PRS-1TS, my first build

I received my PRS kit some weeks ago, and it looked great at first sight. I like the flamed maple top, and overall it looks promising! I plan to do some upgrades, like a Schaller bridge and stoptail, a graphtech nut and a Neutrik locking jack.

I found little defects in the neck socket, but I think I will fix them with woodpaste and sanding. Neck fits very tight, which I think it's the best: better than a loose fit. The scale is 62.4 cm (24 1/2''?). According to my rough calculations in the mock build, the bridge and pickup routings are good. Only I may need to adapt holes for the Schaller stoptail.

I started to look at the fretboard, and I found some of the frets not properly seated. In some frets, there's space under the fret where I can slip a paper inside. I tried to hammer them (with a wood block for protection), but after some minutes most of them pop out again. I plan to glue these frets in my next step.

Which glue is better for the frets? Do you have any other ideas to keep the frets properly seated? I do not want to start fret leveling and then suddenly some frets popping out.

Thank you in advance!

Alexis

Hi Alexis, welcome, I hope all goes well for you. Looks like a nice kit.
Wayno.

Hi Alexis, that is a really decent thickness of maple top to work with. Cool fret markers too.

Cheers, Waz

I think you'll find by looking closely that it's still a thin maple veneer, even if the top is more ordinary maple underneath it. You can see the line in the photo if you zoom in a bit. So you'll still need to be very careful when sanding as it is very thin.

The general quality of the wood does look to be higher than on most PBG kits, so I'm surprised about the fret problems. I'm just wondering it it's a) because the slots aren't quite cut deep enough or b) because the fretboard isn't holding on to the small barbs sticking out from the tang. If it's a), then knocking the frets in or even trying to glue them in probably won't work because there's nowhere for the fret to go. If it's b), then superglue is normally used, but you'll really need to pull the fret right out, put superglue in the slot then push the fret back in and keep it clamped until the superglue has set. Just trying to squeeze some in under the fret won't work well at all, and it's impossible to stop the glue getting on the fretboard.

Even if you take the fret out and glue it back in, you'll need to mask off the fretboard either side of where the fret sits to stop and glue getting on it.

When knocking frets in, rest the neck on something soft but supportive, and ideally use a hammer with a soft face (brass or nylon), or a block of wood between a normal hammer and the fret. You don't want a steel hammer hitting the fret directly as it can dent it, and it's not on a soft surface, the compression wave from the hammer hit can bounce back through the wood and push the fret out a bit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

I think you'll find by looking closely that it's still a thin maple veneer, even if the top is more ordinary maple underneath it. You can see the line in the photo if you zoom in a bit. So you'll still need to be very careful when sanding as it is very thin.

The general quality of the wood does look to be higher than on most PBG kits, so I'm surprised about the fret problems. I'm just wondering it it's a) because the slots aren't quite cut deep enough or b) because the fretboard isn't holding on to the small barbs sticking out from the tang. If it's a), then knocking the frets in or even trying to glue them in probably won't work because there's nowhere for the fret to go. If it's b), then superglue is normally used, but you'll really need to pull the fret right out, put superglue in the slot then push the fret back in and keep it clamped until the superglue has set. Just trying to squeeze some in under the fret won't work well at all, and it's impossible to stop the glue getting on the fretboard.

Even if you take the fret out and glue it back in, you'll need to mask off the fretboard either side of where the fret sits to stop and glue getting on it.

When knocking frets in, rest the neck on something soft but supportive, and ideally use a hammer with a soft face (brass or nylon), or a block of wood between a normal hammer and the fret. You don't want a steel hammer hitting the fret directly as it can dent it, and it's not on a soft surface, the compression wave from the hammer hit can bounce back through the wood and push the fret out a bit.

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In the case of a) you’ll either need to deepen the slots, very hard to do without removing binding but it can be done, or trim the fret tang down.
These may help: https://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tool...aning_Saw.html
https://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tool...et_Barber.html

if its a case of b) I’ve had good results using the gel type thicker superglues. They don’t spread everywhere like the thin stuff and it is a little easier to control application.
You will still need to mask off well as Superglue wicks where you don’t want it to go like crazy. And wear a respirator, and disposable gloves, unless you want to be really, really p attached to your guitar!

Thank you guys for the tips. You're right Simon about the top: it's really thin specially on the edges of the guitar. In the volume knobs holes I see only about 1 or 2 mm thickness of the top. I'll be careful when sanding.

