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Keep going!
I did the ferrules for the bridge pins and the strap buttons before I had to stop for the night. Next I need to go ahead and shield the cavity.
A little clearcoat somehow got under the tape and onto the fretboard at the first fret. Whats the best way to get that off?
Realy loving the look of this build man! I mean, what's not to love about an MK-2?? Coming along beautifully.
cheers,
Gav.
The sides or the top of the fretboard? It's normal to clear coat the sides of the fretboard. If it's on the front, it depends on what you're using for the clear coat. First I'd use a flat sharp knife blade (e.g. craft knife, box cutter or single-sided razor-blade) to scrape along the surface, going with the grain, and you should be able to get a lot of it off. If there's any left, then you need to find a suitable solvent. For nitro, then cellulose thinners would do the job (but be careful of getting it on the rest of the neck). I'm not sure what the best solvents would be for acrylic or poly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rev
On the top/face... a little clear must have leaked under the tape. I was thinking razor blade but wanted to check first in case theres a better way.
Funny point - the clear coat I used had some pearlescent flakes in it. They arent very visible against the yellow, but I noticed that on the sides of the fretboard, they stand out. I have sparkley frets. :)
A flat sharp blade is generally the preferred way of scraping grunge and dirt off a fretboard. Because the edge is flat, it doesn't dig in to the wood, but hits any high spots it meets and over a few strokes, reduces those until it's level again.
Clearcoat removed from fretboard face.
Whisked over the inside of control cavity with 200 grit just to remove the excess fiber in there, since I'm about to do the body shielding. In deference to my wife, I cleaned up all the accumulated tools that were sitting on my bench, heh. With any luck Ill get to shield the cavity tonight.
Then I shove the stripped end of the ground wire into its channel to the tailpiece stud holes and bang those ferrules in.
The ferrules for the bridge chipped the yellow around them just a little, but I doubt anyone but me would notice.
Oh, and I triplechecked the pickguard to make sure it will lay flat on the surface, since all the pickups, switches and pots are on it.
Shielding paint today. Waiting for second coat to dry, one more to go.
Dont think Ive told this story on here, but yeeeears ago, it was too expensive for me to obtain a can of the stuff, so I used to spray cavities with glue and then press aluminum foil into a lining and ground that with a ring terminal. It actually worked rather well if you were careful cutting it to fit the cavity. But I'm doing the real thing on this one, lol.
Some people think that aluminium is the best material for hum-shielding. I haven't seen any scientific tests done about the best form of shielding - paint, copper or aluminium, though I'd be interested in any. It's normally just peoples say-so. Any test needs to be done in controlled conditions with the same levels of RF noise present.
As with any shielding, always check your wiring and make sure there are no strands of wire poking from a solder joint that can touch the shielding and short out the signal, or any pots that rotate slightly so that a connection touches the shielding.
Banged the tailpiece ferrules in with their ground wire, then shoved the neck in the pocket and attached one string to check the alignment and fit again. Still not totally sold on the neck pocket, its just a wee bit too tight in one corner and cant be pressed in all the way for a solid base measurement, but I can fix that in due time if needed. On this test fit I could fret all but the bottom three notes cleanly, so that tells me Im not too far off the mark.
Hey Rev, sounds good. Sand the side of the neck heel that is tight, it's important the neck is flush on all edges of the pocket when you drill the screws. A one string test isn't a test, you will need to have it tuned with 6 strings to know how the strings and frets sound.
Just make sure your nut slots are low enough for the strings to touch the zero fret but worry about this when its all assembled and tuned up to test
Its probably that "hump" on the side of the pocket that I noticed earlier. Thought I had good clearance on it now, but the finish has probably accentuated the bulge, even though I had reduced it earlier. No big deal to get in there and find it, though.
After checking it with a straight edge, it appears that vertically, the pocket was slightly convex shaped. Ive mostly fixed that now. Still snug, just sits flatter now. Theres still a slightly wider gap on the high side that bugs me... guess Id better shape the heel just a little more.
Not that I recommend this or anything, but IIRC, didnt vintage Mosrites lack neck bolts? Just held together by string tension, I believe.
Hey Rev, I very much doubt string tension would hold a neck in place without neck screws. The string tension would lift it out of the pocket.
Maybe the vintage ones had less than 4 neck screws. You would at least need 2 screws at the nut end of the pocket
As far as I can make out from searching the web, they had 4-screw bolt-on necks. The necks actually had a tenon to them and the inner pair of screws went through the tenon, so were shorter and so not as strong as 4 longer screws would be.
Some of the Japanese versions compounded this by having very thin bodies, which weren't strong enough to sustain neck attachment if the headstock suffered a strong knock.
