
Yep just looking at some on Amazon but might check the local store, not being able to put this baby down anywhere with confidence is already a problem..
I was finally able to do a little more work on my guitar build today. First I painted the little butt end of the neck and also the truss rod cover. It didn't turn out exactly as I planned, a little too much pure white when I was going for a match on the binding... Anyone know if there is a recommended color to match the factory binding?
Undaunted I continued on, taking the set up strings off and addressing the frets and neck. Looking to check the fret levels and they all look mostly good relevant to each other, with two frets just slightly raised. I scraped at it a little but wasn't able to do much more than polish it up. Wanted to get it back together so I put it in my head and moved into getting the strings back on, couldn't find any strings! Then I remembered the set that came with the kit (thank you Pitbullguitars!) and on they went. Action and intonation next. I lowered the action at the bridge,tuned up and checked the intonation.got most of the strings right on except the D string, that one was flat with the saddle adjusted all the way forward. Remembering all the length questions between the nut and the 12th and the 12th and the bridge came back to me but it turned out to be fixable by raising the action at the bridge back up a little. Re-tune check adjust the saddles a couple of times and I got it intoned and the action still low, strings about 4/10ths of a centimeter off the frets. It works but not a lot of adjustability, the strings seem thin so I will check back with a thicker pair sometime in the future and see how those go. The best part of today's work was coming up with a model name, she is hereby dubbed part of the "AlohaMatic" family!
Aloha, Jeff
I might still do some thing more on the headstock as it looks a little bit bare to me. And I might look for a better color match on the truss rod cover, but she's mostly done! Guess I will be looking into sound samples soon:D
Aloha, Jeff
Wow nice job Jeff, I quite like your trussrod cover (for what it's worth).
Thanks Barge (and everyone else!) for all the compliments and encouragement. Love the site and the vibe, makes me wish I was in Australia! Just looked thru the fret leveling thread, I will be tackling that job on the next string change.
Aloha
Ps I dug an old acoustic guitar out from the closet and it works for a temporary case, although the nob for the bigsby hits when the case is closed, so I'm still looking for a better fit.
Hey great job. just had mine delivered. But my issue is how the hell do you get the wiring into the body?
HI Chazking,
you could start here:
http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...ead.php?t=2547
or on youtube.
I can't remember where but there was a tutorial involving platic tubing. I will have to dig it out.
wow Jeff, that turned out amazingly well, get it into the next GOTM
Hey Chazking sorry in the delayed response, you probably have it all built already! Anyway if not you run wires from all penetrations in the body and pull them out the bridge pup hole. Then attach the wires to the tone/volume pots switches and jacks. Slowly pull them back thru till they are all out their correct hole and run the locking nuts down the wires and screw them on securing all hardware. try the jack first maybe even twist it a bout half a turn counter clockwise before you tighten it down with the lock nut, its nearly impossible to get that bad boy really tight without twisting it about that much in the clockwise direction. feed all wires and pickups in thru the bridge cavity and then feed the neck pickup thru the neck cavity and finally the bridge pickup comes back out. its not too difficult with the right technique. I used braided 12 gauge electrical wire for all the guide wires and I took some of the braided copper and wrapped it around the pots stem to get them to their locations without falling off in the body. also I took a outline of the guitar body and made all wires the proper lengths so that they would run in a way that they wouldn't be running thru the f-hole where you could see them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chazking
hope that helps!
Aloha, Jeff
Hello Jeff,
I'm reading your build diary pretty intently as I'm building the same. As an ex carpenter joiner I appreciate your angle on most things. I want to get straight in and glue the neck also. Did you feel it was a good move or bad move with the benefit of hindsight?
Rodger
Hi all. I'm new here but not a beginner. I've been making solid bodies for a few years and decided it was time to try my hand at an arch top after stumbling across a battered old 1959 Maton Premier E.G. 45A in an op shop for 5 bucks. Its electrics (original) still worked so I figured it was worth having a go at bringing it back to life. It plays ok but is a real finger killer with an action you could ride a skateboard under at f12. Anyway the Old Girl is hanging on the wall until i can get my head around the archtop.
I went for the GR-1SF kit - for better or worse.
I did a dry fit to make sure it was all there and fit properly. It did and it did!
One thing that has me baffled is the Bigsby Style Tremolo. The spring seems to be twice the length required at 30mm long and the trem arm sits about 120mm above the body top with both E strings tuned to concert. The spring doesn't seat squarely until I force the arm down much closer to the top. Will it end up lower when all strings are attached and tuned to concert less a semi-tone?
Is this how its supposed to be or have I been sent a light truck suspension spring???
Should I get the spring cut?
photo uploads fail??
Anyone with some ideas would be great.
Cheers
Mike
PS. I looked up the parts list for the Bigsby B7 which the supplied Bigsby type is supposed to be modelled on and the there are two spring sizes shown.
1. 7/8th" (22mm)
2. 1" (25.4mm)
The spring supplied in the kit is 30mm
Here's the simple way to resize images if using Windows Paint:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Sheridan
Attachment 34188
Hey , Im doing this guitar as my first build and followed the PBG diagram and I get a weird buzzing noise when I plug in the circuit into an amp to test. any ideas?
Hi and welcome.
A fairly constant buzzing but with sound normally indicates that the wires are swapped over on the output jack. It may be something else, but I'd double check that you've got them the right way round. It's easy to pick the wrong tabs on the jack. I've done it a couple of times myself and I've wired up at least a hundred guitars to date.