Have you checked the height available at the bridge position yet? On my and an couple of other ES-1s, there's been very little height and I had to swap to flat topped (not lipped) inserts to get the bridge to sit low enough. The neck angle on the ES-1 (as on my ES-3) really needs to be increased slightly.
If you need to do any work, better to do it now before you start applying the clear finish.
I’ve already started the clear coats, so I’ll just have to cross my fingers.
Where did you source the flat-topped inserts? My first build was a GR1-SF, and I messed up the neck angle, so the action is higher than I’d like. Those inserts would probably help.
But beware of using them on a fully hollow body guitar for the bridge. On my ES-3, where the kit neck angle is definitely far too shallow, the block under the bridge isn't very deep, and when I drilled it the holes out to a size and depth to make stud insert easy for my straight sided inserts (which were longer than the kit inserts), I went right through the block. There's only a very thin skin of wood between the standard kit hole depth and the other side of the block, so without the T-top to help provide support, downward pressure is likely to push the straight-sided studs out of the bottom over time. So in the end I didn't use the straight sided inserts on the ES-3 but had a go at insetting the T-top a bit. (I need to have another go to improve this).
In this situation there is the possibility of gluing another piece of wood on the bottom of the block for support. A couple of pieces of string through the holes, run out to a piece of ply with a couple of small holes drilled at the post locations, and the string run through the wood and knots tied.
You can then glue the wood, pull it inside and against the block with the strings, tension the strings and keep the wood pulled against the block until the glue has dried. I'd suggest epoxy or gorilla glue, that can cope with a bit of a gap, rather than wood glue. Leave the strings long so the knots are in the middle and the loose ends running out of the guitar body, then you can cut the tensioned end of the string off and hopefully pull the string back on of the guitar with the loose ends.
At least on the ES-1/ES-12, the block runs fully between front and rear, so the posts get support from below. Just measure the depth of the inserts and the holes before you install them, and drill out to depth if necessary. You can have the inserts sitting flush or just below the surface, but you won't want them sitting too deep. If the holes end up deeper than you want, you can just fit some suitable sized metal washers at the bottom to raise the height of the inserts.
Finished the first stage of soldering the wiring harness for my electric 12 string. Let’s hope it all stays together tomorrow when I pull it through the f-hole.
Also, a shot of my super-sophisticated soldering glasses.
Well, it's all together now and I've got some problems:
1st, the neck angle is not good. I thought I checked it well enough before gluing it in, but it seem not. I'm looking at about 3.25mm at the 12th fret with the bridge cranked all the way down and the neck dead flat. The nut is still a bit high, so there could be some improvement in that area. There's not a lot of room to take it down further at the bridge, because then the strings would be too close to the pickups.
Has anyone had any experience steaming off this sort of neck? Any suggestions on how to go about it?
Next problem is with the electronics. It only took about six tries to get everything through the f-hole without breaking a solder joint, so the fact it works means everything should be pretty solid.
Here's what I was after:
Coil splitting on the humbuckers with the push/pulls. This works
The ability to bleed in the piezo signal. This works
The ability to run the piezo on its own. This does not work. The classic wiring on the humbuckers is also taking the piezo to zero when one of the humbucker volumes is taken to zero. I had thought that putting the piezo on the middle lug of the switch would solve that, but it doesn't seem to have worked that way.
The push/pull on the piezo is meant to remove the piezo from the signal chain, but the piezo signal is coming through regardless of whether it's pushed or pulled. I also seem to be getting a bit of 'tone suck' from the impedance miss-match, which is why I wanted to use the push/pull as a cut out switch.
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