check out the bow
Attachment 6277
Printable View
check out the bow
Attachment 6277
I'm having difficulty adjusting the truss rod. 4mm won't fit. 3.5 mm fits but doesn't seem to be tight enough.Attachment 6278
Found the one with the kit, fits perfectly....:confused:
That's a relief ;)
Sometimes the truss rod end can sit a little askew in its slot under tension which can make it really difficult to get the allen key seated... not something you want to find out after the finish is on. It's now one of the things I check during the initial mock build for F-type headstocks, just to be safe.
thats a really good tip
Update:
Scuffed the colour off the body by accident.
Attachment 6447
sanded, re-applied colour and clear coats, the last clear coat applied when it was too humid again :( clouded over
sigh
sanded again then re-applied clear coat a week later.
Andy I feel your pain, clear coats are so easy to stuff up. You will also learn to be super careful when moving/handling the body around the workshop or in the house. I've clouted an unmarked acoustic guitar into a vice as I'm not used to the body width, easy to scuff your axe.
Might be an excuse to start sanding that spalty goodness, xmas is only 45 sleeps so what the hell hahah
i know your pain with repairing scuffs and bumps...
Love the headstock logo
So with the home made notched straight edge and adjusting the truss rod slightly the bow in the neck was sorted.
Nylon hammer used to carefully knock certain frets into seat using DB's "sand bag" with two zip ties.
Made a leveling beam from a 25.4 x 25.4 x 1.2mm x 450 mm aluminum rod, double sided tape and select sandpaper. Followed Gav's instructions with a sharpie on the frets and leveling beam but as i don't have special tools had to crown each fret by hand with a triangular file and different grits of sandpaper, 0000 steel wool and metal polish.
Attachment 6496Attachment 6497Attachment 6498
Body repaired the other days so now cut and polished.
Attachment 6499Attachment 6500
looking nice and shiny now Andy. Looks like you are on the home stretch now
The strat's coming along well and looking nice, I'm looking at buying myself an ST-1M kit in the near future and I'm planning on spray-painting it metallic red, also planning on getting the gold hardware upgrade option and the pearloid scratchplate option too so it'll probably look like a fancy Hank Marvin strat once I'm done.
That will look sweet DrNomis
Great recovery on the scuff and looking good! Extracurricular body-dings sure do test ones patience...
Yeah, my next build will be totally Dingotone, I am a little put off nitro finishes after this experience. In saying that I really really wanted lake placid blue nitro for this build
That colour is pretty damn special. Worth all the effort. :)
Weekend update:
1. Tremolo fitted (PGB standard)
2. Neck squared using string measurements and bolted on (it was actually almost perfect except for a small gap at the end of the heel which it always had);
3. Pearloid pick guard modified to fit and holes drilled;
4. Shielding of cavities finished;
4. Switchcraft jack fitted and jackplate holes drilled;
5. Tonerider Vintage Pups fitted nicely into pearloid pick guard.
Attachment 6548Attachment 6549
Sneak preview of what the total effect will look like.
Attachment 6550
Coming along nicely.
Looking great. Love a white pearloid scratchplate on a blue strat. Great combo. Interested to see this beastly all assembled!
cheers,
Gav.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy40
Looking nice there.
Ok, Noob city here. I got a set of Allparts Economy 'Vintage Kluson Style' Tuning Keys. Which requires 8.75mm diameter (11/32") hole.
I must say I didn't consider the hole diameters in the Pitbull headstocks are approx 10mm.
I know they are not expensive tuners but i really want that style and I need a work around.
Been tossing up gluing a wooden dowel in the tuning holes and re-drilling or maybe fitting a plastic washer on the outside of the bushings to fit the 10 mm hole.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Hey Andy, probably the easiest fix will be to glue dowels into the existing holes and re-drill 11/32" hole.
Unless you can find a bushing that will fit in the hole.
Existing holes are 9.5mm from my experience.
Check the shaft diameter, if they are 1/4" then a set of Adaptor Bushings may be the easiest fix.
good idea Weirdy, you are always lurking around the background ready to answer curly questions.
You sure you aren't a bass player ? (in the background hahah)
Thanks guys, sounds like i need to recheck my measurements. I'll check out both of those options when i measure properly.
