My first build: DTL-1

[gpjt]

Next, I thought about what might block applying the finish. The holes for the neck and the bridge are all pre-drilled. There are two possibilities:

1. The holes are in the right places, so I can start with the finish as soon as I've finished sanding down to 190.
2. The holes are in the wrong places, so I need to dowel them and re-drill before finishing.

The way I see it, the only way to find out the answer to that is to put the whole thing together pretty much completely. I don't need the new tuners for that, because while I will be fitting the E strings to check everything lines up (and to see whether that short fourth fret is an issue), the line that they follow will be determined by the nut and the bridge saddles.

So:



The fourth fret, while it bugs me a bit, looks like it won't be a problem for playing:



The neck fits in snugly:



I also realised that I'd been worrying over nothing about the bridge. When I did my measurements earlier, I'd moved the saddles far enough forward that there was no screw protruding from the "front" -- that is, the nut side -- of the saddle, and treated that as as far forward as it could go. But looking at it with strings on, it became clear that the bulk of the force on the saddle is downwards towards the body of the guitar -- with some toward the nut -- so it can be safely moved forward a bit so that the screw doesn't go all the way through, like the middle one here:



I'd still want a fair few threads inside the saddle -- it wouldn't do for it to be loose -- but that buys maybe 3mm, which should be ample given the numbers that McCreed posted earlier, unless there's something very odd about this guitar And if that happens, there's always the possibility of using longer screws.

BTW does that pickup look right to you guys? The camera angle sucks, but the bottom E is pretty much centred over the pole, but the top E is to the right of the centre of its pole -- maybe 80% of the way across. All of the bridge saddles are touching, so the strings are as close as they'll go, and the nut slots look like they're pretty much in the right places (and anyway the nut is miles away).