rjl's JMA 12-string

I received my kit in the mail on Thursday. Here's the woodwork items.

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I specified the JMA body, so I'm assuming that this is ash rather than basswood. I understand from the build blogs that you treat these slightly differently, so let me know if you think it ain't ash! Custom order is drilled for tuneomatic and stop tail, so no rout for whammy / springs. Nice work!

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The neck looks nice. I like the headstock profile and the scarf joint is almost invisible. The nut looks to be well prepared. There are some minor irregularities in the positioning of the holes for the machine heads, but nothing to make me want to plug and re-drill here. I doubt I could achieve even this level of precision...

Apparently each post can only include 5 images - so let's move on to the hardware in the next post.

The loaded pickguard and control panel are standard JM.

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I have no idea of the quality of the pickups but am happy to save any swap outs for down the track. I am mildly dreading doing the shielding - I copper shielded my G&L ASAT many years ago and that wasn't much fun - hopefully I'm a bit more patient nowadays!

The pickup selector is a 5 way. I've downloaded the Pit Bull wiring diagram but I haven't tried to analyse the combinations, so am assuming standard strat configuration. I put Kinmans in my G&L Legacy a few years ago. Kinman supplies a wiring diagram which configures the three pots as master volume / master tone / neck pickup blend, so you can get 1 + 3 (which I like) and 1 + 2 + 3 (which I seldom use) as well as the regular 5 position options.

Here's the JM pot plate:

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Any wiring / rewiring is obviously some time away, but happy to hear any comments or tips.

Here's the stop tail and tune-o-matic.

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They both appear to be chunky and well made. There's no individual compensation on the 12-string bridge, but I figure a) that would probably cost as much as the rest of the guitar and b) I'm probably not going to head up to the dusty end on the wound strings anyway, so my attempts at 8 Miles High are unlikely to be thwarted by this particular feature!

Acting on advice to a newbie, I checked the machine heads as shipped and - we have six of one and half a dozen of the other! Haven't tested them yet - am confident they will be fine...

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I laid out the components to get a feel for how the ensemble will work together.

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Having watched a couple of videos on finishing, I'm inclining to go with the DingoTone, but haven't decided between clear natural or possibly the Coolangatta yellow. Natural is ahead by a nose at this point.

No rush with this... happy to take 6 - 8 weeks. Will keep y'all posted with my progress and / or procrastination.

looking good Rjl, I think a stain will look better than natural but your choice. Have a look at some of the Dingotone colours available. Something like bushfire sunrise would look cool with the red pearloid guard

Looks like a great kit RJ. I have never considered this combination before, but I like it! I do love a 12 string in any configuration and a JM is as cool as it gets. The body wood does look like basswodd to me ata glance, but I could be wrong. Will be following your build with interest!

cheers,
Gav.

How freaking cool is this build!!!!!

mega mega mega mega.

I know what you mean about being undecided about a finish, i've been back to the drawing board on my SGD-612 so many times its not funny. But its worth it to get it right as most probably it will stay that way forever.

Can I just mention one thing about DT that you may not have considered. I think the stains are by far eons better than a multitude of options i've tried. One thing that does not translate in the photos is the lustre of the stuff. I often take my LP-1SS (Karijini Red) and hold it under the light and twist it back and forward, the wood grain looks like silk and shines with the turns.

Anyway, its all info for you man. good luck.

Yep, as Gav said, the body is Basswood. It is a lot softer than Ash but can still come up with some surprisingly nice grain at times. The standard wiring for the JM is set up as a master volume with two tones, but it can be easily modded to master volume, master tone and blend with the stock parts if you want.

Ok, so I've sanded the body with 180 and 240. I'll do the neck tomorrow and then start on the 400.

All seems to be going well, but I'd appreciate any tips on the best technique for sanding the inside of the cutaways (apologies if this is covered in a standard tutorial that I've missed).

YES! more people need to build offsets... and this is extra different, love it.

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I've been dutifully sanding away - I'm sure there's more to come - and am wondering what to do about this mark on the headstock.

Some of it has come out with 180-grit sanding - do I just keep going?

Is there any real risk of taking off too much wood with a 180 grade assault?

Or should I be trying some kind of bleach?

