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Using Titebond I glued the neck to the body
Attachment 25893
After letting it set for about 20 minutes I took a look and had a minor heart attack (figuratively). The neck angle looked too steep and I was afraid it would be unplayable. I considered trying to separate them, but knew this would cause more damage than anything.
After the glue set overnight I removed the clamps and did a long overdue test build. Once I had strung up the high and low e strings I saw that I was worried for nothing; everything fit and lined up how it should (or so I thought, but we'll get to that later...)
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OCTOBER 2017
A little stain had gotten underneath the masking, so this was my first opportunity to scrape the binding. It's silly how daunting this seemed to me at first. Reluctantly I did it and it worked out just fine... which is good because I'd have to do it a few more times later on
Attachment 25896
Cleaning the adhesive from the painter's tape off the fretboard. Eight frets down, fourteen to go!
Attachment 25897
Looks really nice. The screen print came up well. The neck angle can look pretty extreme on G styles, but there is generally a lot of adjustment in the bridge.
That said your last sentence is a bit concerning :D
Now that the neck and body were assembled it was time to get into the Tru Oil. As much as I wanted to get this done quickly I knew that wouldn't turn out good. I tried to do one coat a day, building up 4-5 coats and then sanding using progressively higher grits.
At this point I had done 13 coats on the top, 7 on the headstock, 5 on the back and neck, and was up to 600 grit sandpaper
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Haha, yeah, it gets interesting later on...:pQuote:
Originally Posted by Sonic Mountain
This is almost like watching early episodes of How I met your mother where hints of the future are gradually introduced.
Man is this every coming together beautifully!
Look really great. And I loved the Canadian 25 cent piece as scale on the headstock inlay. Made me smile.
Amazing work all round.
NOBODY ASKED YOU PATRICE! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
(I hope you get that; it's one of the few references i know from that show)
Thanks rook, I'm glad. For those who haven't seen a Canadian quarter before it's comparable in size to an Australian 10¢ piece.Quote:
Originally Posted by rook
NOVEMBER 2017
It took a lot of trial and error to find a technique for applying Tru Oil that worked best. I tried putting it on with a bare finger, gloved finger, lint free cloth tampon and foam brush all with moderate success, but by far the best method I found was using cosmetic wedges. I would warm up the oil before applying it and tried to keep the coats as thin as possible.
After sanding with 600 grit sand paper I moved on to micro mesh pads. I was curious to see how much difference there would be between the higher mesh pads so I tried to take pictures from the same angle after using each one.
26 coats on the top/20 on the headstock/16 on the back and neck. Wet sanded with 1800 & 2400 micro mesh
Attachment 25907
30 coats on the top/24 on the headstock/20 on the back and neck. Wet sanded with 3200 micro mesh
Attachment 25908
34 coats on the top/28 on the headstock/24 on the back and neck. Wet sanded with 4000 micro mesh
Attachment 25909
DECEMBER 2017
38 coats on the top/32 on the headstock/28 on the back and neck. Wet sanded with 6000 micro mesh
Attachment 25910
42 coats on the top/36 on the headstock/32 on the back and neck. Wet sanded with 8000 micro mesh
Attachment 25911
Impressive that you kept a count.
After ten, I've lost track of time and space.
Spectacular finish you have there. 'twas a success at the end...wasn't it?
cheers, Mark.
JANUARY 2018
44 coats on the top/38 on the headstock/44 on the back and neck. Wet sanded with 12000 micro mesh
Attachment 25912
Throughout this process I would occasionally sand through and have to do minor touch-ups. My biggest fear was accidentally sanding too much on the top and hitting the sunburst, but fortunately that never happened
Thanks Mark! It actually turned out better than I expected, but this is my first time doing an oil finish so I didn't really know what to expect.Quote:
Originally Posted by king casey
Very impressive. I tend to lose count once past 30 or more coats.
Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk
I took lots of notes as I built; otherwise I'd have lost count well before 30!Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
Oh my, this is such a treat. Beautiful work, TRV.
Thank you pablo!Quote:
Originally Posted by pablopepper
FEBRUARY 2018
Once I was happy with the finish I let it cure for four weeks. This eternity was a good opportunity to start learning about how wiring works. After the four weeks had elapsed I polished the guitar with Meguiar's Ultimate Compound.
