Salo's 2nd Project ES-1G

[stan]

looking great, will be interested to see the candy paint once the clear goes on

[Salo]

It's been a while since the last post. Holidays and all that. Well since then I have straightened the neck and waxed the fret board. I thought I'd introduce the neck to the body when!!! Houston we have a problem. It appears to be out of scale. See pictures below.

It's 313 to the twelfth fret but the long measurement to the bridge is over 630. Obviously I can't alter the heal as it will affect the neck pickup. So I'll have to change the bridge posts. The problem is I have already applied the finish and also the post plugs will show up as it's not a solid colour. Has anybody else had a similar problem or can offer a better solution.

Whilst on the subject of neck heel I seem to have a further problem. There seems to be surplus wood in the route above the bottom binding (photo 1 & 2) and in photo 3 shows a slight gap between body and neck. Would I be dicing with neck angle problems if I sanded that wood surplus in the neck route. HELP

[WeirdBits]

Is the neck tongue end sitting all the way back againt the wall of the neck pup rout? Looks like a gap in the image. Is the fretboard end right up against the pup ring in that position?

Wind the high E saddle all the way forward and post the measurements from nut to 12th and 12th to high E saddle along the path of the e string. Do the same for the low E. Then we can work out if it can be intonated or if adjustments will need to be made.

[Andy40]

The neck angle looks pretty good for the ES-1G....not sure about your reading material in that photo......

[wazkelly]

Weirdy has eagle eyes and I reckon the same thing too in there would seem to be a bit more room for the neck to go into the body but that may end up compromising the neck PUP mounting ring? Same thing happened on my EX-1 and being a solid body eventually figured out a way to deal with it. Not so easy on a semi hollow body.

[Simon Barden]

If you're sure that its 313mm to the centre of the 12th fret, then that gives a scale length of 626mm. The PBG scale length states 628, which should put that fret 1mm further towards the bridge.

Type 626mm in to the StewMac fret calculator. http://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator . That will give you the lengths from the nut for the other frets if the scale really is 626mm. Looking at the picture, that 12th fret looks a bit dodgy and seems to be too close to the 11th fret and too far away from the 13th (though it may be a camera effect).

Then put 628mm in the fret calculator and see if the other frets tie up better with that figure. If so, you need to email Adam to get the neck sent back to PBG for a replacement. There has certainly been one example I know of, of a neck with a fret in the wrong place recently.

The Fret Calculator also gives a guide for bridge placement distance from the nut. Your's looks about right for a 628mm scale length.

[Salo]

Thanks Weirdbits, I'll do that. I did notice that there is a gap between the fret end and the start of the neck pickup route. Are you saying that the fret end should line up with the route start? What about mount gap?

Andy40, you've caught me out. But I'm innocent. It's a giant puzzle book published by Womens Weeky. I like doing crosswords and code breakers.

Thanks Wazkelly. How did you get out of that one?

Wow thanks Simon I never thought of that. This forum is amazing.

[wazkelly]

Thanks Wazkelly. How did you get out of that one?

Being a solid body made it a little bit easier as I had to shape up some timber pieces to go down in the mounting screw holes to act like spacers. I then drilled 2 holes either side of the original mounting screw hole in case I wanted to swap them out at a later date and proceeded to screw both PUP's into these custom made spacer/anchoring points. First attempt was too low and ended up dropping in a 6mm ply bit of timber cut to the exact shape of the PUP hole and then screwed down through that.

It was a right proper PIA, very fiddly, but the stripped back look was worth it in the end.

Not sure if you could pull this off on a ES type guitar and as I don't own one cannot comment.

Some alternatives that went through my mind were to use rose wood timber PUP mounting rings and cut the neck one to fit around where the neck meets the body. Like most things these are available on eBay and also Real Parts.

[Salo]

Hi Weirdbit, from the photo I can see that I can gain 2mm on the treble side and 1mm on the bass side. I don't think it will impinge on the PU mount.

As an aside, I have pulled the trigger on some upgrades for this build. This guitar is going to be my go to instrument and I want it to sound like the guitar I've always wanted. So I've bought a Jimmy Page wiring harness. It has 4 short shaft Bourns 500K Push / Pull Potentiometers, Ceramic wafer .047 uF and Gavitt Vintage Style Cloth Wire. I'm also about to put an order in for a set of '59 PAF handwound Humbuckers with hand magnetised Alnico 5, unpotted, german nickel silver baseplate, pickup covers are dampened with 4 wire conductor. With the wiring harness, this will give me 21 options (just like Jimmy Page).

[wokkaboy]

nice wiring harness Salo, so that's how you bought it pre-wired ?

hope those bulky push pull pots fit through the F hole ? I'd say they will but it will be tight.

The pups you ordered sound good too !