G-Axe's Second Build - EX-1

So after getting a bit of Christmas money, I thought I'd splash out on my second PBG kit - an EX-1, and it has a tough life ahead of it.

So here's how it looks:

Attachment 16452
Attachment 16453

The fretboard has very pronounced striping in the grain. Looks pretty cool.

Everything is in pretty good order. There's a couple of small dings and glue spots, and some black smudges here and there, but it's all cosmetic. The neck fits very well, nice and snug - and the scale length seems right on the money. All of the other hardware should fit too, so I'll get cracking on the irrevocable changes.

First of all, I've never been a huge explorer fan, but picked one up randomly in a music store last year and found it ridiculous comfortable to play. So I'm going to do a bit of reshaping - I'm going to give the bottom horn more of an iceman shape, and then make a few other alterations to fit the theme. It won't be quite like the Destroyer/Iceman hybrid that bloke from Mr Big used to play, but it won't be too far removed either.

For the finish, I'm going with a custom vinyl decal - with a graphic black and white pattern, and I'll be making a purfling cutter to trim the decal back to about 6mm in from the edge to expose some red paint underneath to give it a border like a binding. I'll use a bit of leftover vinyl on the headstock, and do the neck in cheap nasty satin black from the green shed.

Oh, and I'm going to be gigging with it next weekend, so it's not really going to be properly finished. But it's sure going to have some character!

First stop, scroll saw!

Sounds like an interesting look coming up and a busy week!

your plans sound cool G-Axe, look forward to see how the vinyl comes up. My very first kit was a EX-1.
How do you plan to be gigging with it next weekend surely you won't finish it by then ? the old golden rule is take your time !

Good to welcome along another member to the ever expanding Explorer owners club.

Geez, aiming to be finished in a week is ambitious given the amount of sanding and then set-neck curing time required because if you tension that baby up too soon it may end in tears.

Yeah, pretty amibitious/foolhardy, and I'm going to be sent to the naughty corner multiple times throughout the week. The only thing I wont be taking liberties with is setting the neck.

Photos soon. Yesterday I picked up the vinyl and finished shaping the body. And of course my phone battery ran out as soon as I tried to take a photo.

Today, sanding, sanding, sanding.

Shaped and sanded to 120 grit. The bulk of it was done on a scroll saw. The Basswood is nice and soft, so that tiny little blade went through it like butter. To make sure my curves were nice and clean, I dusted off my hole saws and whipped up a handful of sanding drums by bolting together some circles cut out of MDF and gluing sandpaper to the outside.

Next step is to throw some Zinssers on it, let the end grain swell up and then sand it back again, then recoat and sand back to a nice high grit. Hoping the 37 degree weather in Canberra does me more favours than harm. Paint is drying between brush strokes.

Attachment 16470

I've also resprayed the chrome hardware with the same Duplicolor Metalcast "candy" coat I used on my strat build as a smoky burst. It's given it all a nice gunmetal grey sheen. While the Zinssers dries, I'll be wiring up the pots on a bit of cardboard. I've also just discovered that ordering with no pickups also means no pickup rings, so I've jumped on eBay to get a set express posted. My worst case is screwing them straight into the timber with an appropriate spacer, but let's hope it doesn't come to that.

looks cool the re-shaping G-axe, that lower horn is very Iceman ! Also cuts on the bottom and top edges look good too !

I would round the sharp edge on the lower horn closest to the neck pocket a little, but that's personal preference

who did the decking the screws aren't very aligned !

Looks like there's a step there bro. :D

Shaping up very nicely..............ha.

Just be aware that spraying the bridge will probably mean that it's going to be hard to get a good ground connection for the strings unless you scrape some of the paint away.

good tip Simon, as long as the bridge makes good metal contact with the bridge posts should be fine. Depending if the earth wire comes from the tailpiece post make sure strings make good contact with the tailpiece.

Almost 9am in UK so you usually chime in about now Simon, been a dead quiet day on the forum todaz !

Yep, 8.58am now, Woks. I had noticed there weren't that many posts when I first looked.

Paint on screw threads isn't going to make the bridge easy to intonate either. All depends on how much G-Axe sprayed and whether he masked anything off.

Okay, so it's been a busy few days.

Tuesday arvo I slapped on some Zinssers, let it dry, sanded back, gave it another coat and let it dry overnight.

Attachment 16533

Wednesday I got stuck into the sanding in a big way, and got it to a reasonable standard. A few visible dents and scratches, but I'm working to a deadline - so near enough is good enough. I sprayed a few coats of a nice regency red "pearl" rattlecan onto the body, taped and hung the neck to give it more of the same. At this point I'm pretty happy with the colour and sheen that the paint has. (no photos at this stage - anytime I wanted to take some snaps it was either too dark, or my phone was dead. :/)

So I push on, and around midnight, after a few hours to cure (yeah, I know) I sat down with one of my vinyl decals. My estimations were pretty good, the bridge and tail positions are slightly different to my original estimations, so I can't quite align the centre of the pattern between the two, but it still looks the goods. Happy with the position, I take off the backing and slowly and meticulously stick it on, smoothing out the bubbles and trimming the edges as I go. I trim around the neck pocket, poke holes for the bridge and test string the neck. Happy with the alignment and scale length, I glue it in, and leave it there for the night.

