New Member Hi to you all

Hello there, I just received my ES1 G kit this morning. Very excited at the prospect of many happy hours in the garage building it. As recommended, I began a mock build layout to see if all the bits were there,(they are.) I had trouble fitting the neck even though the body & neck were matched at the factory (according to the matching numbers.) There are significant gaps on one side. Question, is this normal? I know it's very early to be asking but I really want to get this 100% right & all you good people on here have the experience I believe. I have taken some pictures on my I Phone of the gaps & as soon as I figure out how to upload them here I will do so. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks folks.

Hi Doug, welcome to the forum. A challenging kit you are starting but a cool axe.
Usually most necks have a bit of wiggle room in the pocket so you can line up the strings in relation to the fretboard edges. The bridge is in a fixed position so you need to align the neck with the string offsets to the fretboard.
In most cases glue will fill the gaps, but if the gaps each side are more than 1mm you may have to glue some veneer to sides of the neck pocket.
To upload photos go to 'Go advanced' button below, then 'manage attachements'. Select the location of the photos and hit 'upload'.
In most cases you have to resize the images to below 1MB in size and less than 1500 x 1500 resolution.
Good luck !

welcome Doug, enjoy the challenge

Hi guys, thanks for the replies. I think I have managed to post pictures of the gaps here.

Welcome Doug!

Ahhhhhh yes... these kits are a bit more fiddly than most..
Those gaps are not impossible to deal with.
Firstly, check the scale length to determine whether you need to add or subtract material from the neck heel.
My money is on the latter.
Once you have this sorted, determine where the neck is fouling up in the pocket and start to carefully reshape the areas that are the problem child.
You may also need to clean up the nottom of the pocket rout to get the neck sitting down nice and flush, the fingerboard should be sitting on the top of the body as well.
You may find that this wont go due to the area in the cutaway being slightly taller, so again, carefully remove some of the top material until it sits down.

This is a very brief tute, I am sure you will sort it out.
Yell out if you run into any problems! :D

Thanks for the tips Dingobass, I will do as you suggested when I have completed more of the sanding & staining. I am not overly alarmed by the gaps because, as you suggested, I suspect that I may need to trim somewhere to get the correct scale length. A quick measure this morning indicated that the length was out by a fraction. The fit into the pocket is tight but manageable.

In these pics the neck is firmly seated in the pocket & appears to be at right angles to the body of the guitar. I measured the scale distance 313mm x 2 onto the body, (see pencil mark on guitar forward of the mounting holes for Tune-o- Matic) & this would indicate that the neck is too long at the present time & will need some adjustment. You will also note that one side of the neck stands higher than the other by approximately 2 mm. This is going to take some smart trimming! Wish me luck! Lol. Before I go that far, any other suggestions?
All are appreciated.

I have a couple of questions regarding wiring up my ES-1G. In the instructional videos for 2 Humbucker, 4 pots & a 3 way switch, Adam mounts the pots on cardboard with the contacts facing opposite each other. The PDF wiring diagram shows the contacts all facing north as it were. Question is, does it really matter? Also, on the PDF, there is a note saying that the purple wires can be ignored if the cavities are shielded & the pots are in contact with the shielding. Would it be acceptable to both shield the cavities and earth the pots as well or would that cause problems?

Hi Doug, that video is very old and outdated. It will be too difficult to shield the underside of the control cavity of the ES-1G as the only access is through the F-hole.

Best use the cardboard template and mark out the distances between the holes so you can make the wire lengths a bit longer than these distances. Have the pot lugs facing each other. You will need to run the earth wire from the tailpiece bush to inside the body and solder this to a common earth point (usually one of the volume pots) and the 3 other pots, jack and switch earth wires will also have to be connected so all these are earthed plus the 2 pickups are earthed. Best get some cable ties to tie the wires together where you can will make it easier to install the pots through the F hole.
Also worth testing the wiring works before you install it. Make sure all your solder joins are solid. If there are any wiring issues once it is installed you really need to pull it all out to diagnose the problem.
Get some (think its 5mm) clear plastic tube should fit over the pot shaft to make pulling the pots through the F hole much easier. I'd take one of the pots to a hardware and see what size tubing fits over the shaft snuggly so you can pull it through the holes.

Have a good councillor on your fast dial in case things don't work out hahah

good luck !

Thanks wokkaboy. I actually took a punt last night & mounted the pots on the cardboard as shown in the old video. I measured the distances for each of the holes & have soldered all of the pots with extra length on the wires so that I will have enough wiggle room to get them through the F holes. I will do as you suggest & try the tubing idea plus use cable ties to keep them in some sort of order ONCE I have tested the system out before attempting to fit the pots. Thanks again for your suggestions & your encouragement. At the moment I have begun to apply the clear coats to the body & neck so once that is done I can move onto the next phase. I notice that these guitars have no pre amp. I have 2 x 12 string guitars (Takamine & a small Ashton) which both have pre amps installed. I have no experience of how to test the circuits on the ES-1G once I have wired it up but I noticed on the old video that Adam gave the pick ups a light tap after he finished wiring them up & I am assuming that he had them plugged into his amplifier?

Pictures of the completed unit

Nailed it! That looks great Doug! How does she sound?

Wonderful work Doug, great stuff with the two colour finish.

nice build Doug, assume its a ES-1G kit ? nice choice of colours, what's your next build ?

Hi Doug,

nice build.....time for the next one I'd say:cool:

Great Doug!

Thanks for the positive comments guys. I couldn't figure out how to use this forum correctly & just stumbled upon all these nice comments. Firstly the guitar sounds great, mellow sort of tone to it, great for bar chords. It took me a while to set it up how I want & is a real bitch to keep in tune,(Grover locking machine heads for my next build which is an ES 5V waiting in the cave for me as I type this!) I am planning a sunburst finish on the new one so if you are interested I have just started a my build diary on the new one. The finish on the ES1G is Feast Watson stain, teak for the front & cedar on the back with a few clear coats of gloss sprayed on & then rubbed with 2000 grit wet n dry then I got some MAGUIARS ultimate rubbing compound from Supercheap Auto to give it a nice polish.

Doug, I completely missed this one. Looks great!


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