Looks great. :)
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Looks great. :)
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Very Jeff Beck. Good job.
Thanks!
Unfortunately, it was wishful thinking with the neck - it was nowhere near ready and not looking like it would get there, so I sanded it back and put on the first coat of tru-oil this morning. I don’t think it will look as nice, but it sure is drying quicker!
Just keep adding a few more coats and wet sand with 1500 after about 4 coats and do same again. 8 coats of Tru Oil on a neck is about the right amount of finish required and provides enough thickness to polish up nice and glossy.Quote:
Originally Posted by VonScott
Cheers, Waz
Thanks Waz, I ended up with nine light coats on there and it came up beautifully!
I'm long overdue for an update, I've almost got her finished - I got caught up in the progress and completely forgot to document the process, I just have a bit more setting up to do and then the decal and she'll be done!
The paint came out beautifully, I got it to a nice reflective shine. It doesn't have clear on it, just the solid colour in nitro, so I'm really happy where I got it to.
The neck, as mentioned above got nine coats of tru-oil which brought out the grain really nicely and gave it a good gloss, but feels smooth as silk. I filed and sanded all the frets down and put lemon oil on the fret board and put a bone nut in.
Aside from the vol and tone knobs everything on the pick guard, including the guard is upgraded - I initially got the tonerider city limits pickups and a deluxe wiring kit from real parts, but then realised the pots didn't fit the supplied guard, it wouldn't have been hard to widen the holes, but I used the excuse to get a single layer white guard.
The wiring was really fun, I haven't done much soldering before so it was all pretty intense doing the whole rig, but I was stoked when I plugged her in and she sang!
I've spent a fair bit of time over the last couple of days setting it up and playing a lot - it's my first time setting action on a guitar, so lots fine tuning happening. I'm also keen to get a heavier set of strings on there, so I might as well do that and more fine tuning before calling her done, but she sounds great and feels really nice to play.
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I just remembered a couple of other things worth mentioning :
The first bone nut I tried was really low on the high E side, low enough that I couldn’t clear the first fret, luckily I had a spare, but it’s still really low, the bone ones taper down in height, whereas the stock ones are a uniform height - do people fill the nut slot before adding a new bone?
Also with the new pots I was pretty lucky, I checked the fit before I wired and while it was tight, it all fit. What I didn’t factor in was the wires that go through the body to the jack, they made the fit extremely tight to the point where I had to apply a little pressure to get the jack wires bent right up against the vol pot, I’m not sure if this might cause problems later.
Oh, and finally - does anyone know if the kits come with a spring for the trem arm? I assume they do and I lost it, or is there another way to get the trem arm seated snugly?
Love it. Classic ST.
Great colour, fantastic job!
Looks great, nice work - not aware of any springs for the term arm apart from the ones that go on the claw...
I've had problems with the nut slot being too deep as well, I just shimmed the nut up a bit. Seems to vary a bit from kit to kit.
Thanks guys, I’ve just finished giving her a full set up and she’s a beaut! Just the decal to go now.
I ended up buying a spring for the trem arm - it goes in the hole before you screw the arm in and means you can move the trem arm around the body without it getting too tight or going floppy.
And yeah, I thought I was going to have to shim this nut cos it’s so low, but after the full set up there’s still no buzz, so I’m a happy man!
I could’ve done with setting the bridge up about 5mm lower on the body, the low e bridge saddle is shmushed so far back the spring is folding in on itself - not sure if that might cause trouble later.
You can cut the spring down in size with a good sharp pair of side-cutters, that will give you a bit more room if you need it to move the saddle back even more if a new set of stings requires a different intonation. That's the main drawback of having a fully compressed spring, the lack of further movement. The other thing to be careful of is the string path from the hole in the trem baseplate to up and over the saddle. You don't want the saddle so far back that the string bends backwards around the saddle before bending forwards over the top.
You are constrained by the trem block slot as to where you can position the bridge, so you don't have a lot of play in where it can be put. It really needs to be in the middle of the slot if you want both up and down floating trem action, but with down only, you can have the block slightly more forwards (towards the neck). You also don't want the trem so far back that the fixing screws are very near the edge of the trem block hole.
That’s a great tip on cutting the spring down, thanks Simon. I’ll have to check about the string coming up through the saddle too, I didn’t even look at that.
Finally posting some pics of this with decals which actually went on ages ago. I’ve played this guitar heaps and am really happy with it. Thanks to everyone who provided such great advice along the way!
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