Thursday I didn't progress much. Between a bit of bronchitis, spending time with the family and rehearsal I only really managed to put together my "purfling cutter" - a length of 70x35mm treated pine with a bolt and spacer from a washing machine, and a scalpel blade nailed to the side of it. I wanted to basically cut the vinyl off about 6mm in from the edge of the guitar so it has a red border (see hte later pictures if that doesn't make sense) The idea was good, the execution not amazing - I left too much flex in the blade, so it was harder to maintain an even distance from the edge around the curves. So in the end, I used it for the straight lines, and cut the curves freehand.

Like anything with this build, it doesn't fare well under close scrutiny but looks pretty good from a distance. The cut was mostly clean, with a couple of ragged edges. Far more concerning was the entirely foreseeable lifting of paint as I pulled away the excess vinyl. I grabbed a scrap and sprayed a bit of paint onto it, hoping that I might be able to just wipe any overspray off the the vinyl. I'm partly right, because it does just wipe off, but also reacts with the black ink on the decal, which also wipes off. No go. So I stick on some trusty blue masking tape, and confirm that it pulls up without damaging the decal.

Friday I pick up where I left off. Nearly. My pickup rings arrived in the post on Thursday, and as I'm figuring out which is the neck and which is the bridge, I notice that the fretboard is poking halfway into the pickup cavity (something I was plainly aware of well in advance from reading other EX-1 build diaries, but apparently forgot until after I'd glued the neck.)

So, not wanting to run a router over it without a some sort of jig/guide, and not wanting to invest the time to creating said jig/guide - I grab my forstner bits and drill out a quarter inch worth of fretboard/neck. I used a small one for the initial drilling, and a bigger one like a router bit to smooth off the edge.

Attachment 16534

Not the prettiest solution, but one that will keep things moving, and most of the ugliness will be hidden by the pickup ring. So in the photo, you can see where the paint has flaked away, and my feeble attempts to fix it by spraying some paint into a shot glass and touching it up with a little brush.

That just wasn't going to work, so I mask up the whole thing, and spray to cover the bit of the neck I'd left unpainted as a glue surface, as well as the bits that had flaked away when the vinyl came up.

Attachment 16535

Once it's touch dry, the mask comes off, and the hardware goes in. I use the drill press to push in the bushings, and use a multimeter to ensure continuity through the painted tail (thanks Simon for the hint on that - I had to scrape back some paint where the tail contacts the post.)

The pickups go in, and so do the tuners - tomorrow I just need to finish the wiring, string it up and set up the intonation/relief. As it stands, there's a bit of back bow in the neck, which might come up under tension, but I suspect I'll be giving the truss rod a work out.

Barring some catastrophic failure in the wiring, or a neck that pops out once I put some tension on it - I might actually have this thing ready for tomorrow night. It will never stand up to close scrutiny, and will probably end the night with the vinyl lifting and half the paint missing - but after a few beers who's going to notice?

So I got it done.

Saturday was a pretty hectic day. The morning was taken up with my son's birthday party, and pretty much as soon as that had wrapped up, I took the time to string it up - thankfully the neck stayed put. I adjusted the back bow out of the neck, and discovered the angle is very slightly off - the action is exactly where I want it with the bridge posts all the way in, but ideally it should be able to be lower. Not a big deal, just very relieved that it wasn't worse!

So after spending most of the week freaking out about everything that didn't go to plan, I can't really describe the elation of plugging it into my amp and hearing some noise. Then there was another moment of freaking out because my good leads were packed up and the cheapie I was using was a bit loose and losing contact with the sheath of the jack. I rattled it around until it got consistent contact, then rushed through setting the intonation - all of the strings were pretty close, which was fortunate because the low bridge made the adjustment screws a bit fiddly to work with.

So then before I knew it I was rushing out the door with a carload of gear, setting up, and playing a gig with a guitar I'd built myself. Pretty hard to top that feeling. I ended up using it pretty much exclusively too, because I managed to forget my bass and ended up running the guitar through an octave pedal for my bass parts.

Here it is "finished". Soon I'll take all the hardware back off and try to get some clear coats on, but I'll try to get some audio samples first. Also, I'll post some gig photos - just have to pinch my wife's phone, or work out how to save things from Whatsapp.

