And more polishing after work...
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Printable View
And more polishing after work...
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4519/...2232dd84_c.jpg
Wow Swanny
lovely job Swanny
Great finish!
that is delicious Swanny
Could dive into that gloss. Sweet.
What you polishing that tru oil with Swanny? looks glorious
Thanks for the comments, there are defect areas in the finish, but on the whole it's looking good. If it was perfect, I'd know it didn't come from me.
I ended up wet sanding it with 1500 wet and dry sandpaper, then using a cutting compound, followed by Meguiar's Ultimate Compound.
The downside is that I was focused on the top, but now I've got to protect the top while I work on the back surface!
My braided wire arrived after I left for work this afternoon, as I'm working over the weekend I might get to finish the wiring maybe Thursday?
That colour looks almost irridescent, what an absolutely stunning job, a real gotm winner.
I found some spare time in the cupboard, so i pulled it out and finished off the wiring. The braided/cloth insulated wire is so easy to work with, just push back the braid, push back the cloth insulator and solder.
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Now that is a nice tidy loom. Lovely bit of Work Swanny.
This is going to be a really nice guitar. I keep saying I'm not a hollow body guy, but that could be changing.
Nice work swanny, thats a lot neater than i could come up with
Awesome work Swanny.
Plus earths it all at the same time i had trouble getting the solder to stick to the braid
Getting the heat into the braid helps, if you have a small soldering iron it'll be a difficult job. I used a soldering station from Jaycar, they no longer sell this model, but it did the job well.
https://www.jaycar.com.au/medias/sys...geMain-300.jpg
That i did not know, i was trying to dribble the solder onto it, thanks for the tip
By using the side of the tip against the joint, I had no problems, even soldering braid onto the back of the pot only took a few seconds.
yeah I did try it that way as well, but it didn't seem to do much more. Possibly a dud tip? Probably dud soldering technique has a part in that as well. I must go back and review Doc's tutorials!
Anyway with the change of tip it goes a hell of a lot better. I am just about to re-pot the FrankenWashie so its going to be fired up and pressed into service in the next couple of days.
I found Doc's tutorial:
Doc's Hot Tips
Decided to progress onto fitting the wiring today, so that means the X Brace for the Tonewood amp as well.
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Can’t forget to earth the bridge before pounding in the bridge supports...
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I used silicon tubing to pull the components through...
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Test fit before I go find some glue...
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The amp sticks on the back now.
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Getting closer!
Such a cool build. I hope we get a demo video.
That's brilliant Swanny, love the stain and finish and the tonewood is an excellent touch. I also love the Sierra, I run a little supercharged FX ZS Corolla, have always loved them since the 80's passed up a sky blue v6 one in the mid nineties and still kick myself.
I got dragged out to a work Christmas dinner by my wife, and since I didn't really know anyone (this is a group that meets every year, though my wife left there 4 years ago, doesn't miss the job, but misses the people), I'm sitting there smiling, thinking, "What's the best way to earth the strings, without pulling the bridge post, and wrecking the veneer?"
I've come up with this plan.... the Bigsby style tailpiece is held on by three screws at the base. If I unscrew that, and drill a hole into the base of the guitar body inside the triangle created by the three screw holes, and feed a wire through the hole to inside the guitar and solder to an earth. The bit of wire outside the body, I'll strip that, tin it with solder to give it some substance, maybe in a small loop shape, and then mount the tailpiece with one of the screws going through the loop, clamping the earth wire between the tail piece and the body.
Being a hollow body, I think there is a block of timber mounted inside for the tail piece to mount to, but I don't think it's more than 3 or 4 cm thick. I might get lucky!
Here's what the GR-1SF tail block looks like from the inside (from a couple of years back):
http://www.pitbullguitars.com/wp-con...-GR_1SF_15.jpg
http://www.pitbullguitars.com/wp-con...-GR_1SF_16.jpg
Grounding via the tailpiece/tailblock is pretty common for hollow bodies, especially with floating bridges.
Thanks Scott! It’s a smaller block than I thought.
Fixed up the earth issue, back together and then nothing on one pickup. I shoved a camera down an F-Hole and saw the problem... the braid was caught on top of a pot and shorting it out.
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Now it’s time to walk away and do something else, I have to change the brake pads on one of the cars anyway.
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Yep feelin the frustration.
Today was neck day. Adjusted the truss rod to flatten the neck, sanded with a radiused sanding block to match the curve of the frets, filed a curve back into the top of the frets with a fret file, rubbed them smooth with steel wool, then started rubbing lemon oil into the fretboard. I also had a bone nut to file down to size.
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Looking good!
This sort of fell together this morning...
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I spent a bit of time with a set of feeler gauges getting the nut height right, loaded up some Elixir strings, then more time with the feeler gauge setting the neck relief. It's feeling great to play! Worth the extra time setting it up.
A few little things to go... pick guard or not (more inclined to fit it for the style), strap buttons, and more polishing!
Awesome, shes a beast. I'd go the pickgaurd, I think it suits them.
looks great Swanny and glad your dogs approve. I'll wait till I see a pic with the pickguard on before I find out which I prefer on or off