Then it was time to tackle levelling the frets, but first I had to remove the old nut. I carefully scored around the base of the nut with an X-Acto knife and gently tapped it off with a hammer. Apparently I scored it too lightly because when I knocked the nut off it took a tiny bit of the binding, some material at the end of the fretboard and some of the finish with it. Darn.
I glued the small piece of binding back on, filled any divots, stained and applied a more Tru Oil to the affected areas.
After I overcame that mishap I got back to the task at hand. I don't have a notched straight edge, so I found a dead-straight piece of hard wood and used a router to notch it
Attachment 25918
Once the neck was straight I masked off the fretboard, taped some 320 grit sandpaper to the top of my homemade notched straight edge and used it to sand the frets level. Next I crowned the frets with a triangle file then sanded with 320 & 600 grit, and finally polished with 0000 steel wool
Attachment 25919
Afterwards I removed the masking and cleaned the fretboard with lemon oil.
MARCH 2018
At this point it seemed like the end was in sight. Now it was time to shield the pickup and control cavities, and the inside of the cavity covers with copper shielding tape. I thought this would be a quick job, but I was able to watch almost all of Godfather Part II in the time it took me to finish... and that's a looong movie
Attachment 25920Attachment 25921
After seeing a few pictures online of other people's shielding I came back and added a little more around the edges of the pickup cavities
Attachment 25922
Later on when it was time to install the pickup rings I realized this wasn't necessary and removed it again.
Remember that ominous foreshadowing I did earlier? Well here's where I ran into a problem.
Things were coming together, so now on to installing the bushings.
** Here's a tip I found online: put your bushings in the freezer a few days before you plan on installing them. Since they're metal they'll shrink slightly and will be easier to hammer into place. You have to work quickly, but as the warm up they'll expand creating a nice snug fit.
You'll notice I didn't install the bushing for the tailpiece on the high side yet, that's so I can run a ground wire there later on.
The bushings were installed and everything was looking good, until I tried to put the bridge on. I'll let the pictures tell the story...
Attachment 25923Attachment 25924
At this point I stopped for the night and contemplated my options.
Eeeeeee, not good, not good at all 😵😭
Doh! That's annoying. 72mm post spacing bridges are not super expensive (I know this is a posthumous thread, so you sort it out I'm sure 🙂)
I use the freezer trick as well, makes it a lot less scary.
2mm doesn't seem like much, but in this case it was a major problem. I had done a test build a few months earlier, but I didn't see the issue because I just held the bridge posts in the holes with some cloth. I didn't install the bushings then out of fear of not being able to get them back out again.
As far as I could tell my options were:
A - buy a new bridge with 72mm spacing
B - remove the bushings, plug and drill new holes
Keeping in mind that I'd spent about 3 months just on the Tru Oil part of the finish, I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of plugging and drilling.
After an evening of searching online I found two sites that sold gold 72mm bridges, and like Sonic said one of them wasn't too expensive. But the more I thought about it, I liked the bridge I already had and why make things easy on myself? (also I didn't feel like spending more money or waiting for shipping) So I went and got my old friend Mr Dowel again.
I was really concerned about getting the bushings out without damaging anything, so if that didn't work I'd be buying a new 72mm bridge. Fortunately there are brilliant videos on YouTube like this one: How to remove Tune-O-Matic Bushings (in 53 seconds)
I was also concerned about just driving the screw into the body but my screwing was impeccable.
After the bushings were out I masked up the finish and glued in the dowels
Attachment 25958
Again using the flush cut pull saw I cut the ends off the dowels. I had a thin piece of cardboard between the body and the saw just to be sure I didn't scratch the finish. Then I sanded them level, found the centre point and marked where the new holes needed to go. I was very careful to maintain the correct angle of the bridge to avoid intonation issues later on
Attachment 25959
I drilled the new holes and I'd like to say it worked perfectly, but it didn't quite work perfectly. Even though I was using a drill press the drill bit didn't have a brad point, so despite my best effort the hole on the high side was still off by about 1mm. I repeated the process and tried again, and this time it was exactly where it needed to be. Fortunately the lip of the bushings is large enough to cover about 99.7% of the dowelled holes; making them almost completely unnoticeable unless you know to look there... and now we all know to look there!
