Sssssssweeet!
Printable View
Sssssssweeet!
Sweet indeed! :)
Marcel, that looks so good!
That looks great marcel
Probably not as great as yours Adam. Mine still needs a lot of work.
I got it to the stage of having strings on it so it would have tension on the neck and to test the electronics. Intending to leave it settle a while before doing a fret job and if I will replace the nut with a bone one. Giving it some time will also allow the Shellac to cure harder before I give it a wax polish. It is already quite glossy as you can see by the reflection of the bigsby tension bars. Action at the 12th fret is a bit high and the bridge is already quite low, and the PU's do need adjusting to correct heights. The protective plastic is still on the PU's and the pick guard.
I am quite surprised on how well it stays in tune even after severe 'dive bombing' on the trem...
Hi Marcel, looks great and impressed that it stays in tune after savage trem use.
Have you played it through a bigger amp yet to fully appreciate those Tonerider Alnico 2's?
I did this afternoon Waz. After giving the PU heights a tweak I plugged it into my home built 50W head. Definitely needs a job done on the frets but it has plenty of level to make the amp break up. Still going with the clear sounding of the Alinco 2's however there is also a distinct lack of brightness that I was sorta hoping for. Didn't play with the EQ on the amp, just kept it flat at 12 o'clock. Had to put it down when the daughter and 2yo grandson turned up as all of us had to watch him as he tried out his new (Ebay AU$32 + freight) child size drum kit.... ;-)
While I was mucking around on the 50W I did get to feel a strong creative vibe building, I suspect that through the clean channel of the JVM210 the ES with the Alinco 2's will feel & sound completely different.
Good to hear you had a chance to crank it up. Clean through an all valve amp should have lots of depth and warmth without being too dark and muddy. Does it have much volume acoustically when played unplugged? And what is its natural unplugged tone like? Always had a longing to get a semi hollow body but not quite there just yet.
Not a lot of volume when unplugged Waz. If making comparisons between a unplugged Strat and a standard acoustic then my ES is probably somewhere in the 25 to 35% range between the two, similar in level to normal quiet conversation. You could certainly practice late at night in the bedroom with it without an amp and not disturb anyone. Tone wise it does have a reasonable acoustic ring but without the normal acoustic volume.
Clean through an amp I was hoping for a little more brightness, but like you said Waz, it does have depth and warmth without being dark and muddy. I suppose I could reach out to the treble control on the amp and shift it off 12 o'clock...
Nice job Marcel. For my ES, the acoustic volume increased vastly when I upgraded to Gotoh tuners, bridge and saddle
Don't get much chance of going to the shed and working on my builds when the grandkids come to visit.
Had the 2yo grandson most of this morning playing on the tiny drum kit we bought for him so he could make noises like his dad does on his electric kit....The grandson also has a plastic toy LP guitar that makes wicked guitar solo noises and squeals which he also loves to dance and play with while he is here at Opa's and Nonna's house. His Mum told him to put it away as they were going home, so he put it back in its box and put it away saying "I love you" to the toy LP as he walked out of the room.... Yes, we set the good example of looking after our instruments, take care of them and put them away but we were all amazed as none of us ever say things like that in that way... It will be interesting to see with this little guy what happens in the next few years.....
LOL, what a cool lil dude!
very cool, got the sticks going hard in the first shot
My son wore out one of those kits when he was that age. He's now 19 and an exceptional drummer.
Yep, the wife is pretty keen on giving the grandson as much musical exposure as possible. Good to know Fretworn that our efforts have every chance to eventuate into something...
I've been reading some others build diaries, and the issue of mounting a B7 style trem has often been mentioned.
When I was fitting my B7 style trem I noted that there would be nil support under the crossbars if the B7 was to lay flat against my ES-1TL body. The only way I found to achieve the required support was to raise the 'hinge' so that the two mounting screws holes were hard against the body thus eliminating any need for wedges or shims.
The arrangement in the photos allows reliable and full 'dive bomb' pressure to be applied to the trem without any 'creaks' or 'groans' from the ES body.
Will the gods of the guitar please bring more days like this to us all......Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcel
Was surfing the net the other day and by chance discovered that the colour of this ES-1TL build is very close to an actual Gibson colour.... Georgia Green....
I can live with that sort of happen-stance coincidence....
