Gavs ES-2T Florentine

[lawry]

Hey Gav. If it ends up too hard trying to put the stuff inside, perhaps you can just blu tack them on the outside and make a feature of it 8-)

[gavinturner]

Ha! Don't tempt me.

Cheers,
Gav

[wokkaboy]

Gav all that tidy wiring preparation you have done inserting it should be easy. Look forward to seeing it complete and a sound demo

[gavinturner]

hi guys,

Well, today was the moment of truth - the day any builder of a semi-hollowbody guitar dreads. It's the day when that carefully prepared wiring harness gets delicately inserted, and then not so delicately inserted, and then literally shoved and jimmied with multiple screw drivers, into the guitar's body cavity until somehow the pots miraculously appear where they are supposed to.

It took me 5 attempts. All of them generously peppered with expletives. But, finally, I got the bugger in! In the end I used 5mm aquarium pipe for the furthest pot from the f-hole and all the rest i used a combination of fingers, screwdrivers and appeals to various deities. As I expected, the CTS pots were indeed a source of much frustration. They were high enough so that if they sat flat against the bottom of the cavity they got wedged against the top. I had to push them in on their sides to get them to move at all. @#$%@#!! Anyway, it's done now and I'm a very happy camper indeed.






With much trepidation I then soldered up the harness to the pickups and the switch. Viola! This baby makes noise. There's a lot of wire in the cavity (if you look from the right direction you can see it) but I'm not about to fool with it too much. I may go back and trim the wires up at a later date, but who am I kidding.




@Wokka - I did try to make a sound demo for you guys, but I really am the worst guitar player on the face of the earth! After 10 takes of mainly profanities I gave it up. I might try again tomorrow.

On the plus side, the action actually isn't as bad as I thought it would be! It's pretty damn good actually, truth be told, and once I have the nut height down where it should be, this baby should be sweet!

So anyway, this build is almost finished! I still need to do a full fret level and there's a new bone nut to create. I just ordered a new tool from Stewmac - the 'Safe Slot Nut Guard' (http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Nuts,_sa...Nut_Guard.html) so I'll wait for that to arrive before doing the nut. I also need a truss rod cover. I'm thinking about a cream perloid one but I need to find a cheap scrap of pickguard material to get that done. I guess I'll be trolling ebay for a while. There's cheap(ish) LP pickguards available on there so I might have to buy one of those and carve it up.

cheers,
Gav.

[gavinturner]

... and here she is with her buddies. Settling in nicely!



cheers,
Gav.

[pablopepper]

Great stuff Gav. This one is outstanding.

[gavinturner]

@Pablo - thanks Craig! Yeah I'm really pleased with how it's turned out. It's a great kit.

cheers,
Gav.

[adam]

Really lovely guitar Gav and a stunning collection.

I see you've got a 12 string ES guitar there, was that a kit? I only ask because I have some of those on order for April arrival and wasn't sure how they would go, but they do look nice.

[adam]

Hey Gav, are you thinking about taking some close-up shots of the finished guitar? If so, I'd love to do a Facebook spread on our FB Page, but maybe not until our ES-1GT kits are back in stock, in a couple of weeks. Between this one and Andy's wine red one a couple of months ago, we can't get enough of these kits.

[wokkaboy]

well done Gav, must have been a tough job finishing that wiring but main thing its done. Looks amazing, no wonder you are stoked. DB showed us the SM nut safe guard and they work well. Don't stress about the sound demo, doesn't have to be anything fancy, just strum a few chords clean/dirty with neck and bridge pickups.