An update on my Gr-1SF build. After I wired er up I couldn't contain myself and had to put the rest of it all together that night and the next day. I had practically assembled the whole thing earlier during the mock build anyways. I couldn't get the bridge and bigsby piece lined up without screwing some of it down so I had all the hardware set up even before the sand and paint phase. The paint slightly filled in all the screw holes making for a nice snug fit when I came back in for the final fitting. Hardware on I quickly put on the set of strings provided for the set up, plugged her in and had a go. The strings felt very easy to bend and Hard to feel due to their thiner than I was used to gauge. After my initial relief of actually hearing it make noise, I was left nervous of finding something wrong...and I have to tell you, I didn't! I was all ready to move into checking the action/frets/intonation etc when I got into playing it. I had a few of my friends alternately play and listen to it just to make sure I didn't have a case of "isn't my baby beautiful" both confirmed that it played well, sounded good and the action was great. So I left it alone and have been playing it for the past week. Took it for a test run at my church's youth group and it belted out a quick set of ska punk influenced worship songs. I'm not quite done building it but have been loving playing it already, thank you Pitbullguitars! Still got to make my custom cover for the truss rod and put my emblem on the back flat spot where the neck attaches to the body.
Aloha, Jeff