I thought it was a sweet Georgia Brown? ;)
Could be if you were colour blind (red/green deficient).Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
I like it looks great6
That Brown is the colour of my wonderful winter lawn.... It will pep right back up to glorious Green when the Summer rains come....if they ever come...
Same with my lawn at the moment too.
Same here! The few tufts of green I have are currently being chewed through by a stray guinea pig I seem to have ‘inherited’ lol
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Around this time of year I often get the occasional Roo that joins the two more permanent Rabbit freeloaders... I keep it all too short for any snakes to hide from the Kookaburras...
Good idea Marcel as snake season has just started.
And the ones around here are the very nasty deadly kind, so the fewer of them near my home and shed the better...
Eastern Browns or Taipans? Surely not both?
Mostly Browns usually between 3' and 6' in length but sometimes as small as 1'... occasional Black and Carpet varieties both of up to 6'. Have also seen over the years Red bellied Black and Yellow bellied Blacks both at around 4', and Red Nape Browns who max out at 2'.
I haven't personally encountered any Taipans. I'm sure they are around as I've heard stories from the neighbours....
And I have lots of huge Iron bark trees for Kookaburras to laugh in... They love to catch a fresh snake for an evening meal...
We get the occasional slug. They can be quite slippery if you tread on one so you need to be careful! ;)
And you get snow too Simon.....
I've only seen snow once when I was about 5yo visiting some distant relative.... From memory it was Cold wet mushy stuff... Brrrrrr !!!
Yeah, most UK immigrants get a huge shock when they arrive in Qld as the critters are so much bigger and quite often deadly too the further north you travel.
Critters...lol
There was an TV news story today from down at the local river (the Fitzroy river) boat ramp. Some of the local Barramundi fishermen had complained about a Crocodile that had been harassing them for the past few weeks so the Games & Fisheries officers went out and caught the buggar to relocate it from the wild to a Crocodile farm. Only a medium sized one at 5.2m...
News story from this morning.. Local Police are conducting a murder investigation after another 5.2m Crocodile was found shot dead in the same river. Crocodiles in the wild are a protected species in this part of the world.
Hm... I live a boring life when reading this...
;)
It came up in another thread and I thought it is relevant to add on this build diary.... setting the neck.
On most set neck kits I've done there is considerable leeway on the position of the neck relative to the body, but there is only one correct position.
When setting the neck you are dealing with the body, the neck, some glue, some heavy and awkward clamps, at least two strings and a long measuring device such as a steel ruler or tape measure. Reducing that count by one at this critical and busy time can make a huge difference. In my case it was the ruler that had to go.
After finding the correct place for the neck in the body (by measuring from the 12th fret to the point the strings land on the bridge) I noticed a gap between the end of the neck and the back of the PU hole. Once the neck has been set this gap in the long run will never change so I fashioned a small piece of wood (ply in my case) to fill that gap as best I could, and glued it in place prior to setting the neck. Now when I go and glue the neck in (setting the neck) so long as the neck tongue butts up against this piece of ply it will be at the correct distance between the 12th fret and the bridge. and thus eliminating the need for a ruler at that busy and complex moment of building a set neck guitar.
A year down the track I've noticed as a side benefit it does increase the strength and rigidity of the neck-body join, thus helping in tuning stability of the guitar build with varying temperature and humidity. For those who are concerned if negatively affects the 'tone' or the sustain of the guitar I can tell you it doesn't, if anything I think it improves it...
It's a gawd awful pair of photos but it demonstrates the construction issue point extremely well...
Very timely Marcel as I’m about to set the neck on my Reso. Good method.
As outlined earlier in this thread my "finish" on this build is Shellac. The same stuff as used in French polished furniture... Well, it turns out that a Shellac finish needs maintenance, and it seems there is nil better maintenance than actual furniture polish...
I used some O'Cedar, as directed on the bottle's label, and was presented with a sweet scented Wow moment that lingers in the air for days after. Yes, there is a lovely smooth and beautiful glossy sheen on the guitar now, and the aroma now in the room is delicately positive... Just need to remember to not touch the O'Cedar treated guitars for 24hrs to allow the wipe-on polish to dry properly before giving it a light buff out...
I'll be using O'Cedar on all my Shellac builds from now on...
Neat trick Marcel