I think it's b) because some frets stayed perfectly seated after I hammered them (yes, I used a wood block in between as you said!). Others stayed seated several minutes then popped out in the center of the fret. I will extract them and put super glue in the slot. I have this gel type super glue, FrankenWashie. To do this, I will wait for the fret puller pliers I ordered, because I am afraid of damaging the fretboard. I already extract one fret very carefully with a Swiss knive, but this is not the way to go. Let's be professional :D.

In the meantime I extracted the nut and sanded the new Graphtech nut to have a nice fit and correct height. The new nut (Black TUSQ XL 6060) is very similar to the original plastic one, only it has more E to E distance (just 1mm total). I hope there will be no problem with 1st and 6th strings coming out when playing: there's still 3 mm space from border of E strings to the edge of the fretboard.

Thank you guys!

Alexis

Ooh, nice black nut. I was wondering,is that device holding the neck, made from ply wood or laminated rubber? Looks interesting.
Wayno.

Yes, that neck rest seems nice and high and beefy looking doesn't it? Might have to make something similar.
Great work on that new nut Alexis, looks the business as we say here in Aussie!

Yeah, it's a tool I found in amazon: http://a.co/8TbXrQF

Seems wood, but it's made of highly compressed foam, very sturdy and smooth. The rounded part allows you to stand in angle!

Hello everybody,

I would like to show the progress. I filled up and re-drilled stoptail holes, because they were too loos for the Schaller bushings. Maybe I will have to do the same with bridge bushings drills. I will see when the Schaller bridge arrives.

The belly carve is finished, and I am happy with it. I think it is not bad for the first time I work with wood. Initially I wanted to do a cutaway carving, like most PRS have:

http://www.12fret.com/wp-content/gal...-cutaway-1.jpg

Now that I see the difficulty, maybe I don't do it. It's difficult to get a perfectly round cut, and there's also the binding. Probably I would make a mess!

I am still working in the fret levelling.

Belly cut looks good.

Very nice work Alexis, I like the belly cut, I may need to do something similar in a long term project I have running.

Hi guys,

There has been progress!

The frets are now levelled. Due to my inexperience, I took too much material out from the frets, but I think they are levelled. I still need to crown them though.

I shaped the headstock, and glued an ebony veneer on it. This way the inlay will be more shiny. Again it's the first time and I glued it 1 mm off, so I had to sand, make corrections and fill the gap between the nut and the veneer with a little stick of ebony.

I made an "A" inlay out of a mother of pearl piece. It is now fin place and waiting for the epoxi to dry. Let's see how it looks after drying and sanding. I plan to sand and round all headstock edges after this.

I stained the epoxi with black ink, but maybe I should have put more ink... we'll see the results.

Nice! I love seeing inlay work on these kits. The MOP has a great contrast to the ebony veneer, and it looks like a perfect fit.

Really nice job filling and drilling the stop tail holes, they look nice and clean. I had to do the same thing on my LP build, good job catching that BEFORE you did your finish and clear coat. :p

The belly cut looks really good too!

The epoxi wasn't good and never dried, so after a few days I took the inlay out. I bought a better epoxi and this time it hardened in a few hours. After drying and sanding, the result is OK! Maybe I will stain again the headstock top to be more black.

I made custom backplates with laminated wood and plastic, using magnets instead of screws. I always wanted this in a guitar, so I will make the trials with my first build. It's not perfectly leveled with the guitar surface, but I will adjust later somehow, because the plates are lower height than the body surface in some corners (not higher).

Hi guys,

I have problems with the staining: some dots in the back and another areas in the side edges are not coloured. I can't manage to impregnate colour, and they remain almost as original wood.

I sanded all body (execpt the veneer top, as it is only 1mm thick). Then applied first coat of stain in the back and sides, waited 24h, and sanded. Result was ok except the dots and areas explained before. Then I applied a second coat, but the blank dots and areas remain (see pictures).

I'm using a water based wood stain. It's a mix of red with a bit black and yellow because I want to reach some dark-brownish red for the back of the guitar.

Should I sand more agressively before applying the next coat? which sanding paper is best between stain coats?

Thank you in advance,

That looks like body filler not taking up any stain.
Goof off and a wire brush is the only way to get rid of it but after digging it out you will need to re-fill with timber mate.
Quite common issue on most basswood bodies.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

Alexis, Goof Off is a brand of glue remover (if you hadn't guessed from reading other posts). It's probably not available in Spain (or only for a very high price), but there should be other similar glue removal products available to you.

And 'wire brush' in this context means a 'soft' wire brush with thin, bendy bristles, not one with with thick steel wire that you'd use to remove rust from metal. You can normally get toothbrush-sized brass brushes which are ideal. You want thin wire so that it penetrates the grain, but nothing so hard that it damages it. Nylon toothbrushes are soft enough, but the bristles are normally too thick to get between the grain properly.

