First Build - PSH-1 Hollowbody

[dbeltrami]

Hey Mike, your project is looking great. Can’t wait to see it all finished.

I’ve shielded the cavity in my Strat and Tele guitars but didn’t think I’d be needing to do this with my PSH-1 kit given it has humbuckers.

Do you think I should do the same? You can’t really fully enclose the cavity with shielding, I presume, because the pickups just have plastic mounting rings rather than a scratch plate or metal bridge plate.

[mrpearson]

Hey Mike, your project is looking great. Can’t wait to see it all finished.

I’ve shielded the cavity in my Strat and Tele guitars but didn’t think I’d be needing to do this with my PSH-1 kit given it has humbuckers.

Do you think I should do the same? You can’t really fully enclose the cavity with shielding, I presume, because the pickups just have plastic mounting rings rather than a scratch plate or metal bridge plate.

I have installed a few extra switches so I can run the humbuckers in split, parallel and series. Series and parallel modes the humbuckers do their thing but single coils don’t. Whilst it won’t be perfect, I am installing it anyway (looks kind of nice too ) and using shielded wire where possible.

If you are not splitting then I doubt it you will need it. But I would defer to the experts like [mention]Simon Barden [/mention] who know much more about these things.


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[mrpearson]

Question. Should pickups be parallel to the string ? I am at the last stages of installing hardware but the pickups aren’t sitting level.




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[mrpearson]

Fret buzz help.

I sanded down the bridge pickup ring and now have level pickups.


Finished setting up now but have an annoying fret buzz on my A string when fretting between the 3rd and 7th frets and on my Low E around the 10-14 frets. I have played around with adjusting relief and action but no joy getting rid of it. My other strings are ok and I can fret all the way down the neck with no buzz.

I suspect I have a high or low spot on a few frets somewhere from when I leveled the frets at the start of my build.

Any tips on how to diagnose which fret is the culprit and fix???



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[Bakersdozen]

Try raising just the bass side of the bridge a little and see if that helps. If it helps, keep raising that side until the buzz goes away. If you can live with that, I find i usually have to have the bass side higher than the treble side on a wraparound bridge.

[mrpearson]

Thanks will play around with the action. I have a bit more room to play with to keep it playable Btw. [mention]Bakersdozen [/mention] How do you find the musiclily bridge? Any vibration and did you change the saddles over from the kit bridge to get a better break angle as some people recommend. I haven’t tried this yet.


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[Bakersdozen]

Thanks will play around with the action. I am have a bit more room to play with. Btw. [mention]Bakersdozen [/mention] How do you find the musiclily bridge? Any vibration and did you change the saddles over from the kit bridge to get a better break angle as some people recommend. I haven’t tried this yet.


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I remember trying all of those things due to vibration etc. I would recommend just sticking with how it is and make small changes if needed. It was also my first kit and I've learnt much since then. Mine now has a bigsby and roller TOM bridge but that's a different story and major works involved.

[DarkMark]

I love the look of this guitar. I do hope you finish it soon and enter it into the guitar of the month competition. I’d like to be beaten by this guitar 👍
If I ever do another kit I think it will be one of these ones. Some of these builds have been among my favourite.

[mrpearson]

I love the look of this guitar. I do hope you finish it soon and enter it into the guitar of the month competition. I’d like to be beaten by this guitar
If I ever do another kit I think it will be one of these ones. Some of these builds have been among my favourite.

Thanks mate. I am not sure I am quite up there with your entry this month. Your finish is amazing.

I was going to be technically finished today but was not happy with the vibration coming from the musiclily bridge and the tilt under tension. I returned the Kaisch locking posts as they didn’t fit my 2 bridges without a lot of force and then did not do their job.

So I have over capitalized and bought a gotoh wrap around bridge with locking posts built in last night. AusPost says a 3 day delivery time so hoping this weekend I am calling this done


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[mrpearson]

I am calling this done !

I ditched the Musiclily bridge as I couldn’t get the action low enough and it was vibrating like no tomorrow and the Kaisch locking posts didn’t fit hence it tilted forward.

Installed the Gotoh bridge which arrived surprisingly fast. It sat a lot further forward and has less intonation adjustment than the bridges I set the neck with. Luckily I had just enough adjustment available to get the intonation set. Next step was to reverse a saddle but don’t think I need to. (And I have no idea how to remove a saddle)

Electric trickery is working beautifully with no buzz and Tonerider AC2 pickups sound sweet.

I am happy

I learned a lot on this build and pulled out my fair share of hair. Thanks for all the help and encouragement along way. Big call out to [mention]Simon Barden [/mention] @[mention]McCreed [/mention] and [mention]Bakersdozen [/mention] for the in depth get me out of trouble advice.



Key learnings

1) glue soaked through veneer is a major pain. But I now have a burst effect.

2) tru oil is awesome. But truoil plus wet sanding is dangerous. (Lots of rework here) 30 coats applied with a aeropress coffee filters and mesh pad rub down every 5 coats is my magic formula. Last 2 coats diluted with mineral turps and allied with a synthetic chamois gave me my final gloss coat and polished with meuguires car polish after letting dry for around 3-4 weeks. Back gloss finish achieved with slurry method applying the oil with about 1500 grit wet and dry paper and then layering lots of gloss coats.

3) shimming the neck. I wish I had been more aggressive here to get a lower action however I manage to solve for this by recessing my bridge posts and using a slim bridge.

4) The dingo tone stain gave me the flame effect I wanted but didn’t cover the glue stains and did not work on the sides or back. Ended up using feast Wason Japan brown which was a happy fix as it forced me to learn how to burst on the front and the contrast on the back and neck works.

5) water slide decals are worth the effort.

6) kit electrics are worth replacing. Electrics include 0.22 orange drop cap, treble bleed circuit, cts mini taper pots and shielded wiring. Pickup switch is a musiclily switch craft style switch that just fits. Cable jack is a pure tone 3 point connection which is awesome. My cable is never coming out with this. Dpdt on on on mini switches are a custom mod and give me split, series and parallel options per pickup. Pickup polls cancel hum out in split and parallel modes.

7) fret leveling is my nemesis. Need to buy a wider crowning file but managed to fix issues and have no fret buzz

8) buy the best p2 vapor spray mark you can.


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