First Build - AG-1

Ok, about to kick off, starting prep work now, did a really rough mockup just to get a bit of idea and look for obvious issues. Nothing to concerning from what I can see (i realised I had the pickups in wrong way around after bit more research).

Decided I am going to use a shellac (french polish) attempt, even though not much in the grain to work with, hoping to get a nice shine on the timber while keeping colour fairly neutral. As a first build want to do something simple and relatively easy yet time consuming which is fine. Will keep track of issues and plan on asking heaps of questions

Thanks

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...d49a04ac_c.jpg20220603_133631 by Grant McDonald, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...d8d8cbe6_c.jpg20220603_133620 by Grant McDonald, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...b3e538ae_c.jpg20220603_133638 by Grant McDonald, on Flickr

Hi grantxx and welcome!
I like the grain of the headstock, and while there's not much on the body, it may pop up once you start sealing it. Good luck!

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Originally Posted by Juanito

Hi grantxx and welcome!
I like the grain of the headstock, and while there's not much on the body, it may pop up once you start sealing it. Good luck!

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Cheers mate, I really like the headstock and neck looks like will come up a treat.

After reading many of the other builds, such as Simon's I am seeing a lot of initial setup work such as measuring / bridge height / fret levelling had not thought to much about that stuff lots to learn

Some of the kits are fine, some are a bit variable. I can't recall any issues with the AGs. Your bridge and tailpiece posts look to be in the right place. The time to find out about any problems id before you start to put it together.

A little bit of progress, have about 10 or so coats of shellac on both the neck and body, neck s coming up great, body is getting there, but such soft wood, need some suggestions on a suitable clear to give it a bit of protection, only has shellac on it at the moment, so I am pretty sure I can use just about anything as a top coat. Happy with it so far

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Front Face

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Back

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Neck Front

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Neck Back

Polyurethane is probably the hardest finish that’s easy to apply. Then possibly TruOil (after a couple of months), acrylic and nitro. Not sure where the other oil finishes (tung, linseed etc.) are.

Wipe-on poly is probably your best bet if you are limited by the weather and opportunities to spray. You can buy it, but you can make your own more cheaply from 50% oil(not water) based poly and 50% turps. McCreed should be able to confirm that as he uses it all the time.

But enough coats of any of those left to full cure/harden should give a fairly protective finish. You just don’t want too thick a coat as it can damp body resonances and rob the guitar of some sustain.

Next step for, body and neck are done and had a week to cure, polished up and I am pretty happy with the finish, a few spots not to happy with but great learning this fine wood polishing skills. Went with water based poly top coats, wiped on about 20 coats with 0000 stell wool rub each coat. Will load up some pic's later

Now getting ready to wire up and install neck (fixed), have the bridge and saddle in and want to mark location of the neck pick up to ensure it fits nice and snug against the neck.
My question where do I find the lenght from saddle or bridge to the nut, I have searched and searched and cant find a reference, any help appreciated.

Hi grantxx,

the AG scale length is 628 mm. I'm sure all the G-style guitars from Pitbull are the same.

Or 24 3/4” in imperial measurements.

Thanks - just a little more clarity, am I measuring from inside the nut to bridge edge, or top of saddle

It's the length of the vibrating string, so the fingerboard edge of the nut to the forward edge of the top/high E saddle. The T-O-M bridge is slanted, so only the high E string will be at the scale length (and after being intonated it may sit very slightly back from the nominal scale length by a very small amount, between 0-1mm). So measure from the high E slot to the high E saddle, as that's where the string will run from/to. The saddle can obviously be moved, but you'd want the high E set somewhere near the front of the bridge, as the other saddles will normally be set further back than this when intonated.

The slanted bridge helps with the small saddle adjustment range of the original ABR-1 style Tune-O-Matic bridge (which the AG-1 kit comes with a copy of). The later Nashville style T-O-M bridge has a couple of extra mm of saddle travel. If, when it's built, you do struggle with intonation, then swapping to a Nashville bridge is an option (though I've never had an issue with intonating an ABR-1 style bridge).

Fantastic info as always, thanks Simon

About to set the neck, having read a lot of issues with action height I am need a bit of a hand. SO what I have done, scale lenght set to 628 mm (24 3/4") at high E. Neck is currently straight no curve. Is visually straight with high and low E fitted and space for pickup is OK fits with no gap front or rear.