Attachment 16589

One trick when masking over fresh paint, forgive me if you already did, is to run the tape over your jeans, or similar, to make it a bit less sticky. Comes off much easier.... A trick I learned painting checkered tails on Jet Fighters back in the seventies......

Good tip, I'll keep that in mind next time I'm rushing through a build - although the plan for the next one is to take my time and try and get the finish immaculate. Out of curiosity, would it have been Mirages back in those days? Or were there still a few Sabres kicking around?

I think the vinyl decal adds a nice contrast mate.

The design looks killer! I wish I had the skill and patience to pull something like this off. Very well done.

cheers,
Gav.

looks unreal G-Axe love the vinyl pattern on the front. You finished it in no time. Good advice next build take it slower !

Thanks very much for the kind words, Cade, Gavin and Wokka.

Gavin - You flatter me. There was a distinct lack of skill and patience on my part with this one - and there's plenty to nitpick if you get up close. It has been a great learning experience, and ultimately what I would call a successful prototype.

Wokka - Some day I'll have another go and really take my time with it. Ultimately the time off work and a very infrequent gig opportunity got the better of me, and I did some silly things. :)

Still, it's turned out better than I'd hoped given the time constraints, so I don't think I'll change too much. If I can bear to be without it for a couple of months, I'll properly clear coat it - leave it warts and all underneath, but just make sure it's going to last.

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So here's a quick audio sample I recorded. Still getting my head around how to best mic up my amp and so forth. Very happy with the clean sound, high gain sounds a little bit too "metalzone", but I do love the bite of the attack. I might need to dial down the treble and bring up the mids.

Link

Pickups are Artist Bullbuckers - cheap Chinese made Jazz/JB knockoffs - very happy with them so far. Amplifier is a Marshall JCM2000 DSL50 clean on Channel A, driven hard on Channel B. Recorded with an ES57 (Chinese made SM57 knockoff) into a little Behringer 12 way USB mixer using Audacity.

sounds great G-Axe, is that Tool Eulogy you were playing ?

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Originally Posted by G-Axe

Good tip, I'll keep that in mind next time I'm rushing through a build - although the plan for the next one is to take my time and try and get the finish immaculate. Out of curiosity, would it have been Mirages back in those days? Or were there still a few Sabres kicking around?

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Attachment 16628

RAN Skyhawks....

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Originally Posted by wokkaboy

sounds great G-Axe, is that Tool Eulogy you were playing ?

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Close! It's the title track off Lateralus which was the inspiration for the vinyl decal. From memory, so I probably haven't got the phrasing quite right.

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Originally Posted by Hobastard

Attachment 16628

RAN Skyhawks....

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Ah, completely forgot that the Navy have aircraft too. Very cool. I painted a 1:72 scale Skyhawk once, does that count? It has got me thinking about nose art for a future build though. Maybe a shark mouth on the lower cutaway of something.

Also:
Attachment 16639

Quote:

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Originally Posted by G-Axe

Thanks very much for the kind words, Cade, Gavin and Wokka.

Gavin - You flatter me. There was a distinct lack of skill and patience on my part with this one - and there's plenty to nitpick if you get up close. It has been a great learning experience, and ultimately what I would call a successful prototype.

Wokka - Some day I'll have another go and really take my time with it. Ultimately the time off work and a very infrequent gig opportunity got the better of me, and I did some silly things. :)

Still, it's turned out better than I'd hoped given the time constraints, so I don't think I'll change too much. If I can bear to be without it for a couple of months, I'll properly clear coat it - leave it warts and all underneath, but just make sure it's going to last.

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So here's a quick audio sample I recorded. Still getting my head around how to best mic up my amp and so forth. Very happy with the clean sound, high gain sounds a little bit too "metalzone", but I do love the bite of the attack. I might need to dial down the treble and bring up the mids.

Link

Pickups are Artist Bullbuckers - cheap Chinese made Jazz/JB knockoffs - very happy with them so far. Amplifier is a Marshall JCM2000 DSL50 clean on Channel A, driven hard on Channel B. Recorded with an ES57 (Chinese made SM57 knockoff) into a little Behringer 12 way USB mixer using Audacity.

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The guitar is impressive, the design... very very nice.
I have an old (British made) JCM2000 DSL100 head, and my favorite set up for full blast rhythm tracks was:
Ultra gain channel on the lead 1, Bass about 8, Mids about 8, Treble on 2/3 and presence on 4/6 depending on the guitar plugged in. Gain about 6 and volume (recording) at 6/7. Tone shift button off (too much scoop for my taste) and Deep button off (that resonance control might be interesting playing alone, but makes bass frequencies get muddy on a recording or playing with a band.

Then, place an SM57 or another mic in the cone but not far from the center of the speaker (will search for a pic if you want).

