Dual Build: GSJ-1 and GSM-1

[JimC]

Is it worth considering going more radical, and design a new scratchplate that covers the pickup cavities and performs the pickup ring function? You could maybe have shallow pickup rings on top.

[Simon Barden]

That’s a good point. Jim. The scratch plate will cover up the gap. Still not happy and it will always be a lesser guitar, but that will work.

[Rodc]

What have you decided on a fix for the bridge posts positions Simon?

[Simon Barden]

I filed away at the bridge holes so the posts fit. It's a bodge and it isn't pretty, but it works.

[Rodc]

I filed away at the bridge holes so the posts fit. It's a bodge and it isn't pretty, but it works.

That's what I had to do to mine. Bridge and tail piece.

[Simon Barden]

Tailpiece was fine on mine. Just the bridge holes. And they appear to be central, so it wasn’t just one hole drilled incorrectly. So there must be some very dodgy templates being used.

[Rodc]

That’s for sure! The tail piece was out about 3mm as well as the bridge.

[Simon Barden]

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.

[FrankenWashie]

niggling little fit issues aside, a tremendous result as always Mr. B!


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[McCreed]

Nice job despite the series of annoyances you've posted. Finish looks great. (I don't see any bloom in the photo.)

For the little gap at the neck pickup, is there enough room in the route that you can glue in a sliver of mahogany and camouflage it with some stain & clear?