With the heel clamped flat in the pocket, I see action height of + 6mm at the body end, at the nut end approx 3 mm, still have original nut in place will replace with bone nut. Saddles are set as low as possible.

I am thinking the neck angle is not right and needs to be lowered at the head stock, my plan is either to sand the heel (very carefully) to give me this angle, or place a wedge shaped shim at the back of the pocket to give me the angle needed. Still undecided best attack plan here.

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So put a shim in (still not glued), clamped up and now have this result, shim is 3mm to 0 ish set high end to the body, seems to be looking ok, action is a bit low, but leaves me lots to adjust with saddles as low as possible, neck is flat and nut yet to be worked, along with frets dressing etc.

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Some of the final finish on the body and neck. I used - Shellac - mixed at roughly 125gram of shellac to 1/2 L of Metho, about 20 coats over 10 days, light 1200 wet and dry sand after each 5 coats. Then used water based poly - wiped on, 50/50 mix of brush on thinned with water, this took a bit of trial and error to get finish I wanted. 5 or 6 coats of poly wet sand with 0000 steel wool between coats. Final coat of poly let dry for 4 days then used a fine grade cut and polish (maguiers I think) and lots of elbow grease, came up ok. HAs a few marks and minor bumps and swirl marks, I could probably work a bit more on it if I wanted to to get it better, but was keen to build it. :D

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The strings look a long way from the body at the bridge end, though I can’t see the bridge in the photos. How high was the bridge set?

Also, clamping only the tenon and not the end of the fretboard as well, you can force the headstock end up a bit, and even a small change in neck angle in that direction can raise the action significantly (for a given bridge height).

You’ve now got a nice shiny body, so there’s nothing stopping you inserting the bridge bushings so you can fit the bridge properly (not forgetting to first install the bridge grounding wire) and get a better idea of the action with the bridge set at its lowest and seeing where a straight edge set flat along the fretboard hits the bridge area.

Hi Simon, planned clamping arrangement

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Bridge Height and saddle height set up - also clamped with shim in place.

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Just another point, with straight edge along the neck it aligns just below top of saddle - saddles set as low as possible

That all sounds pretty much spot-on. Should be perfect once you get the nut sorted with a little bit of height needed on the bridge. It's good to be able to lower the bridge slightly from your ideal height, rather than have it flat on the body, but you don't want it sitting too high.

The higher the bridge, the more it can rock back and forth due to the play between the height adjustment post screws and the inserts. They are always looser than normal threads to allow for a bit of misalignment in the hole positions and angles. The more thread you have making contact, the more stable the bridge will be.

The strings themselves move the bridge back and forth as they vibrate, as the string tension changes at double the string frequency, and the tension changes try and move the bridge each time. I'm not 100% sure of the effect on sustain, but I just feel happier if the bridge feels steady and can't be moved.

If very loose, I tend to wrap plumber's PTFE tape around the threads to take out the slack. The tips of the threads poke through the PTFE and make contact with the inserts so the bridge remains grounded.

Great - all glued in and clamped, now to wait 24 hours

Looking good Grant!

Thanks mate

I am getting close to finished, setting up strings / inntonation etc, but seems I have a poor glue join, I am getting some slight movement between the neck and body. Started with a creak and once tuned all strings I can move the neck ever so slightly.

Am think best fix is to add some screws and a plate, to firm it up - will order these or similar, however currently out of stock.

I do have an old squier strat amd thinking I might borrow these. I did buy this kit as I wanted a set neck

I this a new issue or have I missed a step somewhere when setting the neck, I used the PB supplied glue. It was clamped for over 24 hours, and I left it alone for about 4 days. I was thinking of pulling the neck off and resetting, but likely be back to same issue, I cant see what i could do different to make the joint stronger apart from using a better glue.

Thought anyone please.

I suppose the question is whether the pocket floor and pocket heel were both flat, so you got maximum contact between the two. Sometimes, the tenon extension can curve upwards, giving a gap somewhere on the join that gives a weak glue area.