Attachment 25960
With the bridge in place. Dowels, what dowels?
Attachment 25961
It's funny how overwhelming this seemed when I first discovered the issue. I had just spent a couple weeks repairing and refinishing the tiny areas that were damaged when I removed the old nut; but somehow I got past this over the course of a weekend? Weird.
Now it was time to move on to the wiring. It was going to be interesting because I have no experience wiring anything (besides replacing a couple light fixtures) and have never soldered before.
I wanted to do the same wiring scheme as the guitar this is based on, so I went with modern wiring with coil-splitting push/pull volume pots and no treble bleed. That should be pretty easy for a first-timer, right??
I did a LOT of research while going through the Tru Oil process. I couldn't find a wiring diagram online that matched what I wanted to do, so I tried to learn enough about how things work and came up with my own
Attachment 25963
This diagram is heavily based on one I found at toneshapers.com. After I drew it up I emailed George at Tone Shapers to ask if I got anything wrong; right away I got a very detailed response and it turns out that everything looked good.
**Amazing customer service considering at the time I hadn't ordered anything from them yet. I will definitely keep them in mind when it comes to future builds.
APRIL 2018
After watching several videos I felt comfortable enough to try wiring things up, but my first attempt didn't last very long and was unsuccessful. I had mistakenly bought 1/16" 40/60 solder and was having trouble making connections. Once I figured out the issue I got some 1/32" 60/40 solder and tried again.
This time it worked much better. It took several hours, but I made all the connections and had everything wired up. I felt an incredible sense of accomplishment and didn't even mind that it didn't work.
The next day I came back and checked everything to see if I could spot the problem(s). There were several. I had a few cases of soldered joints touching the shielding (especially in the 3-way switch cavity) and one of my perimeter ground joints had come apart. After I fixed these issues I plugged it in and tried tapping the pickups with a screwdriver. Everything worked!
At this point I tightened everything up and it no longer worked. After a couple more hours of resoldering joints that I thought could be the issue and even replacing one of the tone pots, I realized that the jack was making contact with the shielding. Quickly I had it working again. It ain't pretty, but here's how it turned out
Attachment 25964Attachment 25965
If I were to do it again there are definitely things I could do better, but this was probably the most rewarding part of the process so far.
One of the threads I have read suggests that if pot contact is likely with the shielding, you could put some insulation tape or some other non conductive material under the pot as an insulator.
The electrickery stuff is not my favourite task, so well done you!
Wow. Good fix on the bridge.
Everything is a learning exercise. I think part of the reason this is so addictive is that you learn so much as you go, you want to apply it to new builds!
Heat shrink on exposed ends of the 3 way switch is what I do and also use rubber or nylon washers as spacers between pots, cavity shielding & body so that when tightened from above control knobs sit more flush with the body plus you have also eliminated any potential earth shorts too.
Thank you FrankenWashie. That's a good idea. I was thinking of putting electrical tape between the 3-way switch and the shielding at first, but realized that if I just changed the angle of the wires it wouldn't be necessary.Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankenWashie
Thanks Sonic. This is definitely addictive; I've already got my next 3-4 builds in mind. I just hope I actually retain a good portion of what I've learnt throughout this process.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic Mountain
That's a brilliant idea waz, I never would have thought of it either. I actually do have heat shrink running between the 3-way switch cavity and the pickup cavities, but that's just to keep things organized, it's not functional like you suggested.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
Now that the wiring was done it was time to assemble. Everything went together how it should, the only minor issue was that I could park a bus under the action with the new nut in place
Attachment 25997
So I did some measuring, threw it in a vice, sanded off 1/16" from the bottom and reinstalled it.
I set the action, pick up height, intonation and... Done! I'm embarrassed to say for as many years as I've been playing guitar I never learned how to set intonation until now. I'm not sure it's of any interest to anyone but I set the action to 5/64" at the 12th fret on the low side and 1/16" on the high side.
A couple quick pics after final assembly
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Wow that looks fantastic. The black finish is so deep and shiny!!! Well done
Outstanding. Really. I keep coming back to look at the pics.
Great result and build. Looking forward to your next one.