Seems to me I read that somewhere, that the neck and bridge werent mounted and as a result, you had to change strings three at a time if you didnt want the guitar to fall apart in your lap. May be apocryphal or perhaps a different guitar type. Either way, no, I am not doing that with this one :)
Trying to complete the wiring today, just three or four connections left to make now that Ive finished shielding and bridge install.
Wiring complete and checks OK. Both pickups are working.
I saw pictures of a hollow or semi-acoustic Mosrite that had a tongue and groove neck fixing. Maybe it was that one. Maybe they should have glued the neck on but forgot. I think the Jazzmaster bridge falls out if you remove all the strings, so maybe it had something like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rev
Glad the wiring and pickups work.. So strung it up and played it yet?
I put a heavy E string on it and ran it through practice amp to make absolutely sure the entire circuit worked. Everything tested OK as far as the electrics.
Now that Ive got neck seated properly Im just waiting for my drill to charge up.
Neck bolted on. While it was sitting flat for me before, now that gap is back on the treble side. Thought the bolts would pull any slighter gapping together, but it didn't.
Anyway, I did put all six on, but the nut slots def need to be deepened and the necks got a fair amount of back bow.
With truss rod loosened Im closer, but I gotta deepen those nut slots for sure.
I'd leave it at least a day without doing anything to it with the strings tuned up to normal pitch. The neck needs to settle under tension before you do any more.
Then the set-up should proceed in the following order:
A) Adjust the truss rod for the correct neck bow - just very slightly concave. Do this slowly, maximum 1/4 turn at a time and wait for the neck to settle down before re-adjusting.
B) Adjust the saddle height to set up your preferred action. To take the high nut out of the equation, it can pay to use a capo on the 1st fret when doing this.
C) Cut the nut slots so that the strings are just above the first fret but not buzzing on it when played. You can then probably reduce the overall height of the nut as well by filing (and then polishing), as you only need the slots deep enough to cover the strings.
D) Set up the saddle intonation.
I was joking with a friend that now begins the delicate dance of nut, truss and bridge.
Anyway, here it is, right before I put strings on... I didn't like the push-on knobs that came with it, but found some similar ones in my parts box that fit a little better after I took the pic.
Attachment 19435
I forgot it had a zero nut (D'oh!), so you can cut the slots as deep as you like as the strings need to rest on the zero fret. It's looking great.
Zero fret might give me some room to work with as far as neck relief goes. What Ill need to avoid is a setup that has the bridge sitting so high that the bridge pickup cant get close to it.
If there is an issue, there's always the option of shaving the neck heel down to change the neck/body angle. Whilst I'd be OK with putting a shim under the back of the neck to increase the angle, I'd be less happy putting a shim at the front of the neck pocket to decrease it, as any gap created by the shim is going to be far more obvious.
Hmm. Hope it doesnt come to that, but I see what you mean. Removing some wood from the neck's butt edge would allow for a lower bridge and a relatively flat neck.
If I shave from the front, Ill have more neck relief available.
Just need to correct your terminology slightly (to avoid misunderstandings). Neck relief refers to the amount of curve in the neck, not to the neck/body angle.
If you shave from the front of the heel (towards the neck), then you'd increase the neck angle with regards to the body and a higher overall bridge height. Shave from the butt-end of the heel (nearest the bridge) and yes, you'd reduce the neck angle resulting in a lower overall bridge height.
One other option is to flat-shave the bottom of the heel so that you keep the same neck angle but the overall height of the neck in the pocket is is reduced, still resulting in a lower overall bridge height. This latter method is fine for small height adjustments (and easier to get right), but you wouldn't want to take off more than a couple of mm in total otherwise you run the risk of the neck screws sticking into or even partially coming through the fretboard.
But see where you are once you've set the neck relief and adjusted the bridge height.
Yeah, I was thinking out loud there about the balance between the two. Most of the time when I adjust necks its to take out some relief, so this is a slightly different ballgame. But Ill be back at it in a couple of hours, left it strung overnight to settle into place.
As far as the wiring goes, the neck minihum was surprisingly boomy. I like that very much, though I wasnt expecting it at all. The bridge pickup sounded terrible to me, but it wasnt anywhere close to where it needs to be in relation to strings. So I dont really take that as an accurate hearing. At least it means I may only have to replace one pickup. Have to test it on my big rig instead of the practice amp.
Pretty cool lookin Mossy Rev.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rev
I keep catching myself thinking "man, if I had same kit with x material and modified this and did Y like that"... lol.
But you can.... ;)
Lol, and I just removed all the taped up newspaper from the balcony...