Ken's first build - LP-1S

[wokkaboy]

well done Ken love the smooth gloss finish looks like glass. Look forward to seeing it assembled

[kenfu]

Thanks everyone. I'm really happy with how it is coming along.

Andrew, they are the 510s. I absolutely love the shape. The "black" is definitely not a pure black. They are just off black to a more gray side. But I think they really compliment the curves of the lp.

[Arzi]

Wow - very nice Ken!

I decided to order a body blank of european alder / black alder from Finnish guitar building company called Amfisound. The finnish name for the wood is " Tar alder". It has nice grain that is reddish while the rest of the wood is lighter in color. Amfisound uses the same alder a lot in their builds - check them out by the way. They have quite a collection of remarkable builds on their website ( I'll never have money to afford one of their builds but still nice to look at and get ideas).

Now that I get to do a scratch body, I have some leftover wood from both blocks where I can test the tea/vinegar to see if I can achieve even coloring before I start on the body.

Thanks again for the tips!

[kenfu]

So yesterday I finally got the Triple Shots (thanks to a brilliant suggestion from PK) and decided to wire up the guitar. This week while I was waiting I decided to string it up and get some tension on the neck and make all the adjustments and intonation. Didn't take any pictures of that, but it was actually a lot easier than I expected, due mainly to the fact that there is so much great information in the "How to build" sticky. Thanks to everyone who contributed to that, it made it a breeze!!! I'm going to have to invest in a radius block and some fret tools though. I had one buzzing fret, it was only the Low E and A string, and they only buzzed when fretting the 12th fret. So I took some sandpaper and very carefully sanded the 13th fret just a little bit, so it still buzzes if you really pick hard, but otherwise it works fine. Especially since I played guitar years ago and stopped for too long, and my Dad started building guitars and it looked fun and inspired me to get back into it, so this was supposed to be a simple "learn to play guitar."

Anyway, the Triple Shots are awesome! I was thinking about getting some push/pull pots so I could split the coils, but these things make wiring a breeze. They have a tiny board and you solder the pickup connections to that. And since I got some SD hot rodded pickups, the wire colors on the pickup matched exactly. It was kind of idiot proof... except I found a way to be a better idiot and wired them upside down, so the switch was on the high e side, rather than the low e. Luckily it just meant taking out the pickup and flipping it around. The screws with the Triple Shots (for holding the pickup) were too long for the cavities, but a couple quick snips with some nippers fixed than.





I had never even heard of the Triple Shots, so I am very thankful for PK's suggestion. Now not only can I split the coil, but you can select the adjustable coil, slug coil, humbucker in series or parallel. It is very cool.

I then proceeded to mount all the switches and knobs and pickups, and started soldering. Since I had shielded every internal surface with shielding paint, I decided to try it without putting ground wires on the pots and just ground everything to the shielding. I had put a lug in the cavity and painted a few coats over the screw so there was a very good connection to the shield, and just ran the earth wire from the output jack to that. It worked great, except the neck tone didn't work, so I figured it wasn't getting a good connection to earth. Even though if I used a meter, I had connectivity from the pot to the shield. Figuring safe was better than sorry, I grounded the switch and pots physically with wires and solder and everything worked great.

Also, I used a usb cable for the run from the switch, since it is shielded 4 wire. The stuff I have has 4 wires, a foil shield, and braided wire around all of that that you can use for ground.

So I plugged it into the Xbox and fired up rocksmith, and played around. I kept hearing a weird background hum that sounded like traffic and trains. We live next to some train tracks, so at first I thought I did something wrong and just built a super sensitive antenna. Then I RTFM'd and there is a setting for "sound effects". Apperently "sound effects" means background traffic noises. Turned that off and it worked great. It kept me up till 4 am and today my fingers reminded me about how long it has been since I played... My left hand doesn't like typing.

Today I ran to a pawn shop and picked up a super cheap practice amp so I could hear what it really sounds like instead of being so processed in rocksmith. With rocksmith you can simulate all kinds of amps and pedal and preamp etc configurations, but they do play kind of fast and loose with the sound. The amp sounds glorious clean, but when I kick in the drive, it gets a nasty 60 cycle hum. It has the hum when you turn on the drive even without the guitar plugged in, and on clean it is dead silent even with the guitar plugged and turned all the way up, so I'm guessing it is an artifact of a $20 pawn shop amp.

