DrNomis_44's Gold Standard STA-1M Build.

[wazkelly]

It has got me buggered too, Tony...
It takes me at least 120 hours to complete a custom guitar, most of that time is taken up just on the sanding and finish...

I'm no professional guitar builder and found from builds #1 & # 2 that if you rush things it ends in tears.

Agree that the final curing period before attacking it with polish is the most crucial and probably best spent starting on another build so that you don't get impatient, jump in too soon, and generally make a mess of things.

[Muzza]

I dont know how you blokes finish a guitar in a week

They're obviously not enjoying it as much as us slow bastards...

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


Well, I've finished doing as much of the scratchplate wiring as I'm able to do, because I'm still waiting on the Entwistle ASN57 Noiseless pickups to arrive in the post, and also for the Strat body to finish drying, there's not a whole lot I can do in the meantime, yes, I could order another guitar kit but I'm low on money as it is, anyway, here's some more pics of the progress I've made so far on the scratchplate:

[DrNomis_44]

Here are some more pics of the Scratchplate:

[DrNomis_44]

So, as you can see in the pics, I put a lot of shielding on the Scratchplate to create a great big ground-plane, hopefully that'll make my guitar relatively noise-free, you can see where I have soldered the individual strips of copper-foil together where it's a silvery-colour, all over the Scratchplate I'm getting a reading of 0.02 Ohms which is good, I linked the three pots together with some copper-braiding I salvaged from some old microphone lead, this is to ensure that there is still a ground-path if the copper-foil wears through underneath where the pots mount on the Scratchplate, all I need to do now is wait for the new pickups to turn up in the post so i can install them, the output-jack is going to be attached to the Volume-control pot via some vintage-style shielded cloth-covered wire.


You can also see the Vitamin Q .1uF/630V DC Tone Cap installed on the scratchplate, I had practically no issues with overheating while soldering the cap in place, you may also notice that I put a piece of cloth-wire insulation on both solder-tags of the cap, that's partly to prevent unintended short-circuits, and partly for aesthetics, hopefully everything is working correctly.


Incidentally, I have wired-up the Scratchplate Eric Johnson style so that it follows this setup:


Pickup Selector:


1, Neck Pickup + Tone 1.

2, Neck Pickup + Middle Pickup + Tone 1.

3, Middle Pickup.

4, Bridge Pickup + Middle Pickup + Tone 2.

5, Bridge Pickup + Tone 2.


Note that Tone 1 on a Strat is the one closest to the Volume control, and Tone 2 is the other Tone control next to Tone 1.

[tonyw]

Efficiency with my time oh that must be it

Maybe i am just very very patient, and quite pedantic about it looking how i want it. I do a finish and wait 3 days to a week before i sand and do another coat, in the mean time i do wiring looms and wind pickups for my other 10 builds

Generally if i can smell the finish its not cured.

A partscaster if i have all the bits i can knock up in a couple of hours, but not a full finish job.

[tonyw]

Hey Doc i would cover that earth wire with some heat shrink.

Heres how i vintage wire a strat, this is from one of my builds.

[DrNomis_44]

Hey Doc i would cover that earth wire with some heat shrink.

Heres how i vintage wire a strat, this is from one of my builds.

I'll give that a try, I think I have some black heat-shrink tubing that might be the right size to fit over the braiding I used, cheers for that.

[DrNomis_44]

As per tonyw's suggestion, I've put some black heatshrink-tubing on the braided earth wire strung between the pots, here's what it looks like now:






The heatshrink-tubing actually does serve a practical purpose, it stops the Tone1 pot from shorting out the Tone Cap against the earthing braid.

[DrNomis_44]

Here's what postal tracking says for the new ASN57 pickups I ordered last Tuesday:



In transit Processed through Australia Post facility 11:40pm Wed 30 Mar Welshpool, WA





It hasn't been updated since the 30th March, most likely due to the Easter break.