RC-4 "The Cole"...

[wokkaboy]

cheers Barge, you doing a bit of thread jacking yourself haha

[bargeloobs]

cheers Barge, you doing a bit of thread jacking yourself haha

I call it "moonlighting".

[Arzi]

Hi

almost crapped my pants when I saw Wokka´s avatar...

Promised to put some pics of the gluing process so here they are

Used fishing line with some washers as weights in the ends of it. This way I´m able to check how the strings would place without using the real things and quickly take them off and put them on. Used this to place the bridges a while back. The fishing line seems to be surprisingly stable and not move the bridges while positioning due to their flexibility and the weight is delivered evenly on the nut and the bridge. Line stays straight and still. This way I can´t see how it would look with the fat strings of course but if the main thing is to try to match the string spacing at certain spot and measured from the middle of the string to the next - it does the job.

I could only fit one clamp on this due to the narrow counter space on the body´s back. I think it will do the job.

Spotted the tip about taping the surroundings yesterday from another post. Good thing I did because the glue came out quite a bit from the joint. Would have been a pain in the **s to wipe off or in the worst case - sand off later.

It´s 10:30 PM here at the moment and tomorrow I´ll clean the bindings and place the neck pup scratchplate screws. From there on it´s putting some of the pieces together and the fretwork I forgot totally until I glued the neck... NNGHH! Can do it of course but would have been easier with the neck loose.

Good night to everyone reading this.

[wokkaboy]

looking good Arzi you are on the home stretch now. I've glued about 20 set necks and never thought to tape off the neck pocket area to stop glue oozing onto the finish. Thanks for the great idea !
PS I don't look anything like my avatar, thats Barge's paintshopping talking me up ! haha

[Arzi]

So - the neck is set. I removed the tapes from the body and headstock. Saw how much stain there was on the binding and started to clean it up.

Taped the binding edges and tried to wet sand carefully - no luck. Then took out my disposable surgical scalpel ( perks from work) and started scraping. Scraped the neck clean and then took a look at the body... Damn... Saw all the flaws I left behind before putting on the finish and - decided to scrape those too.

At this time I knew that I will take the TO off as well from the bindings. At this point I've spent 3 hours scraping in total and still have an hour of work left. The neck binding was shiny white as the body binding yellowish from oil and spotty as well.

Anyway - after I'm done there will be no stain on the binding and afterwards it's masking tape and wet sanding to smooth out the binding. Also there is a line that you feel with fingers on the edge of the binding that needs to be smoothed out too - don't know yet how but I'll think of something.

Gonna be up late again this evening... It's pics time again tomorrow at some point...

[Arzi]

Daylight...

So I cleaned the bindings after scraping with wet sanding 2000 grit and then polishing with nameless product and nameless wax as before... came out ok. Seems I used the nameless oil so generously that I can also sand without fear of breaking the finish. The borders came out nice - especially the neck feels smooth going from wood to binding.

Drilled and screwed the tuning pegs/machine heads on last night as well as the neck pickup´s scratchplate. I had ordered a black set of pegs and thought it would look nice to use chrome ferrules with black pegs. Kind of goes with the colour theme on the body.

Today when kids were taking a nap I decided to shield the pickup- and control cavities with aluminum tape. Used the tape with my first build with good results - no hum - except from my cheap amp but that´s another story... The glue should be conductive as it reads so on the product. Only remembered to take pics when the last one was up.

After that the sun came out and I decided it was time to take daylight pics of "The Cole" so here they are. In different light it shows different color as can be seen on the photos. I could not decide witch ones to post so here they all are. Hope it´s not too much at once.

Next I have some soldering to do with the pickups and slugs, then fretwork followed with stringing it up. Then adjusting the truss rod, filing the nut, setting string hight, setting intonation, and doing some of these all over again a few times because of the truss rod living it´s own life from several hours to a day at a time after adjusting it... and of course design the truss rod cover with a logo of mine ( that´s gonna take time...)

At the moment we´re going through the coldest summer in 20 years in Finland with a lot of rain too so you know what that does to a guitar wood... Too bad I told one of the members here to bring speedos along when they arrive - even I haven´t dipped in a lake so far and I live here...

Hope you had the patience to go through my short novel again and maybe like what you see.

[Arzi]

And some more....

[Arzi]

And a bit more still...

[wokkaboy]

wow Arzi that looks unreal. Must be on the home stretch now !

[Arzi]

Thanks Wokka

I aim to finish this during august. It's back to work in under two weeks and kids are starting day care. Wife starts working again also so we have our calendar quite booked. Best to leave this project to be finished at work. Maybe GOTM entry if I feel good about the end result (mainly if it plays ok and I don't bang up the guitar before that).