IC-1 first timer (with a PBG kit)

[maxadudley]

Duuuuuuuude. Is that yours?
It's masterful! It hadn't occurred to me to put the amp *in* the guitar....
Oh man. I gotta digest this.

[blinddrew]

It's one of these: https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-an...t-Ash-Body/WT3 (though I think it's a basswood body on mine)
Plus one of these: https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-an...tage-Cream/IEA
I made it a few years ago, at some point, maybe next year, I'm going to pull it apart and finish it properly. It was a proof-of-concept that could actually be a nice guitar if I spend a bit more effort.

[maxadudley]

Blinddrew, reading up on that little amp (pretty sweet on it's own) did you also wire the aux input and heaphone jack too?
That would be sweet. Either way it's sweet. My favorite bit is the blue light, second favorite bit is the speaker cover. It's great

[blinddrew]

Nope, I thought about running a couple of extensions for the aux and headphone but didn't see a need for them and therefore couldn't be @rsed...
I might think about it again when I redo it but I still can't really think of a situation where I'd use them. So it's pretty unlikely at the moment.

[maxadudley]

I'm not going to lie to you folks, I got a little antsy.

BUT! Spoiler alert: It worked out great.

I had the body drying in a closet for the last week. I had a fan on HI pointed right at it the whole time, and the paint was drying splendidly. No orange peel, no wrinkles, I was worried because people say that nitro dries and shrinks, but so far so good.

SoooOoOOoooo
I thought, "What the heck. I gotta cut the pick guard down a little bit, maybe ill fit the pickups in there and measure that"

So I put the pickups in (damn it looks sweet) so I thought, "Eh, what tha hell, I'll throw in the wiring harness and pickup switch and wire this sucker up. But that's as far as I'll go!"



But, of course, I couldn't stop there. I had tasted blood and I needed to finish what I had started.
Neck fit great (thanks, likeley, to the fact I used stain and didn't try and nitro-lacquer the thing)
Not a lot of bow in the neck at all. Put the strings on and the strings were flush against the fretboard. Raised the bridge to an acceptable height and....Whoops. I had built it





I'm in love.
Sounds bangin, Mosrite Slab was right, I love these pickups (LINK). I bout a MOJOTone harness (LINK), which seems to be making things extra juicy and grimey with some distortion on it. Really digging the playability, neck isn't as sticky as I thought the stain would make it.
I dunno. I'm glad I jumped the gun. If it turns out I acted wayyyyyy too far in advance, I'll update with the horror show and the shattered dreams in a couple weeks.

Let me know if you have questions or want a pic of something not pictured!

Thanks for reading this far!

[Trevor Davies]

Looks great. The black and white combo goes well.

[grahamjohnston80]

Wow! It looks amazing. The white and black work really well.
Did you need to do any fret levelling or much work on the neck? Fret work is something that I am dreading but hopefully I can avoid.
I'm sure there will be no horror show.
Enjoy the new toy.

[maxadudley]

I did not have to do much work on the neck at all, thankfully.
Simon had mentioned earlier that that the wood may still be settling, drying and whatnot.
Which may cause me some issues in the coming weeks. But (knocks on wood, not the guitar though) I didn't even have to adjust the truss rod. Clean notes up and down the neck, no warping, no buzzing. Intonation was good, as I had mentioned in a previous post.
But another measuring, and checking with a tuner showed equal notes on 12th fret.
All in all I'm very happy with it.

Thanks for the compliments! I think she looks classy.

Here's a question - there's an electronic buzzing that goes away when I touch the tone/volume knobs or the pickup selector switch.
Doesn't buzz / not buzz in relation to my hands on the strings.
I grounded to the bridge, and the pre-wired harness had instructions and locations to ground pickups / pickup selector switch, etc.
Alto, same buzz on my fender, which I've never opened up or anything, and is only about a year old.

Now that I'm typing it out, I remembered I suspected it may have been my cable, or another link in my signal chain. Can an outside-of-the-guitar piece of the chain cause a buzzing issue like that? Am i even making sense right now? Any help would be greatly appreciated. IT's the only issue with an otherwise wonderful guitar.

[Simon Barden]

All that's happening is that your body is being properly grounded through the guitar when you touch the metal knobs or bare selector switch (no tip being fitted?). This a) stops your body from acting like an aerial and emitting noise that's picked up by the guitar and b) your body acts as a ground plane and absorbs RFI that would otherwise reach the guitar.

This should also happen when you touch the strings. If it's not, then did you fit the ground wire to the bridge post insert? If you did, then the black coating on the hardware may be preventing ground continuity. This normally involves scraping the black off in locations you can't easily see so that there's a ground path all the way to the strings. If you didn't, then you really need to fit one, and do the scratching away as well.

Because of this, black isn't a great hardware colour choice unless you've got low noise low impedance active pickups fitted like EMGs, which don't need the strings grounding.

[Mosrite Slab]

Looks great, I had an Ibanez one back in the 80's, traded for a late 60's Gibson SG standard.