Sonic's ES-1F Hollowbody Adventure

[blinddrew]

Gotta be pretty happy with that I reckon!

[fender3x]

Beautiful tobacco burst!

[Sonic Mountain]

Thanks all, it is starting to get pretty close to assembly. I just sprayed what will hopefully be the last coat of poly. I really do like the Cabots Satin, its very forgiving. Fingers crossed I'll be onto assembly this weekend.

I had the new tail piece rock up on Friday, so here's a quick mock up. I think it's supposed to be for a thicker body more like the GR-1SF, so it may need some minor modification. I'll wait until the bridge is in before I make that decision.

[Alexej]

very nice finish!

[FrankenWashie]

Thats a beaut! Nice Job SM!

[Sonic Mountain]

Thanks for the positive comments guys, I'm happy enough although there is plenty that would annoy me if it was mine, but then it's not really my style in the first place. The satin was a good choice. The difference in elbow grease required compared to a shiny finish is huge.

Its all together and playing now with the crappy kit strings on it. I have a high second fret on the E and B strings but otherwise it's pretty darn good! Intonated beautifully, which is good, I was a little concerned I'd set the neck a fraction too far out, but it's perfect. The 490 pickups are really nice.

Bit annoying that the tail piece doesn't have the veneer centerline running straight through it. I might think about putting something in that window to hide it a bit. Owner probably won't care.

Anyway a few, freshly completed pics. I'll do some nicer ones once I've finished fine tuning and put some decent strings on it.

[Simon Barden]

The tailpiece is only about 1mm out with the veneer centre line going by the D and G strings positions where they leave the trapeze, so it's really just the design of the tailpiece that makes it look even more to one side. You were never going to get it looking central, even if the veneer line was truly down the centre line of the neck. Take in that fact and relax.

[Sonic Mountain]

Cheers Simon, yeah I do need to just relax a bit about the whole thing. It's frustrating though and one of the reasons I think I prefer scratch building. At least if something's wrong I can only blame myself.

Some further nitpicking. What are peoples thoughts on this. The string alignment is a bit more towards the high E than the low E. I did check this before I set the neck and it seemed within the margin of error, plus the neck was a very tight fit in the pocket so I'm not sure I could have positioned it differently.

It doesn't seem to affect playability, but now I've noticed it, I can't un see it.

Any ideas for fixes? At the moment, I have bridge receivers for the roller bridge that are .5mm too big for the current holes. I'm wondering about trying to redrill out to 11.5 and offset them that .5 of a mm (as that's all it looks like it needs at the bridge end) but obviously that could be tricky as its difficult to lay this body flat (Although it does 'just' fit in the drill press. I was thinking a brad point bit might do the trick.

Or perhaps I should dowl and redrill? Might be safer, but same problem with getting a straight path into the body.

What do people think?

[Sonic Mountain]

Whew, sorted. So I pulled the posts out - should have taken photos, but basically a bolt, flat bit of wood with a hole in it and a couple of blocks and they popped right out. Interestingly the thread is the same as the after market cam lash adjustment bolt from a 1974 valiant.

I then carefully filed the holes to accept the larger inserts, keeping the side closest to the high e side as it was and enlarging in the other direction. You can see here, I did take a photo of reinstalling the earth wire . Not super pretty, but all hidden and nice and firm.

Big relief as these kinds of things really bug me, especially on other peoples instruments!

[Bakersdozen]

Bang on dude! You can sleep well tonight.