cazaron LP-1M Build Diary

Thanks Simon.
Very helpful advice. I really appreciate it all mate.

I've ordered a few cans of nitro aerosol, hopefully they'll arrive soon.

Minor check-in on the day off, been doing a little bit of work on it.

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I uh, reliced the front of my LP.

Casually dropped a pickup on it, naturally lands corner first, nice dent just under the bridge.

Sanded it back so it wasn't as bad, restaining the front. Can still see it, but I'm honestly not as annoyed as I thought I'd be. It has character. And while I personally really dislike relicing a guitar deliberately (If it looks beat up from years of love that's awesome, but otherwise, not my thing) I'm really happy to have gotten past the 'everything must be perfect' stage, now it's my beast that I've dented and messed up and did some makeshift fixing for. I'm really bonding with this thing.

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Happy Anzac Day? Not sure if that's how you're meant to say it or not, but so much respect and honour go to the servicemen and women, past and present who sacrifice so much to give our nation peace and prosperity.
You guys are awesome. One day to acknowledge you isn't nearly enough for what you do and did for our country.

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Pickup rings: Does getting metal ones affect anything on the guitar? I'd like to get gold ones to match the pickups; I really like the covered look.

Something like http://www.realparts.com.au/hardware...ched-gold.html are already arched; would these work on my guitar?

On the subject of pickups, how pro-upgrading them are you guys? How expensive do you go?

Hi Caz, those pick up rings wont make any difference, so if you like em , get em!
Pick ups....I've not built a kit yet using the stock ones, I did however use them in budget scratch build and they sound OK.
How much to spend is entirely dependant on your budget. There is a point of diminishing returns I think where after a certain point you are paying for a name or are getting custom made pick ups wound by the Deli llama. I've used Toneriders and Entwhistles from the Pitbull store and been very happy with them, also used Guitar Fetish's own brand and been happy with those so far. I guess it depends on your level playing as well, I personally wouldn't get the best out of a set of expensive Seymour Duncans.

Unless the rings are of a metal that is affected my magnetism e.g. steel, then they'll make no difference to the sound. As I expect they'll either be brass underneath or even a cast alloy, with a gold plate, those will be fine.

A Telecaster bridge pickup is the only example I know of where the pickup often has has a steel plate surround (some are chromed brass) and it does affect the tone of the pickup, but having never heard a Tele bridge pup on its own, or the same pup used with both steel and brass bridge plates, I don't know quite how it affects it.

I do know that I tried to fit a Roland GK-2a MIDI pickup onto a Tele (It has to go between the bridge pickup and the bridge i.e. on the steel plate), and had real trouble getting a reliable signal and had to move it over to a Strat. But that's with the pickup magnets a lot closer to the metal than if you did actually have steel pup rings.

Cheers guys. Might pick up (I'm so sorry) a set of the covered pickups from Pitbull, grab that pickup ring set and see how we go.
I have a little to spend on this project, it's the only hobby I'm financing at the moment :)

Footy today was terrifying. Thrilled with the results though.

Does anyone have any advice for getting stain out of the binding? There's still a fair bit around the tip of the cutaway and I've tried working it with steel wool and haven't had any luck. I don't want to destroy the binding but it seems pretty well in there.

Cheers.

Are there cracks, or it it just sitting on the binding?
If it's just sitting on the binding, you can scrape it quite easily.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNbsZsSabPs

Thanks for the vid because I also need to scrape the binding on my LP-1MQ.

Bought a set of Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates.
I'm only gonna do this once, why not go all out and have some fun with it.

Cost me an arm, a leg and my future firstborn, but I'd argue that's probably worth it for getting a set of what I think are some of the nicest sounding humbuckers there are.

Probably going to be spraying the guitar clear this weekend, very much looking forward to that, then I can finally make an actual start on putting it all together and setting it up.
Gonna be great.

Thanks for the video Zandit, that answered a tonne of questions I had. Am I right in assuming that he didn't mask the binding at all? Or just that the stain inevitably comes through? (not to hijack your thread Cazaron)