Mike's Mosrite.

Hiya, everyone. First time poster here.

I just received my MK-2 kit this morning. All parts are present and correct so I'm about to take my first tentative steps.

I've never done anything like this before so I'm pretty far out of my comfort zone and gonna be taking it slowly. If I end up with a vaguely playable guitar I'll consider it a success!

Be kind!

Upon first inspection, the nut is reeaaallly high. I put a couple of strings on (neck and tuners not screwed) and it was unplayable below the 4th fret. I feel like my options are to either file down the string grooves (which will probably lead to constant string breakages) or take the nut off and file it down from the underside. The problem with the latter technique is I have no idea how to get the thing off without breaking it or indeed how to file it down evenly. If anyone has any tips I'd be massively appreciative!

Mike.

Welcome again.

I removed the plastic kit nut from my tele using the instructions in the video here. I don't have a fret puller, so I used a pair of pliers.

Good luck!

It's a Fender style nut, although allied to a zero-fret. The nut slots should be low enough to let the strings rest firmly on the zero fret, but with enough depth below them to hold the nut together. The slots are there just to stop the strings moving sideways. Unless it's been firmly super-glued in, you should be able to knock it out sideways by tapping the ends lightly with a hammer. I normally mask around the nut for protection of the wood, put a large flat-blade screwdriver against the end of the nut and tap it couple of times from either end. Do it enough times and it should come loose. Don't be tempted to knock the nut back or forwards (except maybe very lightly indeed backwards away from the headstock). Just keep it side to side, otherwise you are likely to break off the end of the fretboard).

Once it's out, you'll need to clear the slot and the nut of any glue residue, before filing it down and re-gluing it back into place. Just use PVA or Titebond to do that. If you can clamp it in place when gluing, that's good (beware the nut slipping sideways though). You can normally use string tension for this on normal nuts, but with a zero-fret, the strings shouldn't press down on the nut at all.

Can I just add to what Simon said. When you go to reglue the nut don't go crazy with the amount of glue otherwise it'll be a lot harder to remove in the future if you ever need to. As long as it's a fairly snug fit in the nut slot you shouldn't need more than a couple of tiny drops.

In fact on my kit tele my nut isn't glued in at all because of how firm the fit is on the nut slot. My scratch thinline tele I'll need to use a tiny amount of glue because the slot isn't as tight.

Thanks for the advice, guys!

I've done a dummy run of putting it all together minus the guts and everything fits pretty nicely. Gonna have a crack at wiring it up tomorrow.

So my guitar is finished and looking, sounding and playing great. Very, very happy with it. I had intended to keep a proper build diary but never got around to it. I have a few photos I took during the process that I was gonna stick up now so everyone could see all the hilarious, amateur mistakes I no doubt made but my pics aren't uploading for some reason. They're all saved as jpgs so should be fine. Anyone had this problem before?

Easiest way to post photos in my opinion is to use Imgur as a hosting platform. There is a thread on here spmewhere from Sonic I think it was detailing how to do it.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

Holy crap! 15 days????

That has to be a record around here. :cool:

For the forum to host, the pics need to be less than 1500 pixels on any side and just under 1MB in file size. So you'll need to do a resize on what you've got.

Nice one, cheers. Here are some pics of the process for you all to enjoy!

Attachment 36005

About five minutes after the postie came, checking everything had arrived and that it all fitted together.

Attachment 36006

I now realise that putting the shielding in before painting was pretty daft but I was itching to get started and it was the only job that didn't require any tools. Lesson learned though!

Attachment 36007

I found some old spray sealer stuff lying around so gave the body a once over to see what like it was. It looks pretty manky but it smoothed off the surface for painting onto.

Attachment 36008

Relaxing after a sensual neck massage with lemon oil.

Attachment 36009

The guts. This was my first time ever doing something like this. It's not the neatest job but it works! I expected to make more of a pig's ear of it so left plenty length in the wires so I could have a few runs at it if needed. Next time I'll have a bit more confidence, it's like a circulatory system in there, took a fair bit of wiggling to get all the wires to sit inside the body cavity.

Attachment 36010

I was gonna take the advice that was kindly given to me a couple of weeks ago and file down the whole nut piece and put in string retainers but thought I'd try it by just filing the grooves first. I'm pretty happy with the results, the strings hold in there really nicely. I might swap it out in future but I'm totally fine with this for now.

Attachment 36011

I bought brush on, nitrocellulose paint because it was significantly cheaper than spray stuff and I'm a miserly Scotsman. I did five coats in total, the last three with the paint watered down with thinners. I went over it with some super fine grade sandpaper after each coat. It's not exactly a factory finish but I love the colour and it has a homespun charm (wasabi wabi-sabi, if you will)

Attachment 36012

Et voila! I took this last night. Since then I've buffed her up with some beeswax and taken the springs out of the single coil and set it to maximum height to balance with the neck pickup. I mostly make lo-fi, garage rock stuff and this is gonna be a fine addition to my arsenal. Considering swapping out the bridge pup for a seymour duncan from my Mustang (which is permanently taped into the bridge position anyway so it's surplus to requirements). Perfectly serviceable as is though and I'm gonna spend the next few weeks falling in love with her.


Thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed the learning process. I'm sure it's pretty laughable to some of you pros but I reckon I've got the bug now. Think I'm gonna order a tele next...


Cheers!

Looks good.

No reason brush-on nitro can't be as smooth as spray-on stuff. You just need to do some more fine-grit sanding and then polishing once its been dry for a few weeks (almost any finish takes a few weeks to cure properly before it's hard enough to take a proper shine).

If your shielding is still like it is in the photos, then it can be improved, especially the under-pickguard shielding. Just having the tape there isn't enough. It needs to be grounded so it all needs to be continuous. If you've got any tape left, then it's well-worth covering the whole of the underside of the pickguard with the tape. The bridge single coil needs the most screening, but you've got a lot more copper around the noise-resistant neck humbucker. You'll probably also need a much bigger overlap between pieces to get good continuity. Check with a multimeter if you've got one that all the areas have a low-resistance path to one another.

It's also a good idea to run tape up from the control cavity copper to the top right by a couple of screw holes. That way, the screws are providing strong positive pressure and keeping the cavity and pickguard tape making contact. Pickguards have a habit of bending up a bit in the middle and lifting away from the surface.

Ah, ok. That's good to know. I'll order some online. I did the body first and could tell I was gonna run out so supplemented it with tinfoil. Had less left for the pickguard than I'd hoped. It's quiet as a mouse plugged in for now but it's probably worth shielding it all properly now. Ta for the feedback!