Second vote for conversion bushings. Although you might want to check how well your existing holes line up as these kits seem to always have a wonky one. With regular machines that wouldn't be a problem, but as the klusons share fixing screws with their neighbour, alignment could be an issue.
Thanks for that pabs.
The conversion bushings do seem the easiest fix and wont require me to re-finish the headstock, but I too did get that impression that there is a small gap between the existing holes due to the wonky alignment but considered a small washer on the shared fixing screws may bridge that gap?? not sure need to check this out. I've also got to check my measurements to see if the 10mm diameter is going to be too big (Wokks thinks it might be 9.5mm) and I should make sure the shaft diameter is 1/4".
The wooden dowel option will take longer and may require me to re-finish the headstock due to sanding (if needed) but it will also allow me to re-drill the headstock holes to so that there's no gap with the shared fixing screws.
Andy try and fit the Kluson tuners and see how the alignment is. Easy to drill out the holes to 10mm if need be for the bushes seems a much easier fix
Now I'm tempted to throw myself right in front of the mix for the band Woks...Quote:
Originally Posted by wokkaboy
The ST-1 I'm currently building has holes closer to 11mm for the tuners. I recently purchased the grover tuner upgrades which have a 9.9mm shaft. So there is roughly 1mm of play in the positioning of each tuner. I'm tossing up between doweling an redrilling, with a 10mm bit from the bottom and a 8 mm bit from the top for a tighter fit, or making the holes smaller with some tubes made from paper and wood glue, or possibly super glue.
So the conversion bushings came in and were fitted. Needed a tiny bit of glue as the outside of the conversion bushings were exactly 10mm and the hole was too. The vintage backs are only a little skewed due to the wonky holes and the 10mm spacing.
All was right in the world until I snapped a screw. Now I'll not repeat what flew out of my mouth at the time, slightly more colourful than my guitar, but needless to say I do not have the specialist tools to get the screw end out, replug and redrill.
It all seems to be holding quite well without the screw but its gonna piss me off until I fix it later.
Attachment 6630Attachment 6631Attachment 6632
Hey Andy, looks good, huge bummer about the snapped screw but should be fine without it, the tuner shouldn't rotate and doubt not having a screw head will be that noticeable.
If you run a straight edge along the tuner edges do they line up fairly well ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy40
Ouch!!.... I've been there and done that too so I know how you must feel, you can order these screw extractor kits online from Stewmac:
http://www.stewmac.com/SiteSearch/?s...xtractor%20kit
Yeah they're pretty straight except for that one wonky hole "G" string which you can see in the pic.
Update,
All new wiring done on the pearloid pickguard (which i totally forgot to take a picture of) but consists of:-
Tone rider vintage pups
Bourns 250K minis
orange drop cap (only one so far on the mid tone)
vintage cloth wiring
CLR 5 way.
my first attempt failed (yesterday), de-soldered and tested each wire and part and re-soldered this morning, found out that the shielding in the Jack cavity was shorting the circuit. removed sheilding in jack cavity....so far so good.
good stuff Andy, glad the wiring is sorted. Might be worth plugging the G tuner hole with dowel and re-drilling so tuners are aligned. Which tuner did the screw break on ?
The screw between B and high E.
So she has a voice now......the tone riders sound pretty good!!!! Yaaay but...... but somehow i have three tone pots (not respective to the switch) no volume knob. Also the bone nut is a fraction too high and I have to set the intonation.
Andy so you have strung it up and plugged it in for a strum ?
trace the hot lug and output lug of the volume pot back to the 5 way switch and make sure solder on the lugs aren't touching each other or earthing out on the copper shielding, have you shielded the control cavity ? Should clear the shielding from the pot on the pickguard.
Also if the switch is a bit deeper than the supplied switch it may be earthing on the shielding, from memory I put a 5 way CTS switch in a ST build and the solder of the lower lugs hit the shielding
Yeah Wokks, i think you might be right, if anything is hitting the shedding it would be the 5 way. I guess i might have to take the shielding out?
Andy try lifting the pickguard a bit and see if the volume works. Unscrew the pickguard. If you think the switch is bottoming out on the shielding then get a screwdriver and rip out a section you think the switch is touching.
What wiring diagram did you use if you could please post it here