Well my stuff showed up and I fooled around with it for a minute. I'll get some work done then post better pics but ya have to start someplace. Attachment 43042 Attachment 43043 Attachment 43044
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Well my stuff showed up and I fooled around with it for a minute. I'll get some work done then post better pics but ya have to start someplace. Attachment 43042 Attachment 43043 Attachment 43044
Every journey begins with the first step guitar...
I built the exact same one a few years back if you're interested:
https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...ead.php?t=8146
There are a few quirks with Pitbull's left handed models that you need to be aware of, which are covered in there.
I've just realized I never showed pictures of the final result in that thread. I have them in another one somewhere; I'll have to dig them out.
It's in here:
https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...l=1#post204161
The yellow/green "sunburst" look came out OK, but the yellow centre made it painfully obvious that the body was made from three pieces of wood glued together. So I cut some random scratches through the wax finish along the grain with some extremely coarse sandpaper, and dabbed on some more cyan inkjet dye, which produced fake but realistic-looking green woodgrain.
Nice, good to see another lefty here. Check that the nut is actually cut left-handed, it took me ages to realise when I did my JM-1L that the nut was backwards.
And if it is not a proper lefty nut TUSQ make a very good nut that you can use to replace it.Quote:
Originally Posted by jarro_2783
Is it actually cut left handed, or do they just put it on the other way round?
On both my LH Pitbull kits it was correct, can't say I took much notice.
All hand-waving aside, what is the actual benefit of using a more expensive nut?
That was something I was going to have a look at down the track, but I can't seem to find any information as to what the actual benefit is.
The one that came with mine was actually a right-handed nut put on backwards, so the slots looked right, but it touched at the head side of the nut and the string length was all wrong.
I managed to get a properly cut TUSQ nut from my local guitar shop.
The nut should be a hard material so that it absorbs the minimum of vibration from the string. It should have a characteristic that’s similar to the fret material so that open strings sound the same as fretted notes. It should be hard wearing so the string pressure and movement only slowly cuts into the base of the slot, so you don’t get buzzing on the first frets fairly quickly after it’s been cut. You also want it to have low friction, for better tuning stability.
Unfortunately the standard plastic nut is far too soft a plastic to fulfil those roles. The sonic features are far less apparent on an electric than an acoustic guitar, but there is still a small contribution. But the mechanical benefits remain. Bone is a great natural nut material, and even the cheap bone nuts from Amazon or eBay are far better than the standard nuts you get on the kits and a lot of manufactured guitars. Plastic nuts from the likes of GraphTech are designed to be as hard as bone and low friction.
There is a good reason to swap out any soft plastic nut, but they still need to be cut properly with the slots angled down towards the headstock slightly so the fulcrum point fir the string is right on the fretboard edge of the nut.
Jarro - I had a similar issue with the JM1-L nut - a right hand nut put in back to front. I did the same as you and put in a TUSQ nut and it fitted perfectly.
Simon - thanks for the explanation on the nut materials. I found that when I tapped the kit nut on a hard surface it gave a dull thud. The TUSQ nut gave a clearer sound when tapped. A big improvement in the tone it generated. The other issue with the kit nuts is that if they are right handed nuts put in back to front they will not be correctly angled, affecting tuning and intonation.
Well Ive been busy so have not jumped in on the build yet although I have located some drill bits that I think will work. It appears that the nut is cut the proper way for a lefty but I will replace that with a Tusq for sure. I had to tell myself, "just build it and make a useable guitar so I can trying learning lefty". (and not tear out the frets and redoo it in stainless jumbos hahah). One of the first things will be to walk up to the drum end of a belt sander and fix the body contours. Here are a few pics of my old strat (i think about a 73). I have had since the late 80s, It has a old charvel neck, (before they were serial numbered or called boogie parts). It developed quite a twist over the years and I spent several years untwisting it then refretted it and reshaped the body like the 50s belly/forearm cut. Attachment 43075 Attachment 43076 Attachment 43077 Attachment 43078
I have swapped out most of my nuts for either the Tusq, Brass or titanium replacements.
