Printable View
So my kit came and I'm about to get started. Just got back from Bunnings with some water based wood filler and various grades of sandpaper. I have a pre diluted solution of Colortone vintage amber stain and I plan on using boiled linseed oil as a finish for both the neck and body. Today I want to cut out the headstock, sand and stain the neck. Any tips? Wish me luck :cool:
Tips:
Don't sand above 180 g (I go to 240 g) paper before you stain.
Sand more than you think you need to.
Good luck
I went to 400. Staining made the grain stand up so gave it another light sanding with 600, then applied some linseed oil. After 10 minutes I wiped off excess and it is now drying. Will post pics when I get a chance.
So after 3 coats of Boiled Linseed Oil, I've assembled the guitar today. The neck pickup has no output on the B and E strings? All others are OK. Everything else is great. Waiting on a set of nut files. The only thing this could be is missing pole pieces inside the pickup housing, right? Pics coming.
Hi catmeowin,Quote:
Originally Posted by catmeowin
Are you using the kit strings? They often do not have enough iron to get a good output. Is the output for the B & E strings on the bridge pup weaker than the other strings?
I have not heard of a pickup with missing pole pieces!
Really?! I didn't think of that. I am using the cheap kit strings for initial setup etc. Will try changing strings. That sounds much more feasable than missing pole pieces!Quote:
Originally Posted by Trevor Davies
BTW the output on the bridge pickup is perfect.
Here's a video demonstrating the issue. Hopefully you can hear ok.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oJVOuyRl8_c
From the video, I think the neck pup is really close to the low E and quite far from the high E string. This may be affecting the volumes.Quote:
Originally Posted by catmeowin
But, I would be trying good strings.
No the pickup height is even across the strings. I have a fair bit of experience setting up guitars. Will try some other strings tomorrow. Thanks for the ideas.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trevor Davies
My first thought is the strings. But you may have a dodgy pickup.
On the tele (lefty) I am putting together (https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...ad.php?t=12407) I replaced all the electrics and got these pickups from Artist Guitars - https://www.artistguitars.com.au/buy...e-coil-pickups.
Have bolted it all together (photos coming soon) and I must say these pickups are far superior to the kit pickups.
Well you were right. Put on some Ernie Balls and it seems fine. Never heard of such a thing. I figured if there was output from some strings the coil was good so the only other thing it could be was pole pieces. Weird still that the rear pup worked fine. Anyway problem sorted. Cheers Trev!
Rather than upload photos I'll just make a video showing the completed build.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Nn2W0q6hS4c
Waiting on some nuts files to really finish. I didn't do any shaping on the neck so it's pretty much a baseball bat. I like it.
The stock pickups are ok for me. I have other guitars with nice pickups. I don't think any pickups really sound bad, they all just sound different. Within reason. I have heard "bad" sounding pickups.Quote:
Originally Posted by colin2121
Great. I'm glad it is better with some good strings.Quote:
Originally Posted by catmeowin
PS. The guitar looks great.
My file set arrived yesterday. so I've cut the not slots to a good depth and have been able to have a good play. The pickups don't have a lot of output but sound ok for now. I reversed the volume and tone pot wires. IMO clockwise is up and counterclockwise is down, whether the guitar is lefty or not. Any other lefties have an opinion on this? Some left handed players seem to want their controls backwards? All up great kit and fun to build. Already thinking about building another guitar for my brother :)
If your output it low you might want to raise your pickups. Here's what Fender recommends... I'd pick what you think the Artecs are closest too and experiment a bit.
Attachment 45090
I am not a lefty, but I understand that some lefties use reverse audio pots. It means you'd use an audio pot for both volume and tone, but a lot of "righties" do that anyway. Not all potentiometer mfgs use the "A" for audio, "B" for linear designations...but for those that do "C" is for reverse audio. Alphas, Bourns and most cheap Chinese pots use the "ABC" designations. CTS and probably some others don't...but they all make reverse audio pots at least in 250K and 500K flavors.
Looks great.
I know what you mean about the pots. I buy replacement lefty audio pots so they go the correct way. Too much of the guitar world operates against lefties.
Guitar Trade or Real Parts have them in Australia.
You can reverse right hand audio pots but it can cause problems with how the volume increases or decreases. Linear pots can be reverse wired more easily as they move consistently across the pot.
CTS no less. Nice! You'll need to enlarge the pot-hole a little. No big deal.Quote:
Originally Posted by colin2121
It's funny, because I have a genuine Fender 1982 Left-handed Telecaster, plus a 1975 Left-handed Ibanez Les Paul and they both have volume pots that work the conventional way, "clockwise is louder."Quote:
Originally Posted by colin2121
So when I bought Pitbull left-handed Precision Bass and Strat kits several years back, I wondered whose bright idea it was to "reverse" the action of the pots.
Then last year I bought a genuine (Mexican) left-handed Fender Strat, and lo and behold, it has the pots reversed! So at some point Fender decided to swap them around. I wonder why.
And yes, you can't just re-wire a normal clockwise logarithmic pot back to front and expect it to work properly!
I thought I'd done something wrong with my Strat kit because all the pickups sounded really muffled, and of course you have to take the strings off to get at the wiring to investigate, and then of course you can't play it!
Then one day I discovered that the tone pots have to be almost fully anti-clockwise to get any sort of bright sound! Wiring a logarithmic taper pot back to front actually magnifies the non-linear effect of using a linear pot. So it acts more like a switch than a pot!