RC-4 Stuarts project

[stuzl873213]

Now the back has dried it looks good. 3 coats should be enough. Not sure if I have enough product though..

Coat 2 on the neck and its not far off the body colour, 3 should be enough. Binding proving a pain to clean up. Found a pen for cleaning up PCBs for soldering that works well .

[Vivg]

That looks really, really nice. I am tempted to go with a similar colour. I appreciate the issue with the neck pickup too. Still thinking that one through.

[stuzl873213]

Current status

Body, 3 top coats, maybe 2 more before neck fitting.

Neck, 4 or 5 coats of Dark Ebony- think I will stop at this. Time for top coats

[Marcel]

That's one very dark bodied RC... looks good.

[stuzl873213]

Mock up shows a few QC problems.

Tuner overlaps the profile and the screw will be very close to the end of the wood. Will need to chop a bit off the metalwork. Pick guard looks wrong, will have to see if that is salvageable.

Neck is also very sloppy fit, was quite tight when it first arrived, must have acclimatised to the UK weather.

Intention is to glue neck, and apply another 2-3 coats of topcoat, maybe more. It will then get assembled.

[Simon Barden]

Is it possible to swap the sides the tuners are on? Not sure how they'd go at the nut end of the headstock but at least at the curly end they wouldn't go over the cut-out. Not sure how it would affect the way you have to turn the tuners to tighten the strings, but you could try it out and see if it's a viable solution.

[stuzl873213]

In any configuration there is a part that will overhang (this is the least worse option) or the tuners foul each other. I will cut the offending bit off and drill another mounting hole.

[stuzl873213]

Well its that time.

Next step is to glue neck.

Neck is sloppy and sides in body are not parallel.

Photos are of my dry run setup. Bridge is is only roughly positioned but is on the centre-line of the HB and JB pickup slots.

Will keep the the 2 strings on very loosely because the neck really is that sloppy. Will be loosened up so they wont affect neck drying.

Photos below show setup, comments welcome.

[stuzl873213]

Should the bridge be set with the adjustments at mid point. I ask because other RC4s i have been on this site seem to have the whole bridge nearer the rear pup.

Guitar side of nut to nut side of 12th fret is 43.1, guitar side of nut to centre of bridge adjusters with adjusters at mid point longitudinally =86.2.

[Simon Barden]

The scale length is measured from the fretboard side of the nut to the crown of the 12th fret, and then doubled.

The actual bridge saddles end up a bit further away from the nut than that. This is because there's a small 'dead' length at the two ends of a string that don't actually vibrate like the rest of the string does. The thicker the string, the longer that 'dead' length is. Which is why the distance from the 12th fret to the bridge is always going to be longer than the nut to the 12th fret. Because of the two non-vibrating bits of the string, the overall distance from nut to bridge saddle has to be longer in order for a bass/guitar to intonate properly. Because the strings are all different thicknesses, the saddles all end up in different positions when the intonation is set. We're only talking a mm or so for a bass string, but it still makes a difference to the intonation settings.

It's the diameter of the core wire of a string that mainly determines the 'dead' length of a string, the wrappings mainly add to the mass per unit length. Which is why on a guitar, the wound D string saddle is normally further forward than an unwound G string saddle - its core wire is thinner than the G string.

So (in theory) the G saddle should be nearest the nut, then D, then the A, then the E.

Which is why you don't want to measure the bridge position with the saddles all in the middle. The G is the only saddle you really need to worry about, so you'd set this with the saddle set forward, with maybe 4 or 5mm of thread left showing. If you then measure the scale length from the G nut slot to the G saddle, then that's around the right place to locate the bridge. Once the strings are on, you'll probably need to wind the G saddle back a small bit, and the other saddles back a bit more than that.

If you measure with the saddles in the middle of their travel, then you know that all the saddles will have to come back a bit from there, and the bottom E might not have enough adjustment left to intonate properly. Also, the tension spring can only compress so much when winding the saddle back, and you end up having to reduce the length of the spring in order to wind the saddle back a bit further.

Hope that makes sense.