Un-named_yet ex1-a

I'm very excited to start my first build !!!

First thing: excuse me for the accent :)

Just received everything and already have questions :)

(I've made a video explaining my situation)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ge9zsrE8zANtgKrn9

I hope that this is not a true issue

I'm going to really enjoy building this.
And my ambitious is to make a really great guitar :) maybe new mechanics and pickups. I'll test all the equipment delivered and change the ones that i will find not good enough, but actually everything looks nice.

While I was waiting for the delivery (had some delivery latency but not related to Pitbull that sent the guitar the day I ordered it) I watched hours and hours of video and already read all the documentations.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...7026ac81fb.jpg

Welcome!
you may need to add a small thin piece of timber at the back , and possible on the sides. If you just received the kit wait a few days for the wood to adjust to the climate. It's come from hot Western Australia, then in a freezing cold aircraft hold, so the timber will take a few days to settle.

Hi and welcome to the forum. Yes, it's normal to have a gap between the end of the tenon and the rear of the pickup rout. The glue is stronger than the wood, so there won't be any problem with the string tension pulling the neck backwards.

Also, from a practical point of view, on most neck pickups, with the screw coil facing the neck, the pickup lead is at the top of the pickup rout, so can run in that gap to the hole for the lead. The end of the neck probably wants to be about 1mm forward of the front edge of the pickup rout, as you need some space to fit the pickup ring in so that it covers the rout. If you set the neck level with the front edge of the pickup rout, then you'll probably have a small gap between the pickup ring and the body. I'd use the pickup ring to see just how much further forward the neck needs to be so you don't see a gap.

You don't want the neck too far forwards, otherwise you won't have enough adjustment on the bridge saddles to intonate the guitar properly, but 1mm should be adequate.

As Dedman said, wait for a few days for the wood to settle. My experience is that the neck joints are usually tight on arrival and then become easier to fit, so you may end up with a slightly looser neck after a few days. If this is the case, then you'll probably need to stick a piece of veneer to one side of the neck pocket to get the fit tight again. I'd suggest using maple veneer as it's nice and hard. You will probably find it easiest to get a mixed pack of veneers from eBay, which will certainly have a 0.6mm thick sheet of maple in. Look for marquetry/marqueterie packs.

It's important that you keep any finish (paint, stain, oil, etc.) off the surfaces that will be glued together, so don't forget to mask off the neck pocket and the end of the neck before you apply any finish.

Thank you so much Deadman and Simon, great advice i start searching for veneers !!!

i'll update with news soon :D

Hi Souhail, nice kit and welcome to the forum.

My 2nd build was a Basswood EX-1 and understand your concerns - hyperlink to that build in my signature below.

Most important thing with any set neck Gibson style guitar is scale length due to minimal bridge saddle adjustment. I saw that you measured 340 mm from 12th fret however you really need to measure 24.75" or 628.65 mm from inner side of nut on treble side to mid point of top of high E Bridge saddle. Best way to do this is by removing the height adjustable bridge posts from their bushing and wrap with enough masking tape so that they will fit snug in the middle of the post holes, then place the bridge on top. Now do your measurements.

For the sideways movement I would suggest loosely fitting both E tuners and run some string, cotton or fishing line as temporary string to see how things line up down both sides of the fretboard. Too much gap on one side compared to the other means you need to slightly move it across to properly line it up - this is what you do on a bolt on neck as there is lots of movement.

For the neck placement as Dedman & Simon have said it does not need to go all the way in. Scale length will determine where it needs to be and on mine, I triple checked before gluing and discovered there was no longer enough room to fit the neck pickup mounting ring and ended up having to 'top load' the pickups. I will post a few shots to show what I mean.

Attachment 27865Attachment 27866Attachment 27867

For gluing the neck it is best to use the Titebond Red label as it is very strong and can also be softened if the neck needs to come out at a later stage...
Attachment 27868

Best of luck and don't be afraid to ask any questions.

Cheers, Waz

Should have been this shot...
Attachment 27869

Thanks a lot for the advices, it came out pretty good (not glued yet) With a thin piece of wood on the top of the neck hole.
Strings are in the exact position.

Scale length looks perfect


Thank you so much guys for your help

I'll update you with new pictures and how everything is going.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...5b2d31063a.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...78217031cf.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...b12eef496f.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...9cd160dabd.jpg

@wazkelly love your build. I looked for exps on the forum and already analysed your guitar a lot of "how to" came from watching your build (removing the pickups plastic and painting the inside of the holes = great :) )

After checking 1000times and re-measuring, 6h of sanding, the neck is glued in place. Everything looks perfect and in place.

The pieces of veneer are invisible and everything looks straight.


Yeahhhh !!!https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...a68ff470c8.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...ffe3f4f409.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...b477a2b579.jpg

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Hi Souhail welcome man you're in the right place when your building you 1st these guys know their stuff, i don't think there's to much they don't know, that's a bit of a gap you got there can't help you much as haven't done a EX yet

Looking good buddy.

Personally i would have stained body and neck, added some layers of finish and then glued neck as these guitars are rather long and clumsy to flip around when finishing fully setup as you have done.
Not impossible, just a bit more care required to avoid runs and to maje sure it gets an even layer of finish all over.

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Update:
neck unclamped.
And frets leveled :)

Waiting for the stain and oil to be delivered.

Ordered some crazy Seymour Duncan nazgul and sentinent pickups and a Seymour Duncan volume pot (less soldering)

Can't find replacement graphite nut this size doesn't exist anywhere :(

I have an old guitar with a similar bone nut. I'll try it.