Thanks guys, I didn't know it could be glue or filler, but it makes sense. It is in some areas near the binding, where they must have used glue. The rest will be just a couple of drops from the same glue.

You were right Simon, Goof off is very expensive or they charge 20€ shipping costs. I ordered a bottle of "Goo Gone" which seems like a similar product. I will tell you how it goes!

The glue spots were gone or half dissapeared, after the Goo Gone and wirebrush technique, plus the "sandpaper damped in stain" technique. The back of the guitar now has no white spots, but it's not really homogeneous. I decided to leave it like this.

The top was much worse, especially near the edges, close to the binding: a lot of glue spots not taking any stain. I used the same techniques and finally it looked good. I wanted to try a cherry sunburst, so I started with a little black to pop out the flamed maple. My black is a bit blue, so I made a mess: after the yellow, it came up green... Then I started to make trials with yellow plus some red drops to have an amber colour, then it turned into something less disgusting, coat after coat. I sanded very very lightly, because I was afraid to sand through the veneer. So finally after the red (1/2 yellow - 1/2 red, because my red is a magenta) in the edges this I found my cherry sunburst kinda finish. Not perfect, but OK for me!

I glued the neck today, so in a couple of days I could start with the finishing.

Looking very good. Well done with the staining. It pays to persevere and keep trying.

Nice burst!

After some weeks busy, I started the finishing. Initially I wanted to keep it simple and apply the lacquer by hand, using a cotton cloth, but soon I realised it's more difficult than spraying. I bought a spray gun.

After the first coat, which was a little too much, I made a disaster and a drop falled down from the neck pickup route, creating a yellow stain mark. I tried to repair it with a red stained sandpaper, but the blurr is still visible. I don't want to sand the whole top and start again, so I will leave it like this. It's OK for my first project :D

I am using a water based lacquer from a Nitorlack, called Nitoraqua. I just sprayed 3 coats, and for the moment looks good to me. The manufacturer reccomends 6 to 12 coats for the guitar, so we'll see. I bought Micromesh sanding pads for the polishing later.

Hi guys,

The water based lacquer finish is complete, with some problems. During polishing I was not able to reach a completely flat surface, and some orange peel is still visible when you look close. I stopped polishing because I accidentally reached the wood in one little edge in the belly cut. Then I started final step with polishing compound and I am quite happy with the result (even more if it is playable in the end).

I had to sand the stoptail holes because I measured it wrong: I wanted to install a Schaller stoptail which has 1 mm more distance between holes. After correction the bushings were slightly loose. To fix it quickly and leave it strong enough I glued the bushings a little bit into the body.

When polishing, I slightly sanded too much the edges of the back covers I made. It's a pity because they were really good and lacquered, and almost match the back colour. For the moment I leave them like this. Also part of the "A" insert in the headstock is gone. If the guitar finally is playable and everything, maybe I fix it by finishing again the headstock.

Regarding electronics: As I have a lot going on (2 push/pull pots for split coils and phase shift, the piezo bridge and Schaller preamp) It's difficult to have the control cavity cover closed just with the magnets. I'll use standard 4 screws for this cover. The other 2 (toggle and battery) keep well closed with the magnets.

Hi Alexis
i have read you're thread and you made a few errors with the stain and finish mate, firstly the red dye you used you have put it on to heavy if you're using water base dye if you pop on 2 coats and leave to dry a couple of hours, then rub the dye with a damp sponge what that does is pull all the dye that didn't soak up and will give you a lot more uniform look do that for another coat or 2 to get to the colour you want and will get rid of the blotchy and streaky look, with the finish you used Nitorlack nitoraqua Lacquer is water borne nitrocellulose paint, it should be applied with spray gun and its not for the 1st time builder as can be a bitch to shoot, you didn't spray enough coats to cut back usually prep work wasn't done to get the body flat the less prep you do will require more coats or you'll sand through when you're going to polish. you did a good job with the front but buggered it up with the clear all you can do is carefully sand the clear with 2000 and soap and shoot 5 or 6 coats of clear which should give you a safety margin when you sand it back to polish


Mark

Hey Mark, thanks for your comments.

Yes, I made some errors: I did not sand between dye coats. During lacquer spraying I had a lot of issues, some dye went out and it was a mess (the dye which didn't soaked as you said). I used a spray gun for the first time and in total I made 12 coats of lacquer. The firs ones mixed with 25% water, and the last ones 5-10% ow water.

After 4 weeks drying, I sanded with 1000 and water, but I couldn't flatten the surface completely. Later on I will do a refinish as you said: sand the clear, add more lacquer and polish again.