And I can see in the pictures that you left the finish off the neck pocket on the body, but I don’t know where you stopped with the finish on the neck itself. The further into the pocket area the finish goes, the weaker the joint will be (one reason why I prefer to glue my necks on before adding any finish, so I get the maximum glue area - important on a guitar like an SG with a small contact area). Wood glue sticks to the cellulose in the wood, so you need bare wood to bare wood. Glue on the finish is very weak.

I would certainly have a go at resetting the neck. You might see some cracks opening up already when you pull the neck. You could try steaming it over a pan of boiling water (it’s mainly the heat that weakens the glue, but the steam helps to carry that into cracks).

Then check for both mating surfaces being flat and being clear of finish. If you need to level a surface, then double check the neck angle afterwards.

I’ve always assumed that the glue Pit Bull supply is original Titebond (the red label one), but I’m now not 100% sure. So I would go and get some of that.

If you are really happy with the neck angle, you could use epoxy instead, as that will bridge small gaps with a strong bond that Titebond won’t. But you won’t be able to get the neck off again.

The problem with standard Fender-sized neck plates is that the hole spacing is too big (I think) to get all 4 screws into the thick part of the neck, so you’d need much shorter screws at the back, and probably shorter than normal screws at the front as the overall body+neck depth is less on an SG than say on a Strat.

Hi Simon, yeah 99% certain I got everyting sitting nice and flush, in the heel, glue was squeezed out both front and rear at the heel. The fit side to side was not tight and slight side to side movement when at correct scale length.

I reckon as I have movement even though slight the glue joint wont be hard to break apart. As far as the neck and heel go pretty much all clear of any coating and just raw timber, was a little overlap less thn 10mm

Maybe dodgy batch of glue.

As far as the plate goes yeah would need shorter screws, particulaly at the back, the fronts would just hit the fret board at a guess, easy enough to get shorter screws. I think I shall pull the strings off and have a good look at it and solutions, very frustrating, so close to being finished.

I know the feeling. It's often one step forward, two steps back if you want end up with a really good guitar.

What colour was the glue? Titebond is yellow-white,. Standard PVA is white, Titebond also do a liquid hide glue, which is good, but it doesn't have a long shelf-life, maybe 6 months from manufacture. That's a transparent brown colour.

Got the neck off, glue was spread perfect through the pocvket on the body and zero penetrate on the neck - weird

Looking at the neck I reckon the problem is I had sanded the heel with 1200 with the rest of the neck, then taped it up to prevent any coating so the glue had very little to bond to as it was nice and smooth

The plan will be to rough it up both neck and pocket, use an epoxy just to assit the minute gaps in the edges, set it all up and clamp it again and x fingers I dont ever need to remove it.

Plan is use

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

I know the feeling. It's often one step forward, two steps back if you want end up with a really good guitar.

What colour was the glue? Titebond is yellow-white,. Standard PVA is white, Titebond also do a liquid hide glue, which is good, but it doesn't have a long shelf-life, maybe 6 months from manufacture. That's a transparent brown colour.

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The glue looks like titebond, is a creamy white colour,

I had just sorted the intonation on the low e, and a when she creaked again. so close, string height was great, oh well.

Yes, probably too smooth a surface. 120 or 180 grit should do it on the bottom of the heel. Maple has less pores/crevices than the body wood, so you need to make it a bit rough.

Well pretty much done, still sorting action etc, I think nut is still to high, looking for tips to set height correctly, searched heaps on here and internet, plenty of variety of how to set it up, any real life tips from the brains trust on here will be appreciated. Especially anyone who has set up one of these, this one seems a little hard to get right at both ends.

Overall pretty happy with it, it is not going to be a guitar of month contender but learnt heaps for the next one. Still playing with set up not quite happy yet, which is why truss rod cover is still off. My soldering while it was rough worked as everything operates as it should, there wont be pictures of that area.

After I had to redo the neck - used epoxy 2nd time around, is permanent now, but doing the rework it is just not as neat as first time at the join of neck to body, and having to handle it a bit more has caused a few marks on the finish. I realised way to late I should have done something with the headstock, just didnt cross my mind when I started on it. The locking tuners are great and worth the extra $$ in my opinion.

Next one is on the way ordered one of these DSCM-1E, now searching around for inspiration of how to finish this one.

Thanks so much to those on this forum who provided guidance, particulalry Simon your knowledge is appreciated.