JCM 2000 amps tend to give too much gain that can make everything sound muddy or fuzzy, but if you stay with a lower gain, high volume and mids up, then you can get some Hot rodded Jcm800-esque sounds from it. My head was a little modded, but you can get good sounds from the stock one.
If you want to get it a little hotter, you can put a booster or an overdrive (lo gain-hi volume setting) infront of it. I use an MXR micro amp for it when i want more gain and sustain for leads. But the clue, specially when recording, is to keep gain settings lower, volume high and control all the unwanted high frequencies. And it´s a british voiced amp, don´t get rid of his mids. Hit hard the strings and enjoy.... Been playing with it for a long time and it always worked fantastic in ay situation.
Now i make my own amps, but that´s another story..

Cheers.

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Originally Posted by G-Axe

Close! It's the title track off Lateralus which was the inspiration for the vinyl decal. From memory, so I probably haven't got the phrasing quite right.



Ah, completely forgot that the Navy have aircraft too. Very cool. I painted a 1:72 scale Skyhawk once, does that count? It has got me thinking about nose art for a future build though. Maybe a shark mouth on the lower cutaway of something.

Also:
Attachment 16639

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I have been thinking about a hi-tech / stealth design inspired by the F35.

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Originally Posted by koldo2552

The guitar is impressive, the design... very very nice.
I have an old (British made) JCM2000 DSL100 head, and my favorite set up for full blast rhythm tracks was:
Ultra gain channel on the lead 1, Bass about 8, Mids about 8, Treble on 2/3 and presence on 4/6 depending on the guitar plugged in. Gain about 6 and volume (recording) at 6/7. Tone shift button off (too much scoop for my taste) and Deep button off (that resonance control might be interesting playing alone, but makes bass frequencies get muddy on a recording or playing with a band.

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I like the scoop in some scenarios, but for the most part it stays off on mine, and I just dial the mids a bit lower. I'll give it a run with those settings. Sadly, even my DSL50 doesn't get wound up to those sort of volumes very often - and it seems like volume is the key element. I shudder to think about how loud your DSL100 would be at ground zero.

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Then, place an SM57 or another mic in the cone but not far from the center of the speaker (will search for a pic if you want).

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That sounds like what I've been going for - just slightly off centre. Will have to take the time to try out each individual cone and see if there's an appreciable sweet spot.

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JCM 2000 amps tend to give too much gain that can make everything sound muddy or fuzzy, but if you stay with a lower gain, high volume and mids up, then you can get some Hot rodded Jcm800-esque sounds from it. My head was a little modded, but you can get good sounds from the stock one.

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Yeah, my experience with it is that it can be a bit more work to dial in some classic sounds, but it's a very versatile head. The only really shortcoming I feel is that it would be nice if the crunch was a third channel rather than a push button on the clean.

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If you want to get it a little hotter, you can put a booster or an overdrive (lo gain-hi volume setting) infront of it. I use an MXR micro amp for it when i want more gain and sustain for leads. But the clue, specially when recording, is to keep gain settings lower, volume high and control all the unwanted high frequencies. And it´s a british voiced amp, don´t get rid of his mids. Hit hard the strings and enjoy.... Been playing with it for a long time and it always worked fantastic in ay situation.

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I've been building a few pedal kits, and a "transparent overdrive" of some description is on my shortlist. I've never heard a bad word said about a Klon (or a Klone) and that might just be the mythical status, but it might also be an essential bit of kit. We'll see!

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Now i make my own amps, but that´s another story..

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Very, very cool. Building an amp is on my bucket list, but given my half stack is the most serious bit of kit I own, I'm in no great rush. :)

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Originally Posted by Hobastard

I have been thinking about a hi-tech / stealth design inspired by the F35.

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Awesome. Look forward to seeing it. Probably before we ever see a finished F35 on this side of the ditch. :)

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Originally Posted by Hobastard

I have been thinking about a hi-tech / stealth design inspired by the F35.

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You've been keeping that off the radar.

So, I said I would finish this one day, and I've finally decided to unstring, unsolder and de-neck it to correct some issues of my own making.

First and foremost, the lousy job I did with the neck. I measured and double-measured the scale length, but didn't allow for compensation. The intonation was close enough for rhythm, but beyond 9th fret it got sketchy, and over time the action got higher and higher (higher!). And because the break angle was wrong, I couldn't lower the bridge.

So I made the decision to pry the neck. I gave it some heat, and very patiently worked it loose. There's a bit of damage around the neck pocket but it's all superficial.

Then I spent most of the weekend fitting the neck with different shims and spacers to get the break and scale length right:

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https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...3ef792a29a.jpg

Eventually I settled on spacing the neck by an extra 6mm, and a shim sloping from about 1mm at the bridge side, down to a sharp point neck side. With that I can bring the strings right down to touch the frets, but with the bridge raised a few mill I get a good low action and best of all, accurate intonation.

So, boom - glued. And it's going to sit for about a week to cure.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...55f72b24b7.jpg



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