Building a BC-1 guitar for my son

[fender3x]

I think that should be fine!

1+

Also string tension will bow the neck a bit to pull the strings up



Sent from my LE2125 using Tapatalk

[Barno]

Hi Trevor,
oh right - I see what you mean on your link. Thanks for posting that. I'll continue to the next stage! Slow and steady progress haha

Cheers
Barney

[Barno]

Hi everyone! (and Trevor in particular ). Merry Xmas to you all!

I am moving on with my son's guitar. I have 7 weeks left until his birthday, I'm hoping I can leave about a month for the painting (to do a good job).

I've drilled the 4 x hoes in the neck to connect it to the body, while it was clamped. I didn't drill through the neck, which was planned but still a relief!

I have 3 quick questions for my next progress:

1. I'm about to start checking the height of the frets - I don't think I need the neck connected to the body for this?

2. But, if I need to do any checking and adjustment with the neck to see if it's concave / convex - I will? And to do the concave / convex check - I'd need to (temporarily) put the bridge etc back?

3. It might be worth me test-fitting and drilling the 4 x small holes per pickup, before I think about painting?

thanks as always for your thoughts
Barney

[Trevor Davies]

Hi Barno, merry Christmas!

1. For the height of the frets, or fret levelling, the neck does not need to be fitted. But the neck does need to be perfectly flat!

2. When the neck is fitted, and strings are added with tension, Then the neck will need a slight concave bow. But do not worry about this until much later.

3. I would leave the pickup surround holes until after painting. That way you can get them positioned correctly under the strings.

I hope this helps. TD

[Barno]

Thanks Trevor, I'll get busy today checking out those frets!

[Barno]

OK I made some progress, carefully masking up the frets, applying Sharpie marker and then carefully passing over it with 400 sandpaper in a straight edge.

Almost all of my frets exposed similar amounts of shine after a few passes, which I'm guessing might mean I'm a bit lucky.

One fret though showed a lot of shine and on close inspection, looks like it's lifting up a bit. I gave it a few gentle taps with a plastic hammer but it doesn't seem to want to sit down.

Am I maybe looking to try to get a tiny bit of Araldite glue in there, then clamping the fret for a day to let it settle?

I've attached 2 pix. You can see the fret has just popped up a little.

thanks!

[Trevor Davies]

I have never had this problem!

My 2 cents: If the gentle taps with a plastic mallet did nothing, then I would try glueing it back into place. I would use CA glue (superglue) as it is quite "thin" and will wick along the join better than a thicker glue. If you put wax paper (the kitchen type) over the glue join it will stop the CA from sticking to your wood spacer and clamp. Any glue runs can be sanded or scraped off.

I'm not sure how much force will need to be applied to the fret, but a capo may apply enough to hold it down and keep the correct curve!

[Barno]

That's a very good idea, I'll try that this afternoon!

thanks Trevor

[Barno]

Hi Trevor I had a few challenges with that rogue fret. A capo wasn't enough to clamp it down, and neither was the large F-clamp I used for holding the neck to the body.

Plan 2 was to gently lift the fret off without bending it. I used a tiny jeweller's screwdriver and took my time. I wasn't convinced the little channel that the fret sits in was quite deep enough, so I used a jeweller's coping saw with the tiniest blade to deepen it a little. It sits pretty flush, so I used some 800 sandpaper to carefully take it down a little more to be sure.

I think it's ok now, and managed to put a tiny bit of superglue at each end.

Tomorrow it's primer coat 1 on the body - I'm going to paint it so gave it a 400 sand all over. I'll do 3 primer coats as the instructions suggest, with a light sand in between each, and leaving a day to dry between coats. It's about 18-20 deg here; some Brisbane heat would be nice.

I'll also start reading the pick-up / switch / etc soldering guide - soldering for me is the easy bit!!

[Trevor Davies]

Great that you got the fret issue sorted.