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Hi Grantxx,
your AG-1 looks very nice.

Good luck with the DSCM-1E. Another set neck, similar soldering for the electronics etc - should be a breeze. FWIW, I think natural mahogany looks very nice.

For the AG-1 and the high nut. The process you use will depend on the tools you have. Do you have any nut slot files and feeler gauges?
If no nut slot files you can knock the nut off (using a wooden block with a gentle tap from a hammer along the line of the fret board - this can damage the finish around the base of the nut (!) so best to try and score the join between the nut and the headstock). Then very carefully sand the bottom of the nut so as to lower the action (take care to keep the base of the nut flat). You need to keep checking the height to ensure it does not get too low. Then re-glue the nut to the neck.

I usually sand the base of the nut, and then use nut slotting files with a method suggested by McCreed. Hopefully others will chime in with their method.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trevor Davies

Hi Grantxx,
your AG-1 looks very nice.

Good luck with the DSCM-1E. Another set neck, similar soldering for the electronics etc - should be a breeze. FWIW, I think natural mahogany looks very nice.

For the AG-1 and the high nut. The process you use will depend on the tools you have. Do you have any nut slot files and feeler gauges?
If no nut slot files you can knock the nut off (using a wooden block with a gentle tap from a hammer along the line of the fret board - this can damage the finish around the base of the nut (!) so best to try and score the join between the nut and the headstock). Then very carefully sand the bottom of the nut so as to lower the action (take care to keep the base of the nut flat). You need to keep checking the height to ensure it does not get too low. Then re-glue the nut to the neck.

I usually sand the base of the nut, and then use nut slotting files with a method suggested by McCreed. Hopefully others will chime in with their method.

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Thanks Trevor, yeah have purchased the PB nut files, they are OK but not the best quality or preciosion but I think they will do the job, I have the bone nut and is set in place with PVA so still can remove it if needed, I shall try and find mcreeds tips, cheers

Found this link = How to Adjust the Nut Height on a Guitar , seems like a sensible approach as it rules out potential neck bow and bridge errors, will give it a bash. WOrst that can happen I get a new nut

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Originally Posted by grantxx

Found this link = How to Adjust the Nut Height on a Guitar , seems like a sensible approach as it rules out potential neck bow and bridge errors, will give it a bash. WOrst that can happen I get a new nut

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Yep, this seems like the typical process. As the video mentions others use different useable heights.

I cannot find the heights reference on this forum. I had copied this into a word document that I keep my building notes on:
McCreed’s 1st string Action:
"The measurements I aim for are: .008" on the E/A; .006" D/G and .004" B/E. Some people set a different height for each string to create a more true radius (eg: .008; .007; 006 so on...) but my stepped method works for me."

Hopefully this is not a misquote!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trevor Davies

Yep, this seems like the typical process. As the video mentions others use different useable heights.

I cannot find the heights reference on this forum. I had copied this into a word document that I keep my building notes on:
McCreed’s 1st string Action:
"The measurements I aim for are: .008" on the E/A; .006" D/G and .004" B/E. Some people set a different height for each string to create a more true radius (eg: .008; .007; 006 so on...) but my stepped method works for me."

Hopefully this is not a misquote!

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Based on that info and the video, mine is way high still. I shall remove - sand the bottom until close and then fine adjust with the files

Thanks again

Sounds good.
Lately, when I do my neck preparation (fret levelling, filing, polishing etc), before any finish is applied, I also check the Nut to Fretboard action (this does not need strings to be fitted). If way too high I will remove the nut and sand the base, otherwise I will leave it and only do the 1st string action process when doing the final setup.

My "rough" Nut to Fretboard action is JUST above 1.6 mm for first (low E) string, and 1.4 mm for sixth string. I have some bass string offcuts that I use to do a simple check. (NOTE: This action is calculated from a fret height of 1.2mm + 2x (first fret action)).

Thanks again Trevor, got the nut sorted, have 008" E A D and 006" ish for G B E, I seriously could not truly get a reading below that anyway, I am happy with that. Ended up with a bit of Buzz on Low E, A and a little on G - had the neck set pretty much flat, so gave the neck a bit more relief is pretty much sorted, but will let it all settle before I tweak it anymore. I can raise the bridge a smidge if needed.