The tusq is great on my non trem guitars. I have brass on my most recent strat and the tuning combined with the locking tuners is super stable. The titanium is on an EMG powered tele and it rings great.
I wonder if Jimi Hendrix ever reversed the nuts on his left-handed-strung right-handed Stratocasters.
It's not like he couldn't afford proper left-handed Strats, and there is film footage of him playing actual left-handed guitars, so I often wonder what the story was there, particularly since he wasn't left-handed himself.
Obviously there must have been something he liked about that configuration.
Ok, finally had a little time to play with this. So I drilled the neck and mounted it, also mounted my tuners and then took a little time to play around with how it's gonna look as far as the bridge and all that. Tomorrow I'll grab a laser thing that I have used in the past for this same thing and establish a centerline and make some legit markings. I'll need to clean up my drill press as it is in my metal shop and is quite dirty/oily. And I will make my best stab at a nice straight accurate line of 6 holes haha. I'm not new at this kinda thing so I'll just be diligent and try to do a nice job of it. Once I have it strung up and "sort of playable" as I have done no fret work or anything, I will adjust the pickguard (scratchplate? hehe) and put it where I like it because I'm going to make a pencil line of the pickguards perimeter so I that when I tear it down for shaping/sanding I will have a visual reference. After that It will be time to have my way with it and finish it in its initial form. (initial form being the hardware and stuff that came with the kit and my woodworking, later you could always replace that stuff or re-frett it to suit). Grabbed a 12 inch drill bit locally for under 8 bucks for the spring claw screws. So here are a few pics. Attachment 43127 Attachment 43128 Attachment 43129 Attachment 43130 Attachment 43131
It really is best to use thin string or cotton on the two E strings to centre the bridge, rather than try and work out a centreline with a laser etc. You definitely know then that the strings run parallel with the sides of the neck. That’s what you want to achieve, so you might as well use the method that tells you that.
Make sure the saddles are wound almost as far forwards as they’ll go when measuring the scale length, none of this ‘halfway’ business that’s in the guide.
I found that the spring claw screws Pitbull supply are really not up to the task. It may be that they're copies of Fender screws that are OK for the wood that Fender use, but I didn't feel they really gripped convincingly in the wood that Pitbull use.
I had a pack of assorted stainless steel wood screws, some with a much bigger diameter and coarser thread. I had to considerably reduce the head diameter with a bench grinder to make them fit in the space available, but they are really solid. Considering the strain that the spring assembly is constantly under, this might be worth looking at.
Plus what other "helpful" posters sometimes tell you on here (as I discovered ;))Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Yeah the screws are pretty cheesey. As are the tuners but I don't expect much from a low cost kit. Just wanted a neck I didn't have to build from scratch and a easy build as my actual woodshop is not really in a working way right now. I'm not following any specific "guides" as I already know what I want to do. I combined an old strat style neck on a homemade body a few years back and put a tune-o-matic setup on it so its a combo of fender/gibson stuff hahh The laser to throw a quick centerline down the body is more about just my visual references when I start sanding/shaping, I want to know where that strap button is going to end up. Also the wood of the body is laminated together in such a way that its not really inline with the centerline of the guit so it is an optical illusion that makes you think it looks strange hahah. Once I have a few pencil lines as guides the real fun begins.
"As are the tuners but I don't expect much from a low cost kit"
I haven't found anything particularly wrong with the ones on the ST1-L I built, or the tremolo assembly for that matter.
At one point I had visions of upgrading them, but I can't really see what's crying out to be improved.
It is very important that you know how set the tremolo up correctly. Mine rarely gets out of tune, although admittedly I don't use the whammy bar much; I just like the "twangy" sound you get from a floating bridge.
I have a genuine Fender Left-Handed 1982 Telecaster, and while, yeah, some things on it feel a bit nicer than my cheapo Strat kit, the difference isn't massive.
