Fred's Build diary for DIY closing down sale 335 125 string

[FredA]

Hey guys,
So, I've been making slow progress on the 12 strings guitar too.
It's slow progress as I've got a fair few on at the moment :


The 12 string and the IB-5 are mine, the SG belongs to a friend who is going to stay with us for 3 months. He arrived on a Saturday 2x weeks ago and after playing with my STA-1 he ordered a SG kit the next day :-)
So I'm building my guitars, plus coaching him. It's going to be a fun build as he wants to make it a Frank Zappa SG, the one with 2x switches on the pickguard to tap coil the pickups. We've already done some routing under the pickguard! Fun!
He should start his build diary soon.

So back to my 12 strings, I'm still working on applying Aussie Oil as the finish, and I like it so far!
The body is starting to be quite glossy while there's barely any thickness to the finish. Still need a few sessions (or a dozen sessions actually... ), but it's looking pretty good. No photos yet.

I've also applied 2x coats to the neck, and I love it! It's super smooth and already semi-glossy. I've got the same glue line at the heel of the neck than tonyw reported on his, but with the natural finish it barely shows, so I reckon it's going to stay...

I ordered a Realtone wiring kit for 335 as I wanted to try good electronics for this one. The CTS Vintage pots are huge compared to the ones that came with the kit! They just fit through the F hole...
Below are a photo of the Realtone kit, and one of the CTS Vintage pot next to a standard kit one:


I've widened the pots, witch and jack holes to accommodate these guys. I used a large drill bit in reverse and it got the job done without drama.
Today I was messing around with the parts, thinking about how I was going to actually wire them... and one thing leading to another I built the whole harness... I reckon it took me 3-4 hours as the braided wires can be painful to strip!

I also had a brain-dead moment that costed me about an hour.
I was done soldering everything, and when testing for continuity I found that the jack tip was grounded... I had been super cautious testing ground continuity and isolation between ground and hots almost after each solder... and I couldn't see any issue...

So I started troubleshooting, un-soldering little by little to try to isolate the issue... Still couldn't find it, it didn't make sense!
After a while I finally realised that one of the volume pots was showing ground on its middle pin even when no wires were connected... I checked the pot and it was on zero......... sigh.... I have sued the Gibson wiring, so when the volume is on zero, it grounds the hot for this pickup, and the whole line when this line was selected... argh!!!!

Anyway, I was glad I found the issue. I checked all pickups where on full, resoldered everything and it all tested okay this time! Done:


So I'm now ready to install once the body and neck are ready.
I'm going to do a full fret leveling. It looks pretty good, but just to be sure.
I'll then glue the neck and will do some final polishing. I'm thinking that if I glue before the last coats I'll be able to make a seamless transition with the Aussie Oil.

Maybe next week!

[peterh]

FredA,
In the pictures it looks like you are using wiring with the woven metal shielding on the outside and just soldered it to the pots without pulling the inner wire through or pushing the shielding back. Am I seeing that correctly? Did you run into any issues with melting the inner insulation when soldering the shield to the pots?
I'm curious to know because I ordered a bunch of the PBG shielded wire to do my 2 kits with and wondered about the best way to deal with the shielding (push back, pull wire through or just leave it).

Peter.

[FredA]

@peterh: I used the standard way, pushed and unbraid part of the shielding, push back the isolating fabric, and tin inner connector. But I then soldered the shielding to all the pots to create my ground line.

Check out this video, pretty good to show how to do it:
https://youtu.be/ml0zHsIaMEY

I'll take more detailed pics of mine tonight.
Cheers

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[FredA]

I said I was going to post better pics of the wiring harness and I must have forgotten...
Here's a couple other views:




And while I'm adding photos, here are a couple from the headstock with the Jockomo white pearl sticker.
I bought a sticker for guitar body, so quite large and I only used parts of it that I customised.
I stuck them on and then sprayed clear gloss acrylic on top, using the Pitbull Guitar 'spray booth':




The sticker's got some thickness and I was trying to get it flat, so I've sprayed about 6x coats of gloss, wet sanded, then sprayed 3-4x more, sanded again, more gloss, sanded again... more gloss... and I think I've got to stop now! :-)

[FredA]

Working out some gloss this morning:


The Aussie Oil seems to be working!

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[FredA]

Same, with some sun on it:


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[tonyw]

Nice Fred, have you got many flaws in the body that couldnt be sanded out?

[FredA]

@Tony: not really. But I think the natural finish is a lot more forgiving.
When I was preparing the body there was a fair bit of glue on the veneers. I sanded them carefully but didn't quite get them out.
So when I did the first soak coat of Aussie Oil I was expecting to have glue spots to fix, but it's either that my sanding scratched them enough, or that the oil soaks in the glue, but at the end I can't see any glue spots anymore.

The neck heel's got the same issue as yours, with glue visible where they've glued the heel to the neck.
But again thanks to the natural finish it's visible, but not shocking as it just looks like a line in the wood.
I'll add a photo later.

But I share your feeling about the less-than-paper-thin veneers... I think I'll stay away from veneers now unless I know it's not 0.3mm!

[FredA]

Here's how the neck heel looks like:


It's clearly visible. I tried to sand it off but couldn't get rid of it. So I decided I can live with that...

[tonyw]

I am still in a fight with mine, i have hit it with black enamel, this is the last time i look at it, its done my head in