Just heard back from Adam. Happy to sell them to me, I just need to provide my kit number order :) This is why I love PBG!
Looking at the Grover mini romatics 205. Anyone know if these will fit the pre-drilled tuner holes in a TLA-1 kit?
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Just heard back from Adam. Happy to sell them to me, I just need to provide my kit number order :) This is why I love PBG!
Looking at the Grover mini romatics 205. Anyone know if these will fit the pre-drilled tuner holes in a TLA-1 kit?
good stuff Moo, that's why PBG are so good, their service is second to none !
I had a look on the diagram and the rotomatic tuner outer shaft is 9.7mm diameter and the tuner holes are about 9.5mm so may need a small ream with a 9.5mm drill but they will fit fine
Thanks Wokka! Haha you're really quick replying today :)
I appreciate your help, as always. Will place my order now
EDIT: May have also ordered a Wilkinson bridge... Oops haha :p
no worries Moo I'm a bit quiet at work so keeping a good eye on the forum today haha
G'day Moo. I've got the Tonerider Hot Classic in my Tele neck pup. Sounds great. A lovely singing tone that's great for blues. I used the Grover Mini Lockers too. So easy to fit and restring. HIGHLY recommend.
Hello everyone
Yes I know it's been almost a year, but I have finally had a chance to work on my guitar again. I finished off smoothing my last clear coat on the neck yesterday and it's feeling lovely.
When I first bought the kit, I followed the recommendations to drill my bridge holes and carefully measured everything. It wasn't until several months later that I bought a new Wilkinson compensated bridge and the holes don't line up. They're close though, which is worse.
What's the best way to go about filling the old holes so I can re-drill? I thought maybe using araldite might work?
Also, I bought a PBG bone nut but when I went to test fit it yesterday, it's several mm to wide for the slot and won't fit? I compared it to the original plastic one and it is definitely quite a bit wider. Do I just sand down the side?
As usual, I appreciate your help :)
Araldite will do the job, its handy stuff. Others may have a better recommendations, but I see no problems with doing that.
Fortunately any changes will be nicely hidden by the plate I have TL with a Wilkinson I'm hoping to start fairly soonish. Have you increased the bridge pickup route? They are a bit small and slightly too far south in the kits, esp if you are using an after market pickup.
In regards to the nut, I think being slightly too wide is common, I've had that with some TUSQ nuts I've bought, nothing wrong with filing it down, so long as the string spacing is all good and neither of the 'E" strings is too close to the edge of the neck.
Thanks for the reply. I've seen some people plug with a skewer/toothpick etc. so I'll hold to see if others have any recommendations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic Mountain
No I haven't enlarged the route - In the dry build it seemed to fit okay, but I haven't tried since getting the new bridge and re-measuring the scale length. I'll get onto that today.
At the moment I've just got stock pups, but I'm considering upgrading to some Toneriders. I hadn't realised they were larger?
Ah, just re-measured scale length and realised I hadn't accounted for the new bridge being a different length to the stock one.
It's a bit shorter, which means I have to move it forward. The holes no longer overlap, and the old ones are nicely covered by the plate. One less job to do!
And the pickups just fit in the original route, pushed up against the edge (so no re-routing, phew!)
I'll re-drill the bridge holes and get onto the last clear coat (or two, because I'll probably mess it up) and then finally onto assembly :)
It's only been a year and a bit haha...
Good news on the holes.
Yeah its a tight squeeze to get the kit pickup in there. If you have a look at my relliecaster link below, I did a fairly agricultural job of enlarging it. I wanted a bit more intonation adjustment and also to have the bridge plate fit neatly in the pick guard without too big a gap.
Hmm yeah I've had a look through Sonic - nice work by the way.
I'll put the question out for general consensus, do I need to expand the pup route? And how far would you go?
Hey moo,
Yes, chances are you need to a little towards the neck. I would set it up and position the bridge at the right scale length and draw around it to make sure that you done go outside the small tele bridge. if you are replacing the kit bridge you'll need to measure the new one.
Thanks for the reply Adam,
I drilled the new bridge holes (after checking the scale length about 10 times) and marked where the edge of the bridge is. It's actually only about 5mm from the edge of the route, so I don't think I really have any room to expand. I'll see how we go, as the pup fits pretty snugly in at the moment when the bridge is in.
Is it an issue if the pup touches the shielding tape (once I put it in)?
Today was a big day! Having never done so much as a truss rod adjustment on any of my guitars, I dove into some more permanent stuff on the build, after watching many many many Youtube tutorials.
Made myself a notched straight edge (600mm steel ruler for less than $6 at the green shed and filed the grooves), adjusted the truss rod and then jumped into fret work.
Rounded over the edges of the frets, then levelled and re-crowned. Given them a good polish and really stoked with the result, and used only very basic tools:
- notched straight edge made from 600mm ruler from the green shed (less than $6) and filed the grooves
- sanding beam made from a piece of aluminium boxing, sanded perfectly flat over glass, then with sandpaper stuck to the bottom with some spray adhesive
- triangular file ($10 from the green shed) with the edges ground smooth by my dad
- crazy amounts of masking tape
I'm sure it's not the best fret dress that's ever been done, but I'm happy with it given my total lack of experience. Definitely the part of the build I was most nervous about so glad it's done with no hiccups!
Should be right to start assembly in the next few days so I'm sure I'll have lots more questions soon. Pretty keen to be done before I leave for uni on Tuesday :)
Okay so I’ve filed down the bone nut to fit the slot. It’s obviously a bit long as well - do I just try and take an even amount off each side until the edges are flush? And should the edges be square, or taper to make nice curved ends on the top? Attachment 24598
Typically you leave it long and unglued until you finish the build, as string tension will hold it in place once it's strung up. Once you've got everything sorted (intonation, action, string position down the neck etc) then you can mark the ends of the nut with a pencil, loosen the strings to slip it out and then sand/file it down to size. Sand down, test, sand down, test etc. until you get a nice smooth match with the sides of the neck, and then use a drop or two of glue to fix it in place.
I normally do this as the very last step, usually a couple of weeks after assembly and setup, once everything has settled down and I'm certain I don't need to adjust anything else.
Thanks Scott, that makes a lot of sense. It's still really quite tight in the slot so I'll have no problems with it staying put.