After a four week tour of the country courtesy of Australia Post, my son's shredder kit arrived yesterday. We unpacked it and began doing a dry build, but have run into some issues...
1. The selector switch seems to be the wrong size, at least for the position it is in on the body. I can't mount it crosswise across the cutout in the back because the width of the switch is the same as the width of the cutout. However, the location for the switch means that it impinges on the curve of the cutout. In any case, mounting the switch crosswise like this puts the toggle in a vertical orientation. Given its position on the body, I would imagine a good Townshend style downstroke is going to accidentally toggle the wrong pickup.
I can sorta kinda almost make it fit with the long axis running parallel to the cutout but the problem then arises that the through hole for the pickup leads is almost completely blocked.
Another problem with the switch is that the threaded barrel doesn't seem to be long enough. If I mount the switch from the top, I can just about get the locking nut to bite, but that's without the washer or the bottom nut attached.
I guess I can always ream out some more real estate in the cutout, but just wanted to see if anyone else has had this experience. Or maybe we've just been supplied with the wrong switch?
2. The faceplate for the input jack is convex, but the butt of the body on this kit is concave, so when mounted there's going to be a couple of mil gap between the metal and the wood. Not a good look, and given the size of the size of the mounting screws, it probably not going to be as tight or stable as if the plate was flush to the wood.
Again, do we have the wrong input jack?
3. Finally, looking for some advice. We're not patient people, and want to get this thing up and running as quickly as possible and worry about finish later. Therefore we're looking at doing a bolt-on neck rather than waiting weeks for a glue-set neck to cure before we can put tension on it. We've got a plate and screws that we've cannibalised from an old guitar the are the perfect fit for this build.
Any advice for or against doing a bolt-on? Any limitations or potential issues?
Well with a bit of ingenuity and lateral thinking, we've solved our first two problems.
1. We decided to swap the position of the switch and the volume pot, so that the switch is now in the middle, a la the EX-1. The switch now has a horizontal orientation, yay! We enlarged the middle hole so that the switch barrel fit, and now it comes through enough that the locking nut can bite, with the washer on.
I also 3D printed a grommet for the pot to fit snugly in the oversized hole where the switch was supposed to be.
2. With a gentle bit of hand flexing, the jack plate is now concave and fits flush to the body.
Unless anyone thinks that doing so would lead to instantaneous death or some other dire consequence, we're going to go ahead with the bolt on neck.
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