Dual Build: GSJ-1 and GSM-1

[king casey]

I wouldn't have any issues with it. Looks great!
Just pretend it's a Gibson from the mid 70's when QC went down the toilet.

cheers, Mark.

[Rodc]

Did some fret levelling and reprofiling on the GSM-1 yesterday, but the exposed neck pickup rout hole took away my motivation to do any more.

Here's the hole:


And here's the bridge with the elongated post holes. I used the expensive TonePros bridge because it has the locking grub screws that keep it in place and stop any prospective rattling because of the wonky holes.

You can also see that the B and E saddles have had extra notches filed in them to spread out the strings to the correct width. The bridge post holes really needed be slightly to the treble side to get the standard width to work:


As it was originally, the low E ran down parallel with the side of the neck but the high E was running inwards a bit. At least they are sorted now.

Here's the guitar as it currently is. I wired in the pickups today, had a go at setting up the guitar, couldn't find a decent combination of bridge height and neck relief, so went and did another fret level. In theory I did nothing different, as the first passes with the levelling file took off all the marker from the tops of the frets. So the frets must have been level, but after this second time it all went together so easily, and the action is really nice and low.



The neck is slightly wider than on the ES-1/330, by 1mm at both the nut and 22nd fret. Coupled with the much deeper, chunkier neck, this makes it a bit less player friendly than some. Much more like a '59 Les Paul than a thin SG neck.

I'm not sure about the pickups yet. They are Iron Gear "Tesla Sharks", basically PAF-style humbuckers with Alnico II magnets. This gives them a lot of treble without the midrange girth a humbucker normally has. To me, they are a bit bland sounding when played clean. Add some overdrive, and they make a great rhythm guitar pickup, with a very tight and defined sound. But less convincing as lead pickups when using the one (fairly mild) overdrive pedal I had to hand. I'll need to try them with the full pedal board. But the guitar might be better with at least one different pickup fitted, probably the bridge one, with a fuller sounding unit. Easy enough to do.

Here's the guitar with the kit pickguard just taped in place. Pouring with rain most of the day here, so I haven't had a chance to have a go at making a new guard that fully fits the gap between the pickups and also better follows the curve of the bottom horn. I also need to make a new rear cover plate after ruining the kit one when trying to deepen the countersinks so the screws didn't protrude so much. I also need to deal with some white bloom in the finish that I thought I'd got rid of but since reappeared around the control knob area. So still a fair bit to do, but getting there.

I like the idea of the grub screws in the bridge. Never seen them before.
Still turned out a very nice guitar Simon. I'd try a small piece of timber in the gap and stain the same colour. Get it the closes you can and glue it in. Your attention to detail is outstanding though..

[Simon Barden]

I can't see myself filling the gap. I'd have to strip the finish back and start again if I did that as I don't think I could ever get the finish to match otherwise - and that's not going to happen. And it will be covered up by the pickguard, so it won't be seen.

Still deciding whether I like the pickups or not. I'm very tempted to replace them.

Another very rainy day, so didn't bother to try to do anything on it today. Maybe tomorrow.

[Simon Barden]

Quick shots of the finished GSM-1. Made a rear control cover and then a new scratchplate for it today. In fact I made 3 scratchpates. First was too small, 2nd was just right but when I came to chamfer the edges I realised I'd done it out of the 1-ply I'd used for the control cover. 3rd time I got it right. It's very slightly bigger than the kit one, and fully fills the gap between the pickup rings. And you now can't see the pickup rout gap.




Will do some better shots when there's some decent light and I've given it a polish as it's covered in grubby fingerprints at the moment.

[DarkMark]

Problem solved. Here was I thinking of building your own slightly enlarged pickup rings to cover the gap. Nice solution.

[wazkelly]

Well done Simon. Looks very authentic to me.

Cheers Waz

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[Simon Barden]

Cheers.

Weighs in at almost exactly 7lbs, so whilst heavier than the GSJ-1, is still nice and light.

[Trevor Davies]

looks great Simon. Did you make the truss rod cover?

[Simon Barden]

No, that was bought. Though I could have done if really necessary.

[blinddrew]

Oops! Wrong thread!