Now I have to learn how to play so I can justify a good amp. And another guitar kit...

[kenfu]

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to put up some pics of the guitar...











Arzi, in that last pick you can really see what I was talking about with the chemical wash. I thought it looked cool on the neck (the headstock darkened much more than the neck itself, even though they were both mahogany). The body looked kind of odd so I went with black lacquer.

And looking at the picture, I just realized I wound the low e string backwards when I put the strings back on...

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the instructions on the site and to those who answered questions and provided tips. I owe you all a beer. Cheers!

[Gavin1393]

All round class. you must be very happy with this build. I hope you are entering this in GOTM!

[kenfu]

Thanks Gavin. I did enter it just now. Had to rewind the low e and got outside to take some good pics with natural light. The sun really makes the grain not only pop but kind of explode.

[kenfu]

Some final details and a question about intonation. And ignore the cat hair, I am a crazy cat man and that stuff is everywhere...:

Intonation: So after setting up my guitar, this has been bugging me a little. The LP has the angled bridge, but even with that there is a huge difference between the adjustments on the low e to d strings, and micro adjustments on the g to high e. Is that normal? (I have Super Slinky strings on and a Snark tuner and no fret and 12th fret both come up in tune on the same note... So maybe I'm just being a bit too obsessive). For future reference for future builds, when I was doing the final adjustments for the neck, I had the saddles all completely forward. Most of the strings have almost no forward adjustment left. Again, is this normal or is there something I could have done better? If I needed to adjust forward, I couldn't.



And since when I was building and doing the diary, I was mostly excited about the things that were big and actually looked like a guitar. I didn't do any updates on the little details. One detail was the binding. I didn't like how clean and bright it looked compared to the rest of the face which was aged and worn looking. It was really hard to find something that worked, since the binding is so easy to scrape clean. What I ended up doing was scuffing it with some really coarse paper, rubbing it with steel wool, and putting a little of my wash on it while I was touching up some of the spots on the edges I had sanded through. I had read that if you don't clean the wool out, it can "rust or leave black specks" with the wash and thought I'd try that. I think it turned out great. I did this after a couple coats of clear, and so the next few I left without sanding so when I sanded the finish between coats it was "sandwiched" in the coats and I wouldn't sand it off. The light definitely makes a big difference in the pics. One was hanging on the wall and one was taken from playing position.



Very small details... I put indicator rings under the knobs. You can't see them really but I think they are great while you are holding it playing. Not that I'm good enough to need to make micro adjustments, but I already have some different tone combos I think sound good. My favorite all around is to put the neck at 4, the bridge topped out at 10, put the switch in the middle, and run the bridge on the adjustable coil and the neck on the series humbucker. I was talking with my Dad and I think it almost sounds like an acoustic. Way more acoustic than an Ovation (sorry for any offense).



The truss rod cover that came with the kit was very angular, and it didn't sit well with the curves of the LP and especially not with the rounded headstock and the organic logo design. So when I was sick and watching movies all day I just spent a while sanding off the edges and corners. Not having the angles and the sharp edges really improves the headstock I think.



And finally, I was playing a bit today, and the sun hit it just right. I snapped a quick pic of the grain, and I think this is the closest photo I have of what this looks like in real life. Thank you PitBull for an amazing kit. The wood was exactly (actually BETTER) than I asked for.



And so ends the diary of my first build. Her name is Maggie. Long story that, but one of my first loves and best memories. Seemed appropriate for my first kit!

[wokkaboy]

Hi Ken, nice touches and photos ! Love how the neck binding almost looks like aged timber.
With the intonation the side pic of the neck the string action looks high near the nut. If it's too high you will have trouble intonating the saddles.
If the strings are too high at the nut end I'd sand down the bottom of the nut and reduce the height. Is this the stock nut or a bone nut you fit ?

[Mechanixxxer]

That looks incredible Ken, great job!