Will update soon !!!https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...28490b7e68.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...270f18831d.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...3c03308e9f.jpg

Should be a standard Gibson sized nut and therefore plenty of aftermarket options available.

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43mm is the standard Gibson size, 41.7mm certainly isn't! I had/have a similar problem with my EX-1. The top of the nut that's fitted is slimmer than 43mm, and the string slots are closer together than on a standard 43mm nut. I've looked at using a 43mm nut and just filing the ends down (which you can do with some necks) but the strings would be too near the edges of the fretboard. So I've bought a 43mm bone blank, filed it down at the ends and need to cut slots in it using my nut files using the old nut as a template for the slot positions.

But I've temporarily lost the blank and the old nut, which doesn't help.

And you'll also need a set of nut files, which aren't cheap.

Pardon my ignorance as mine was ordered nearly 3 years ago and paid extra to have DB do a bone nut and full neck setup and assumed they would be a standard width.

For some strange reason, they aren't. You'd think it would make sense for the factory to make the necks the same width and use a common nut size, but obviously not. (Which then leads to the question, why can't they make a proper thin Jazz Bass neck?)

Yeah, thin J Bass neck would be a winner and probably ordered by everyone doing a bolt on F style Bass.

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It’s probably how they avoid the attention of IP lawyers........

http://www.warmoth.com/Guitar/Necks/NutWidth.aspx

it's a nut size that exists "Vintage" my very old Yamaha has the same nut size, not a PG custom nut size :D .
i'll double (quadruple) check the size to be sure that it's a 1-5/8 (41,??mm) length and it's exactly the same size from E to E.
it looks like fender also uses this size on some of their guitars.

Attachment 27928

one of those two should be the exact size.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wazkelly

Should have been this shot...
Attachment 27869

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Hi wazkelly,

I'm struggling with something that i'cant find an answer for.

How did you manage direct mount the pickups ?? Did you used the provided screws ?? Normally I need to replace them with wood screws??


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You don't really want to use ordinary wood screws, but look for guitar or bass pickup mounting screws form guitar parts suppliers. Precision and Jazz bass pickups are both screwed directly into the body and normally have an unthreaded section by the head.

So look for something like this. https://www.allparts.uk.com/products...crews-for-bass

You'll also need some stiff neoprene foam to put under the pickups to support them and get them the right height.

So something like this https://www.allparts.uk.com/products...r-bass-pickups

Though you can normally find larger sheets of that foam on eBay for a similar price. You'll just need to work out the depth of foam you need. Better to get something thicker than necessary as you can always cut it down, otherwise go a lot thinner and build it up using several layers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Souhail

Hi wazkelly,

I'm struggling with something that i'cant find an answer for.

How did you manage direct mount the pickups ?? Did you used the provided screws ?? Normally I need to replace them with wood screws??


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Simon has provided some sensible good advice.

It took 3 attempts before I got mine with pickups sitting at the right height. The long J Bass Pickup Mounting screws sounds simplest but there are deep holes on either side where the PUP's are normally mounted on those plastic rings however the part with no thread near the head will be a problem as that will require that hole to be drilled out and then no longer able to be used with a thread.
I hand shaped some maple headstock off cuts to fill the holes so they were flush with base of PUP rout and glued them in place and then drilled separate holes in the PUP mounting lugs and used wood screws with high density foam underneath base of PUP's to provide some way of keeping them level and provide a bit of spring action for setting the height.

There may be photos on my build diary but here are a selection of close-ups that might help to illustrate what was done...
Attachment 28023Attachment 28024Attachment 28025Attachment 28026Attachment 28027

If I was to do this again on another build I would use a strip of metal which is similar in width & thickness as the PUP lugs, drill same sized mounting screw hole so that driving the mounting adjustment screw would create a thread, and screw this mounting plate separately to the bottom of PUP rout cavity. You could use the spring but it still needs the high density foam to prevent PUP sitting at an odd angle.

Hope you get some inspiration and ideas from all of this.

Cheers, Waz

Hi all
First thank you all for the help

Here is a demo of my build that came out amazing.

sorry the video wasn't made for here but for a friend I'll do another one in English.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2gWDigBkHtDMkUrz6

So the built is from a ex a model (ash body maple neck ebony fretboard)

It took me some months of work. Everything home made by me.

Specs :
Seymour Duncan nazgul sentinent
Seymour Duncan liberator
Push pull solderless potentiometer
Everything coated inside with ground connections a lot of work on ground in the guitar no buzz at all !!!
Coil split of both pickups
Frets work done
Action work also done
Sanded from hours then Paint on tru-oil no stain (the stain I got didn't looked great )
Frets are just inlays brought on internet
Tunomatic and bridge are the one provided

The strings on the guitar are the ones used for intonation needs to be changed by better ones.

Enjoy the video as I said I'll do a new one in English soon :) to put here.


Again thank you so much for the help you provided me with priceless tips and help.

I'm already thinking about another build but I'm trying to hold my self.

I think I'll add some work on this guitar since honestly it came out like a great piece.

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Expert work done with the guitar.

Interesting video....now I'm taking my neck to the chiropractor.

cheers, Mark.

C’est formidable!

Nice work indeed, you must be very happy with the result!

That turned out very nice.

Top loaded pickups provide a more raw stripped back, almost naked look and from the video it would appear they are well seated and at the right height too. Sounds really good with lots of useable sounds.

Well done.