A JM-1 for Tommy's Son

[Grubsta]

Lucky lad that looks nice Tommy love the colour.

[tommycarlos]

Just about to solder it up...

I am assuming that the points on the switch that I am wiring to are the 4 that don’t already have something wired to them. That’s not super clear on the diagram. Heh.

[WeirdBits]

The pickups are usually already connected, so the volume and tone connections should be all that's missing. Something like this:



Blue is your link to the volume, green and yellow are to the tones. The way the above is shown has tone 2 linked to the bridge pickup, with tone 1 working for both the neck and middle pickups.

If you don't want tone for the middle just omit the green link to the middle lug. If you want tone 2 for the middle instead of the bridge just connect the yellow to the middle lug rather than the green link.

Edit: Note the wire colours in the above image may not match the colours in your particular kit. It's the positions etc. that matter, not the colours.

[tommycarlos]

Awesome. I think I have it right. Just wanted to make sure.

I do have a different problem now though.

In order for the action to be nice without fret buzz, the bridge/tremolo has to be quite high off the body:



This means the tremolo springs run against the cavity making the tremolo not really work.

I assume this is NOT how it is supposed to be?

[tommycarlos]

I am thinking maybe there is too much finish in the neck pocket and it’s not sitting right?

That didn’t happen on the last one, but maybe in fixing finish issues I had with the horns, I accidentally got too much finish in there?

Might almost be acting like a shim. I could try shimming the neck on the outside of the pocket (instead of the usual) to test that theory...

I mean, he’s 11 and just learning. He doesn’t need a tremolo, hah. But ya know.

[Simon Barden]

Probably not quite that high, and the trem springs shouldn't be catching on the body.

You can try increasing the individual saddle heights, which will allow you to drop the post heights by the same amount.

What's the overall action like on the guitar? Have you set up the neck yet for bow, checked for high frets and adjusted the nut/nut slots?

[tommycarlos]

I considered compensating with the saddle heights. That might work. I have also considered sanding back the neck pocket (as long as I am careful to just remove paint and not wood).

The action is pretty decent for having not yet adjusted the saddles, only the overall height via the posts.

It seems like the neck is 9.5” radius, which surprises me (I expected it to be at least 12”). So adjusting the saddles will be needed to get the action really nice. I am so used to fixed radius bridges like TOMs and Staytrems. It’s nice to be able to adjust the strings individually, heh.

I have adjusted the nut, and given the neck a basic adjustment. Nothing painstaking yet. The low E is between 1.5-1.75mm at the 12th fret.

[Simon Barden]

So a pretty good action on the low E (though personally I bother less about the low strings but struggle in the high strings aren't pretty close to the frets).

The other alternative is to fit a very thin shim between the two screws at the neck end of the neck pocket to angle the neck down slightly. two or three layers of copper shielding tape would probably do it (and you can simply add a layer at a time until it's right).

But first just check the neck pocket for any bumps or ridges or bits of sawdust in there that might be forcing the neck up slightly at the body end. Also make sure that the neck screws aren't binding in/cutting into the body holes as they need to be very slightly loose so that they can pull the neck down firmly onto the body.

If all looks fine in those areas, then try a shim. You'll probably need less than 0.5mm of shim height at the front to angle the strings down by 2mm at the bridge.

[tommycarlos]

Yay!

I took off the neck, cleaned out some bumpy paint residue (odd) and filed the holes in the neck (they seemed to have developed a lip of sorts from the drilling).

Put it back together and I was able to lower the tremolo/bridge quite a bit. The tremolo now works without the springs catching on anything. Success!



So I finished it up tonight. My son is very happy and so am I.

I doubt we could have gotten a guitar this nice for him for ~$220 (kit plus paint, basically), much less one in the exact colour he wanted, etc.

This is for sure gonna be an addiction. The new offset Tele kit is probably next, hah.

[Simon Barden]

Well done. Looks great.

The kits normally fit together pretty well. and it's often just a small bit of tidying up that makes all the difference.