TD's MBM-1

That is a killer finish, front and back. Sure hope it will tolerate the work you have yet to do.

Thanks fender3x and XP Rider.

I have now assembled it together, strung it up, and rough tuned!

All went well, except for the strings not being grounded:confused: I will try scratching more paint off the edge of the stop bar and the post.

Took a few goes to get the strings grounded! I had not removed enough paint from the stop bar and the screw in post for the bushing.

Also adjusted the neck curvature, set the string heights, filed the nut slots, set the intonation.

Tested the electronics,
Volume and tone worked as expected,
Coil tap to coil split worked - subtle changes to the split as expected.
Varitone with a 50 k resistor to ground was not producing enough change, so I swapped to a 20 k resistor. I may even try a 10 K later!

A big relief that they all worked.

Final pictures:
The pickup is a Tonerider AC2B zebra.

Wicked! Only the sound demo to follow 😉

Really impressive! Love the burst! Also cool to see the chickenheads. Hope it's as fun to play as it is to look at!

Yes, chicken heads are really quite practical, especially in dark lighting.

My builds tend to look best in low lighting. Fits nicely with the OEM aesthetic, with just enough difference to be original ;-)

Thank you DarkMark and fender3x.

Yes, the chicken heads work with the MBM. I like the fact that they signify a different sound function!
It seems very nice to play. The action is quite low.

I may struggle a bit without having the fretboard inlay markers! So, at a later date that may need to change.

I have also added a set of Grover tuners.

Upgraded tuners are almost always a good investment. As long as you have the side markers, I am guessing you'll get used to not having fret markers. I find that I don't look at the top of the fingerboard much. It's the side that I look at...which means that I own one of the few guitars you'll see that has fret-markers on both sides of the neck. I play right handed, but have a guitar with a left handed neck. When I got a good deal on a lefty neck it didn't occur to me that I'd have to add the dots to the side that would normally be "down" on a lefty.

My year (18 months!) of the MockingBird is now officially over. I'm very happy with the way they both worked out. I like the way they feel when played. Now I just need to organize a stand for them.

They look just great. The single pup is very eye catching, but the two pup one is also really appealing. Well done.

...and ah, yes! Stands and cases are the bane of the odd guitar shape ;-)

Thank you fender3x.

As for the stands and cases; I should have learnt from the explorer, axe, thunderbird! I'm worried they will slip off the stand, so my fix is to use the lock band attached to the lower strap button!