GST-1 'Hexacaster' build

[Simon Barden]

This build is of a GST-1 which I'm building for a friend, and is going to need a bit of modification to suit his requirements.

It was back-ordered back in January, then finally arrived at Pit Bull last week, was posted out on Monday 12th April 2021 in Australia and arrived in my hands in the UK on Friday 16th April 2021. Record breaking time!

Pics of the basic guitar body and neck:






All looking fine. Body grain is very obvious. Also very straight, which should work well with this guitar, as it's going to have a transparent green lacquer finish.

The neck fits tightly into the pocket. There are a couple of areas around the dot inlays that will need some slight filling, but nothing major. The tuner holes are very slightly off all being in a straight line, but they are a lot better than on most of the kits, and nothing you'd notice from further than 6" away.

I'll need to do some routing to it because it is going to be an HSS. The more obvious GSH-1 kit had disappeared from the kit list when I ordered this back in Jan, but a) this GST-1 kit has the vintage-style pickup routs which I like and also b) because I'm fitting a Roland GK kit to it. My mate Steve is a guitar synth wizard and wants a versatile guitar with the GK3 pickup built in. The GK3 has six individual pickups in it, one for each string, hence the 'Hexacaster' working title for the guitar. He's already got some Patrick Eggles with GKs fitted, but they are all humbucker equipped (even if one has coil taps, it's not that single-coil sounding). He also wants a guitar that will contrast with the humbucker-equipped virtuoso antics of Max, the other guitarist in his band.

Pickups are two new Bare Knuckle Boot Camp True Grit single coils for middle and neck, and a Gibson 500T (taken from my Jimmy Page model Les Paul) for the neck which will be coil split. We've got a Wilkinson 2-point trem for it, so it's a benefit that there are no pre-drilled holes for a six-screw trem.

The weather here in the UK is still on the cold side (we had snow on the ground a few days ago), and I have to work outside, so it will be a few weeks before work commences in earnest; but in the meantime I'll be working out where to fit things so there's no physical clashes when it's all put together and maybe doing some headstock shaping.