Probably just 1 to 1.5mm maximum depth you would hope. I would keep sanding with 120 or 180 with a flat cork block for a bit to see if those lines start to disappear. Try not to overwork the immediate area as that will cause a drop in 'sea level' if not too careful as I found out the hard way on an earlier build.

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Natural stain'n'grain.

I notice now that the 2nd plank from the bottom has been sawn at 90 degrees to the other three, hence the absence of grain. (It's also clear when you look end-on at the cutaway). I don't think this will be too visible behind the pickguard etc, but imho it is a minor QA fail (and one that my initial inspection didn't detect).

My house is around 20C during the autumn / winter, so I guess I'm in for a lot of waiting between applications of Dingobrew...

... so I might pop over to "plug your band" to mention an upcoming outing on June 5th. Probably sans 12-string, alas.

looking good RJI, I wouldn't worry too much with the variation of grain, once the pickguard is on and all buttoned up doubt it will be as noticeable.

That finish looks great! Is that the natural DT? IMHO that basswood grain looks awesome.

cheers,
Gav.

Sometimes you get lucky with Basswood as you have on this occasion. The natural stain works really well too.

Well, I did order ash! 😉

Natural dingo tone. The first coat soaked up about 2/3 of the bottle, so I may as well splash the rest on at the weekend.

I notice the neck absorbs barely any of the stain - presumably because the maple is less porous.

Spot on. They don't call it rock maple for no reason. You will also find that 1st coats are extremely thirsty and 2nd should go on a bit easier and spread further.

RJI I'm pretty sure the body is basswood looking at the raw pics early in the diary. There may have been a mix up at the factory. I wouldn't worry too much the grain looks pretty good.

I appear to have had a senior moment yesterday, discovered today, in which I applied the first Dingotone finish coat instead of the first intensifier coat.
The good news is that it looks great; I'd be quite happy if the finished article looks like this.
However, in the interests of doing the job properly, will skipping the intensifier cause any problems down the line?
Should I:
a) proceed with the next layers of finish and on to completion?
b) put a coat or two of intensifier on top of the finish and then resume with the finish?
c) sand the finish off and resume with the intensifier?
Votes for a) will be favourably regarded, but will do b) or c) if necessary...

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Well, in answer to my own question, it looks like skipping the intensifier is a pretty bad idea.
Time for option c) - a bit of sanding.
Don't hold your breath...

hey RJL, maybe the cool weather in Melbourne hasn't helped the curing process of the final coat. I'd lightly sand it back with fine steel wool and go back to the intensifying coats. Unfortunately there are no shortcuts finishing a guitar

Looks like the coat before applying final was still green. It does take a bit of time to cure between coats. Be careful with the 0000 steel wool as it may be better to wait for things to dry out first otherwise you may risk things rolling up into little gummy balls of goop.

Thanks for the suggestions! Will try to find a warm resting place for it till the weekend. One lives and learns...

Thought I'd post a quick status update on the 12 string project.

I got fed up with waiting for the finish to dry so I put it together anyway. In my impatience I whacked in the bridge posts without laying the ground wire through the channel first. D'oh!

Strung it up and found a couple of problems. Firstly, the nut was cut way too high, so I deepened the grooves using the edge of freshly cut strips of sand paper. Secondly, the action, whilst playable, was about 5.5mm at the 12th fret with the bridge bottomed out.

Fortunately I have a very competent amateur luthier friend, who not only supplied a blank for a shim but also tapered it on his belt-sander. So it plays very nicely now and is reasonably in tune for those all important open string chords.

Next steps - learn how to adapt my (limited) technique to playing 12 string! And – when the Melbourne weather gets warmer – disassemble it and have another go at finishing the finish...

Apart from neck alignment, all errors were my own, and one of these days I may try another kit. I like the idea of a Firebird with Seymour Duncan p-rails with tripleshot wiring and palm-benders.

On the other hand, I would just as soon pay someone else to make it for me whilst I go off and earn the money to pay for their services. I'm strictly a software sort of guy: this hardware business is too hard!

Might need to buy a Capo if you don't have one already as 12's sound great on open root chords but not so good on barre chords higher up the neck. I feel your pain and frustration as we all have had some set backs with at least one or more of our builds. Thankfully this forum has some fantastic contributors who are full of great advice on how to work around or solve almost any issue.

Warmer weather should soon arrive in Melbourne and hopefully that will help speed up the curing process.