Jon's 4th build: SSCM-1E

[jonwhitear]

Hello everyone.

My latest build has arrived, and it's an SSCM-1E - mahogany body, ebony board. Everything looks OK going by a quick mock build.



I'm planning to spray a finish in a solid colour, though I haven't decided which yet. I also haven't decided if I'll use rattle cans or invest in a compressor and gun. I'm leaning towards gloss black - maybe even metallic - front, but don't know about the back.

I'll upgrade the tuners to Grovers, and will probably upgrade the pickups and electrics when I get to that point. I'll also fit an electro socket and replace the plastics with black, as the "cream" doesn't really do it for me.

I would appreciate some advice on the neck. It's a snug fit, but I'm not sure that it's seating into the pocket properly, i.e. I'm not sure there's a lot of contact between the heel and the floor of the pocket. Here are a few photos. Even when clamped quite firmly, there's a gap between the neck and the pocket, and a slight gap between the board and the top of the body. How would you tackle it?



Cheers,

Jon

[Simon Barden]

The neck will probably benefit from some work, but this sort of joint always benefits from being left a few days to let the timber acclimatise and settle down. It may improve slightly, it may get worse or it may stay the same. But you are best deciding what to do once it's in a stable condition.

You'll want to use a set square to check the neck heel, and probably make up some small right angles from card to check inside the neck pocket. If something's out of true, it helps to know exactly which part.

[stansby40]

I just got this kit as well and the neck joint on mine is fine. It appears from one of the pictures that the neck pocket has not been routed flat (left side) so some work may be required to level it

[jonwhitear]

Thanks guys. I'll leave the kit until the weekend, then work out what's square and what's not.

[jonwhitear]

After several days, things have certainly settled down.

Everything seems to be reasonably square when measured separately, but that can't be the case given the gap between the heal and the body!

I'm assuming that I'm aiming for the finger board and binding to be flush with the body, i.e. to eliminate the gap between the treble side of the board and the body. At the moment I'd say that gap is about a millimetre at the end of the finger board.

Here's how it's looking now.

[stansby40]

On my kit the fretboard is not flush on the treble side as well but probably 0.5mm high. I am not concerned about this as I am painting the body and I can fix small gaps if I want to. It is probably more important to check the scale length and intonation (ie neck angle) by putting a mock up of the bridge in place and checking with, as I do, pieces of string from the nut to the bridge. I am very nervous about sanding necks and/or neck pockets as you can quickly alter the neck angle and be in a worse situation. I just noticed that the pick guard will hide most of the gap anyway.

[Simon Barden]

You'll be very lucky indeed to get a low-cost kit that didn't have some slight gaps around the joins. You've got about as good joins as any of my kits had. There's always going to be a small amount of gap filling required. Glue will do some of the filling, but you may need to try and colour some fine filler, so it matches the colour of the wood, and touch up the remaining cracks.

The pickup ring will hide the gap under the fretboard in the bottom right picture above, so really it's just the side gap that needs a touch of filling there.

[Simon Barden]

The neck angle has normally been fine on the LP kits before, but as Stansby40 says, it's worth double checking.

[jonwhitear]

Thanks Stansby. I’m following your build with interest. I’m planning a paint finish as well - and like you, I’m planning to set the neck before spraying the back and neck. I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll finish the top before setting the neck. I had a look at some Epiphones in my local music shop to see if I could get any ideas on how best to do it, but came away with the impression that the finish on many of those isn’t all that good.

Anyway, it sounds like my neck fit is now within the bounds of acceptability, so I can move on.

[jonwhitear]

Thanks Simon. I think we were both typing at the same time. Yes, next thing I’m going to do is check scale length, string alignment and neck angle.