I think the bottom line is pretty much that if you can't play a properly-built and set up Pitbull kit, you probably aren't going to be able to play the real thing either :p
Ok, took a few hours today to brainstorm a bit. Use up some masking tape (few times) and figure out some things. Most likely if I do the headstock as a 4/2 like that, I am going to just buy some locking tuners in the configuration that I want, (mix of left/right handers and heights), and I am considering maybe just buying a better bridge. As I fool with this I start to think well, I can't play left handed at all, while it is in this form I might as well make life easier on myself. (Still resisting refretting the neck in 6100 stainless like I did my old strat (which I call my wife)). Attachment 43172 Attachment 43173 Attachment 43174 Attachment 43175 Attachment 43176
73 strat I bought in like 87 I think for 400 bucks. Old Charvel neck no numbers no boogie parts or anything, and the wonderbar. Seymour duncan hotstack strats (when they were 3 models bridge/mid/neck). It has been Many iterations 3 switchs that would do phase or just series/parr/singletap. Right now it is a 7 tone. It was originally natural finish, it is swamp ash and my mix of linseed oil/turpentine/clear spar urethane. Took months to finish that and finally polish it with steel wool, and waxed with carnuba. Then what will become the lefty. hahah See if I can do it. It's a long road but well worth travelling as nothing good comes from "easy". So It should be fun. Attachment 43179 Attachment 43180 Attachment 43181
You mentioned you cannot play left handed.
Are you planning a reverse Hendrix - lefty guitar played right handed?
You could buy a set of 6 L/H locking tuners and 6 R/H locking tuners, then you have the tuners for both a L/H and a R/H 4+2 headstock guitar.
I had broken my left wrist in the early 90s (for over 6 years). Have not played guitar really since then until a few months back. Always wanted to try lefty to see if I could do that without the pain in the wrist. Also there is a secondary benefit of anything I learn trying to play lefty I can also apply to my normal playing so either way I will learn something. But a reverse Hendrix sounds like some kind of skateboard trick hehehe.
Well hahahah, It's difficult hahah. I don't know how I ever learned to play right handed in the first place. ( I am right handed). I can barely make my right hand form any of the unholy positions to even form a proper chord but its really funny. But without any setup at all, it rings and plays and the intonation is not horrible just by ear doing 12th fret harmonics vs open strings. Now that it is strung up I am going to use this opportunity to play around and figure out what "height" tuners to get with my 4/2 headstock plan. (probably those Hipshots that you can order individually). If I am lucky I can get away with no string tree's at all. Tempted to wire it up so I can really make a horrible noise hahaha. Attachment 43191 Attachment 43192 Attachment 43193
I’ve tried getting away without string trees on both locking and non-locking staggered height tuners but still found the B and E strings needed one. You’d need a neck with a large height difference between the nut and headstock to get away with it and not have the strings buzz in the nut. Normal tuners are better than locking ones if you want to try and get away with it as you can wind the string down to the bottom of the post, whereas with a locking tuner, you don’t want a full turn around the post at all to get the benefit of the tuners on tuning stability.
Though with a 4+2 arrangement, you should be OK.
This is the fun time. When you are in prototype mode and I swear you can bolt a strat neck to a board. ( and I have mocked up necks on chunks of wood and put bridges and such on and made playable logs.). So she plays, I hooked up the electronics and ran it into a Peavey classic 30. So funny how bad I am at it. I am laughing at that "Reverse Hendrix" thing from earlier in this thread because I played it right handed (upside down) and it is surprisingly easy hahah, I have never touched a lefty guitar and you can actually jam right on it right handed if you are used to it (with a little thought). I have chosen some of those hipshot tuners at a few different lengths/heights and hopefully those will be the 6 but I may swap it around, but when those show up, I will do the 4/2 thing to the headstock and then string it up again and play around with it. Then I will know if I want to use some string tree's, I am not against them but just experimenting ha. Simon you mentioned wrapping the strings down the post, that is what I do with my strat now. I need to actually address that someday. It orig had a horrible I think Khaler string lock thing on it that was functional but so not what should be on a flat non angled headstock. But I don't know if someone built my strat and put that early charvel neck on there or if Wayne even did that ( I would love to find out someday). But with that crazy washburn wonderbar (which I grew to love). That strat had incredible tuning stability. If I can dial in the strats "break angle" by replacing its old schaller tuners with varying height ones, I may entertain trying one of those "guitar nutbuster" things and see if it will allow me to back off the wonderbars tuners (have them bottomed now so non-use) and see how it does.
