Recently purchased the TLA-1 factory second kit with some upgrades. Ordered a few pieces incorrectly which I’ll detail below (e.g wrong size pots, wrong bridge) due to a lack of reading product descriptions and insufficient research, but I’m just going to roll with it and see what happens.
Decided to upgrade most of the hardware and electronics:
- Grover tuners
- Entwhistle AT52 Tele Set pickups
- Babicz FCH Z Series Single coil bridge
- New CTS pots, cloth wire, sprague cap and fidelity upgrade
So a few mistakes on my end:
- Didn’t realise all the hardware that came with the factory seconds kit would be black, but after doing a mock build, it looks pretty cool with the chrome bridge, so just going to keep it that way. I asked for the pick guard to be swapped to white as I noticed it was black, but didn’t realise the rest of the kit was black hardware, so that was a bit short-sighted of me. On the plus side, now I have both a white and black guard to choose from!
- The new pots are too large for the control cavity, so I’ll have to route that out and re-drill the plate to make them fit. Good excuse to try out my router, so not too fussed about it.
- I didn’t realise I had ordered a string-through-body bridge upgrade, rather than a string-through-bridge. I don’t have a drill press, so this will be interesting. Looking to order a drill guide that works with my existing cordless drill I’m order to avoid spending hundreds on a tool I only plan on using to drill 6 holes with. Will also need to get some ferrules for the back now too, so this has turned into a bit more work than I bargained for.
I’ve been debating what colour to paint the guitar and have narrowed it down to either a metallic light blue, metallic red or pearlescent white. Going to use the dupli-color cans from Supercheap Auto as I’ve seen some awesome finishes with those, and will do the neck with Tru-Oil.
If anyone has any advise regarding the string-through-body setup and routing out the cavities, let me know. It’ll be my first time trying these, so any tips would be greatly appreciated!
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