Wazkelly's EX-1

[Swanny]

Looking good, Waz! You need large cases for these babies!

[stan]

nice work Waz,but i suspect you bought one of the pre made guitars and are trying to pass it off as yours... it's that good mate, nice job

[gavinturner]

Looks amazing Waz! Would love to hear a sound demo of this baby. That finish is killer!

cheers,
Gav.

[wazkelly]

Hi Guys, back from about 10 days annual leave break and thank you all for your kind comments.

Bit of a story behind the no PUP surrounds....... you see, when measuring scale length for gluing the set neck I did not even think about leaving a small amount of room for the neck PUP surround as I was so paranoid about getting the scale length exact, that is my OCD side coming to the fore.

Anyways, after neck had set I started to do a mock build and that is when I realised a neck PUP surround would not fit as the heel of the neck was flush with the PUP route. DOH and plenty of other unsavoury words were muttered. At first I was going to cut one to fit and even considered using Rosewood to tie in with the fret board at end of the neck. It was only when discussing my plight with a work colleague who has a EVH Wolfgang that he suggested to go top loaded and no PUP surrounds. Looked into it and checked out the Wolfgang online and kind of liked the stripped back look better than traditional PUP surrounds.

Another mind baffling moment was with the Tone Riders as usually with a matching set the neck PUP's have the screws nearest the neck whilst the bridge ones are nearest to the bridge. Not this set, first giveaway was that if flipped to what seemed normal way around the wires were too short and upon closer inspection, and also cross referenced to at least 2 other humbucker equipped guitars, I noticed that on the high E side of the bobbins there is a small hole that shows some of the copper wire, and this seemed to indicate my neck PUP had to be loaded as shown with screws at rear and slugs at the neck.

As I was coil splitting neck to slugs and bridge to screws it has worked out well and sounds great with all the combinations available and will have to upload a sound clip at some stage.

All up the kit arrived on 12 November 2015 and whilst technically finished on 15 April 2016 I have only just decided on which photos to use for GOTM. So mine has taken about the same time as Andy40's Spalted LP and we now go head to head in this month's GOTM.

Plenty of stiff competition every month so no point holding it back. Thanks to all the encouragement and kind comments along the way.

[Andy40]

Good to see you put it for GTOM Waz. upping the game for me a bit

[wazkelly]

Good to see you put it for GTOM Waz. upping the game for me a bit

GOTM only gets harder given the quantity and quality of entries submitted as each month passes. Just happy to be amongst such fine entrants.

[Dedman]

I have to agree Waz. The level of build quality I see here by "amateurs" is higher than I see on some Youtube "pro" builders.

[wazkelly]

I have to agree Waz. The level of build quality I see here by "amateurs" is higher than I see on some Youtube "pro" builders.

Cheers Dedman.

It was only August last year that I was a newbie to guitar building and not having done any woodworking stuff for more than 30 years.

The forum members have been such a great help with plenty of advice, humour, general banter and through sharing our experiences both good and bad we have all grown plenty of new skills together.

Looking forward to finishing off my remaining couple of projects so that I can use that spare time to play with my new toys.

[Dedman]

In winter I always have some sort of hands on thing under way, this winter I have 2 kits and a semi-scratch built to get stuck into. Last year I customised a couple of rifles, then decided I wasn't going to shoot those matches and sold them, doh!
So this winter is building and learning to play properly.

[wazkelly]

Sounds like a good plan.

Mine is to get back into playing guitar and bass more frequently even if it is just for my own enjoyment and maybe the odd gig here and there once I have got the rust out.