Intonation is pretty close, will tweak that to get it right, got plenty of play either direction with the saddles.

I need some new strings first, after all the tighten and loosen to do the nut I am pretty sure they wont last long now.

Totally agree, as far as doing all this work before applying any finish, as I have put a few little marks and dings in it just be handling it etc, thinking I will set the neck as well before applying finish.

Cheers

This is my general method.

I have a decent set of nut files, so I always cut from the top, not sand from the bottom.

Like Trevor, if the strings are sitting really high then I'll cut the nut slots down first so they aren't too far above the fretboard.

Then I'll juggle the truss rod and bridge height to get the lowest action I can before finally cutting the nut slots.

I'd always recommend getting the truss rod setting finalised first before doing the final nut slot height, even if you use the 3rd fret method. Probably because I like my actions really low so the open strings are only just missing the first fret. Any slight change in neck curvature can still affect the relative heights, even if only by a very small amount.

As long as the frets are level, you can get away with an almost flat neck. Not everyone likes this, and some people prefer to have a decent amount of air under the strings.

With an almost-flat neck, the upper frets are the ones that determine the lowest bridge height, so I start with those and check that the strings all sound clearly with no buzzing, and that I can bend the strings to my normal extent without them choking. If so, I try lowering the bridge and repeat the process. Once I start getting some buzzing or choking (normally the latter), I raise the bridge very slightly and then see what's happening on the lower frets.

Any choking or buzzing and you either have a high fret, or more likely you need a touch more fret relief. But if they all play cleanly, then for the lowest action, you can use the truss rod to try straightening the neck a small amount. Straightening the neck pulls the strings down towards the frets, so then go back to the upper frets and see if they are OK. If not, raise the bridge a touch until they are fine.

Then back down to the lower frets and see how those are. If fine, check how straight the neck is and if you think that the neck could still be straightened a bit, then give it a go.

This is an iterative process, so it may take a little while to get the balance right.

I'll then let the guitar sit strung up under full tension for several hours (ideally overnight) as the neck may move a bit over time. Then check that the guitar still plays well, and adjust again if necessary.

Only once this is all OK do I then start on the nut slots. I mask off the headstock face up to maybe 6cm from the nut, as it's very easy to mark the headstock with the file ends when filing down at an angle. Unlike some here, I just file the slots down a bit at a time, just looking at the 1st fret string height and using my eyes to gauge whether the slots can come down a bit lower. This can sometimes result in a slot that's too low, so I'll replace the nut (I work on quite a few guitars for friends so have a stock of spare bone nuts). If it's an older guitar, I may use the superglue/CA and baking soda trick to fill the slot and start again rather than replace the nut.

After this, I slacken off the strings, pull them to the sides, mask off either side of the nut and file the top of the nut down so it's about level with the top of the strings (some take it down a bit lower so 1/2 the string sits out of the slot), then reshape the rear of the nut with a file so it's rounded off again (slightly on a Fender-style, more so on a Gibson-style), and do the same with the outer ends and rear edge of the nut so that there are no sharp edges to stick in your fingers or be more likely to catch on clothing I then sand with increasingly fine grits and Micromesh until the nut is nice and shiny.

I then put the strings back on, retune and set up the intonation. There is no point doing the intonation until you've got the final action and nut height sorted, as the action determines how hard you need to press down on the strings to fret the notes, and with that, the tension increase in the strings as a result. As this tension increase is a large part of the reason you need to set the intonation up in the first place, it's important that you work using the final set-up. If you set it up with a high action and then adjust the action to a very low one, then the intonation will be too much and you'll need to repeat the process. So you might as well only do it once at the end.

Then just enjoy playing the guitar!

Hi Simon, thanks again, your input as aways is much appreciated. Getting the balance right is a challenge for sure, but following a structured process is gold. I have learnt so much doing this first one, really looking forward to the next one and applying the learning. I am thinking I should invest in some better quality nut files, as I have a couple of guitars I can sort out with my new knowledge, plus I am certain I wont stop at 2 new builds.

I left mine overnight and seems to be pretty close after slight truss rod tweak, now I believe the nut height is correct, i am going to go over the whole process of set up one more time, I think I can still get it a bit closer to what I want, action still not quite right.

Thanks