What have I done

[Olddon]

Coming up to retirement, late sixties, I thought that for something to do I would learn the guitar again. About 40 years after I gave up last time. Since then I have retired, I am still learning guitar but I felt I needed something more to do which is when I came across DIY guitar kits. Now I have absolutely no skills in working with wood or painting or electronics, but what the hell, retirement is a time for pushing the boundaries. I was looking at the TL 1TB and a kit from another brand and leaning towards the TL but a bit scared about the need for advanced soldering skills. I went to a guitar shop to see if they could do the soldering for me and in talking about my choices the guy expressed reservations about Pit Bull. I obviously went Pit Bull anyway mainly due to what I felt would be the easier body shape to work with. Tele vs Les Paul. Anyway I am now happy that I made the right decision. The other company included instructions with the kit, so an unknown quantity. Here I have a construction manual on line, videos and a community. I have also made the decision, having viewed the introduction to soldering video, to do my own soldering and I am picking up my soldering kit today so I can start practicing before my kit arrives which I ordered on Tuesday night and was dispatched yesterday.
Due to my aforementioned lack of any skills I imagine I will be visiting here often to get the collective advice from the community. I am looking forward to the adventure.
Don.

[FaustoB]

Hi Don!
You are in the right place!

If you take the time to look through the forum you will find a lot of informations, it's a bit sparse here and there, but the amount of knowledge stored in this forum is absolutely incredible, almost overwhelming (in a good way)...
it's also very likely that someone else has already built the model you have in mind for your project; that could give you some sort indicative direction or ideas.

On top of that, here in the forum there are a lot of very skilled, experienced, and very generous people that can provide amazing advice if you have a question, or if you have a doubt on how to proceed, or if you need clarification on what should be the next step in built.

About the soldering skills specifically, like anything else, it's something that can be learnt and picked up. Great to hear that you are picking up your soldering kit today!! That's the way! DIY!
You can consider practising soldering loose wires at the beginning, just for the sake of it for learning how it all behaves, before attempting soldering the electronics in your guitar. As you already pointed out, tons of videos online these days with tutorials made by very generous people, otherwise ask here, or give a call to a friend that could be familiar with soldering or with any other toll you feel comfortable putting your hands on.

Building a guitar from a kit is definitely doable... there might be some occasional hiccups or speed bumps here and there, but it's all part of the journey... and it's a very rewarding experience... the journey itself as well as the finished instrument!

[Trevor Davies]

Hi Olddon,
A great hobby for retirement. Lots of skills to learn and develop. But lots of fun.

What kit did you end up with?

[Olddon]

I ended up getting the TL 1TB. I noticed that you recently built one, I have already read your reports and I know that I will be rereading it during my build. I went for the chrome finish.

[Olddon]

I hope that the enthusiasm I have now will carry through after I actually receive my kit.

So far I have bought a soldering iron kit and a couple of small jacks that have tabs for soldering, and I have tinned a wire and soldered it to the jack. Should I put a multimeter on it to check for resistance?



I also bought a plank of Tasmian oak and did my first practice cut of the headstock. I hope to do at least another 3 before trying the real thing.



A few questions. Is the tasmanian oak similar to maple (my real neck) in regards to cutting and sanding. And if I do some practice painting on my practice headstocks, can I expect similar results.
Thanks Don

[FaustoB]

I also bought a plank of Tasmian oak and did my first practice cut of the headstock. I hope to do at least another 3 before trying the real thing.



A few questions. Is the tasmanian oak similar to maple (my real neck) in regards to cutting and sanding. And if I do some practice painting on my practice headstocks, can I expect similar results.
Thanks Don

Hi Don,
about practicing cutting the headstock, that's an excellent idea and that cut looks great.
However I wouldn't just practise cutting the shape of the headstock; get familiar with your tools and with different types of timber. Practise on timber with different thickness as it will respond differently (I might be wrong but the timber in the photo you have attached seems much thicker than a headstock).
Practise also cutting precise 90deg angles, or cut a long straight strip 1cm wide and 20cm long.. cut a circle, cut free hand shapes, cut 90deg angles then try to round the edges, and so on... this will get you familiar with your tools, will make you comfortable with cutting and correcting different shapes, and will give you a sense of how different timber responds and vibrate.

About vibrations, when you eventually will cut your headstock, make sure to clamp the neck as close to the headstock as possible, to avoid excessive and unneeded vibrations that could potentially crack the timber.
I usually use two clamps, I make a sort of sandwich with the neck in the middle, some cardboard and some scrap wood I have around (plywood or anything), to avoid leaving the clamps marks on the neck.
If I am cutting a bass headstock (for example a classic Fender precision headstock for example) I put two clamps slightly apart where the low 'E' and 'A' tuner will be.

I am not sure if Tasmanian oak is similar to maple, however I would proceed in a similar way. Get familiar with sanding and do test painting on as many scraps of wood you can find (without breaking the bank!).

When you will cut the headstock, there will be the parts that you have cut out that you can use for painting and finishing tests.
For the body, I usually do my tests inside the electronics cavities. These are small surfaces compared to the back of a guitar body for example, some tests might not be 100% accurate but they will still give you a very good indication on how that timber will respond and look.

[Olddon]

Thank you very much for that feedback, and well picked up on the wood. That is 19mm, which was the closest I could get to what I believe will be 14mm on the real thing. After your comments I will try harder to get something closer to 14mm. I have had my jigsaw for close to 30 years and it hasnt done much in the last 20!. I will certainly be trying different cuts as you suggested.
After my painting trials I have an idea of what I want to do, but trying off cuts and seeing if the paint looks the same is a great idea.
Thanks for the feedback. Cheers Don.

[Trevor Davies]

Hi Don,
If you have a multimeter you could check for resistance for your own piece of mind (it would be really small (less than 0.1 ohm!)).
Most times you can see if you have a good solder joint - it should be shiny and smooth over the two parts you are joining.

It is hard to tell in the picture - but did you feed the wire through the tab hole? I normally twist the wire around itself after going through the hole, especially with the stranded wire that the kits come with (I crimp single strand wire around the tab hole with pliers) . Then I solder the tab and the twist


Not sure about the tassie oak, but I do know that the maple is really hard (I now use a jigsaw rather than by hand with a coping saw).

[Simon Barden]

It never does any harm to check with a multimeter. If you’ve got two or three wires going to a terminal (common with potentiometers on guitars) then it’s possible for them all to look soldered but for one to remain unconnected, often due to the insulation on a wire being pushed too near the joint and the insulation is held in place by the solder and friction from the other wires, not the wire itself. Less of a problem with the typical PVC kit wire insulation as that melts at quite low temperatures, but some other insulation types and heat shrink insulation are far more heat resistant.

Touch the probes together first and see what reading you get. Whatever it is, you’ll never get any lower than that. On mine it normally reads 0.04 ohms. On my previous one it was 0.08 ohms. Partly internal resistance, partly lead resistance, partly the design of the meter.

[Olddon]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I can’t get resistance figures quite that accurately.

My multimeter is almost as old as me