Anyway, long story short. The strat kit plays and sounds pretty good considering what it is. (Meaning one of many times of assembling and adjusting and playing of a non finished raw material kind of guitar.) Sorry this is not in metric but for me I did the distance between the nut and 12th fret as 12 23/32". So for this one it was not 25 1/2" inch (which is just a general thing I know). It was 25 7/16". I have not put a tuner on there and looked at the intonation as I have done no setup or anything to the neck ect. This is more structural (shaping) and inspirational stage (me doing things then looking at it and considering). Got her figured out now so it will be nice to work thru it and get to the final stages. Since this is basswood I will probably use automotive paints. (2 part epoxy primer/sealer and then some nice paint maybe single or dual stage whatever). I am thinking something like the "monaco yellow". Gonna see if I can get down to a half inch thickness at the termination of the forearm and belly cuts. Attachment 43195Attachment 43196Attachment 43194
Was a rainy day so I did a little work. Replaced the 4 tuners that remain in place with the hipshots, then planned out and and finally drew my own version of basically an Ernie Ball kind of thing (to fit what I'm working with). Once I put it back together I will decide about if I want to change the heights of a few of those tuners, or use a string tree on the middle strings. If I do want a tree I will then order a tusq xl nut and some tree's at the same time (been putting that off till I decided). But a little progress anyway. Attachment 43240 Attachment 43241
That should look good when it’s cut out.
I may make a perfect plug or even drill that 5th hole larger and make a plug, from the same material I am going to cut away from the headstock. But I also think maybe just some walnut or something that looks similar to the fingerboard as a plug. (if I am going to make a natural finished headstock. could also just paint it. Also could be a place to fill with the natural material right next door, then do an inlay over
Attachment 43242
A simple plug and a sheet of veneer maybe? If you veneer front and back, you’ll lower the tuner hole height relative to the nut slightly, which might help with the string break angle and not using string trees.
Regarding the "Reverse Hendrix" thing, I've sometimes wondered if the reason Jimi preferred playing right-handed Strats left-handed was simply that the reversed nut would allow an exceptionally low action for the thin E, B & G strings, and an abnormally high one for the bass strings. He made extensive use of "hammering on" on the thin strings, and he used to really pound the bass strings.
Or it may simply be that he learned to play on reverse-strung guitars, and found it easier to keep doing that.
I wasn't like he was short of a quid; if he really felt he needed to play a proper left-handed guitar, he would have been doing so.
I expect that new nuts were fitted and slots cut as necessary. He wouldn’t have used the nut as it was. The slot width for the low E string would be far too wide for a .010” high E, and the high E slot wouldn’t accommodate a .038” low E (his Fender Rock ‘n’ Roll strings did have thin bass strings compared to today’s norm). There would be poor tuning stability when using the trem if the strings just sat on top of the nut, and hammering on the bass strings by the nut would be very hard to do.
It is reported that he preferred the feel of the strings on a R/H guitar strung left handed, rather than using a L/H guitar, but I have no idea if this is true. No difference between them when playing chords but a slight difference in the feel when bending strings. I expect a lot was down to the difficulties of getting L/H guitars, especially in England at the time. Once he started setting light to guitars on stage, he will have got through a lot of them.
I saw Eric Gales two nights ago (superb guitarist but could do with stronger material IMO), and he’s lefty who plays R/H guitars strung as R/H. Weird to watch. A trait also ised ny Albert King, Otis Rush and Doyle Bramhall II.