DrNomis_44's Gold Standard STA-1M Build.

[FredA]

Looking nice Doc!
I like the body grain... I vote for the clear DingoTone finish! :-)

Re the snail and slug barrier, it's 30mm wide, so as DB was alluding not that much of a bargain if you compare to the 50mm from PBG.
I actually used a combination on my STA1. PBG issued tape for large pieces (bottom of the cavity) and snail and slug tape for the edges as it's close to the depth of the cavity.
Anyway, it's only copper tape... as long as it sticks and is a good conductor it won't change the tone of the guitar.

Enjoy the sanding!

[keloooe]

It works great. I didn't solder much between each part of copper tape on my STA1M.
As long as you overlap them a little bit you get very good conductivity between them.

Fred, the adhesive on that copper is not conductive so you will be better off making sure there is a join on all edges

[andrewdosborne]

Looking nice Doc!
I like the body grain... I vote for the clear DingoTone finish! :-)

Re the snail and slug barrier, it's 30mm wide, so as DB was alluding not that much of a bargain if you compare to the 50mm from PBG.
I actually used a combination on my STA1. PBG issued tape for large pieces (bottom of the cavity) and snail and slug tape for the edges as it's close to the depth of the cavity.
Anyway, it's only copper tape... as long as it sticks and is a good conductor it won't change the tone of the guitar.

Enjoy the sanding!

I'd go the Dingotone as well. I especially like the grain across the top of the body

Sent from my GT-I9506 using Tapatalk

[FredA]

@keloooe: I found the adhesive was conductive. Tested from opposite sides of the cavity, with several joins, and it read a few ohms.
I thought of it after reading Gavin Turner's post where he tested it: http://guitarkitbuilder.blogspot.com...for-slugs.html

But I'm not selling the stuff... was just mentioning it as it is a convenient replacement if you forget to order the tape with your guitar

[dingobass]

Thanks for the info Fred.

[dingobass]

Doc, Coolie Gold with highlights would absolutely zing on that body...

[Swanny]

Looking good, Doc! You'll love them Grovers, they make restringing a breeze, and they stay tuned.

Grain looks great on the body, you'll have to show it off nicely.

[Nickosaurus]

Nice neck grain mate. Should come up well.

[DrNomis_44]

Hi Doc, kit looks good. The ash grain looks pretty plain compared to what I've seen so if I was you would stick to your solid gold paint plans. Those tuners must be the Grovers, they don't look perfectly in line but close enough.
The fingerboard has some nice grain !
How is the neck fit in the pocket fairly tight ?

Yeah those tuners are the Grover mini lockers, I'm going to go with them, the neck fit is not fairly tight in the neck pocket, I can easily put the neck in the pocket with not much effort but that may change when the body has been finished.


To my eyes the tuners are all aligned straight enough to be quite acceptable, I saw other members builds where there was something like a 2mm to 3mm misalignment of the tuner holes, in my case there's barely even .5mm of misalignment, I'll have to check that using a steel ruler though, but I reckon it's not even worth worrying about.


Anyway, I reckon I'll just run with it and not do any adjustments to the tuner alignment since there's no real major issues with it really.

[DrNomis_44]

@keloooe: I found the adhesive was conductive. Tested from opposite sides of the cavity, with several joins, and it read a few ohms.
I thought of it after reading Gavin Turner's post where he tested it: http://guitarkitbuilder.blogspot.com...for-slugs.html

But I'm not selling the stuff... was just mentioning it as it is a convenient replacement if you forget to order the tape with your guitar

For me, it's not so much that I forgot to order the conductive tape for my guitar, it's just that when I ordered the kit my budget wouldn't cover ordering the tape with the kit, I'll see what the Big Green Shed stocks.



So as it stands, we have one vote for a solid Gold Paint finish, and five votes for the Coolangatta Gold MkII with gold Highlights finish.