So I ordered a plain black tele pickguard from Pitbull to go with my TL style neck from Pitbull.
It's a cheap guard so I'm not worried about cleaning up the machining on the edges, that's pretty expected. But I wasn't expecting to have to re-cut it to get it to fit. It will just not fit around the neck at all, which is weird as they're both Pitbull TL kit items.
I'll reshape it easy enough and it will look and work fine, but I'm just wondering if this is standard for these kits?
Last edited by ross.pearson; 21-09-2021 at 06:05 PM.
I think you'd find if you had got it all in one "kit" it would have a better chance of fitting without modification..even then, there is some fernangling to do on most little final touches like this on most kits to get them to sit perfectly the way you want them to.
Rightyo, that answers that then. I hadn't considered that they would pair each item in the kit for best fit, but it makes sense. I assumed everything was CNC'd so there would be tight tolerances.
Like I said, more of a curiousity than an issue. I've already reshaped one guard for this neck, not super hard to do.
I got a bone nut too, so when I get time I'll hopefully get this thing finished up and actually playing.
I've had Fender Licenced Allparts pickguards that still required adjustments around the neck pocket.
Unbranded pickguards like you find on eBay, Aliexpress or what come with the kits will be hit or miss. However, I've also brought no-name ones that fit perfectly. It's all just part of doing this stuff IMO.
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
Ha!Originally Posted by ross.pearson
Old templates and hand routing is the best you'll get. A lot of these government-owned Chinese factories are all about giving full employment to their masses. So everything that can be done manually is done manually. The best way to do it would obviously be to use CNC machines, but you'd need to employ far less people, plus you'd need to invest heavily in the machines themselves.
Obviously there are areas like electronics where you need a lot of automation in order to churn out vast quantities of products at really low prices with a quick turn-around to compete/dominate in the global market, so they do. But where quantities are smaller and the product less technically demanding, manual labour is preferred.
Last edited by Simon Barden; 21-09-2021 at 07:21 PM.
All of the above makes sense, yeah. Don't know what I was thinking! Thanks fellas!
Shielding paint?
Shielding paint.
Everyone is sold out of shielding paint. And it costs a lot anyway. And waiting for shipping sucks.
Let's make some shielding paint!
Is it going to be as good as purpose made stuff? Nope! Is it going to work? Hopefully! Is it going to be easy to do and at least look good? Maybe!
I bought some graphite powder and raided the kids paint box again. This time going for the super vivid gold metallic paint. Thoughts on this were that it would be easier to ensure I got a good mix because the gold will stand out like the proverbials. The second reason was I thought there was a chance it would end up looking rad.
Mixed in a good amount of graphite and got this stodgy, sticky, metallic silver looking hot mess, with some tantalising metallic flakes visible.
First coat done, will definitely need another. Looks pretty flat and graphitey.
And a close up. Will do another coat tomorrow morning.
I think I've convinced myself to completely re-finish the back. The blowthrough on the finish is more than I'm happy with, so I'm going to take it back to wood, re paint and then spray poly rather than wipe.
EDIT: A word on the shielding paint that most of you probably know already. It sticks to eeeeverything, but cleans up easy enough with denatured alcohol (methylated spirits). I'd keep it the hell away from bare wood you don't want it on though.
Last edited by ross.pearson; 24-09-2021 at 05:35 PM.
Quick multimeter test to see what the resistance is like before doing another coat?
Great idea! I've got a multimeter I never quite figured out how to use, I'll blow the dust off it and get some readings. I've already done another coat, my day job got me into a steam-blowing mood so it's a good time to crank angry tunes and be productive.
Also started hand sanding the back... back. Almost to bare wood, will hit it with 220grit orbital mesh tomorrow to finish it up, then re-paint and put the first poly coats on.
Looks like another month at least before this thing makes any noise. In the meantime I've got a camel bone nut to install and a crappy pawn shop guitar to practise fret leveling on.
Plus a guitar case to make, considering I've got it floating around in a bass case currently.
Seems hard to get a consistent reading but between 1.2 and 1.4kΩ resistance an inch apart. I don't really know what I'm doing or looking for, but it seems like there's some resistance even if it's over 1kΩ, which probably isn't terrible. I know proper RF shielding paint or copper tape would be preferable.
At the end of the day, it's better than nothing and it makes the cavities at least look presentable. I'm still not 100% sure on what to do for shielding entirely, so I'll hit up some videos.
I repainted the back today. Decided to try something different and combine the metallic gold paint with the black.
Followed the same process I developed for the front. Cover entirely in black, then once that's dry enough put down the gold with a fresh piece of cloth and rub back furiously. It pushes the black into the grain, and mixes the colour that's left on the surface.
The gold is subtle, which is what I was hoping for, but when you get it at the right angle it really pops.
And then three coats of spray poly over 30 minutes, which I'll then leave for 3 days and then do three final coats. Then 3 weeks to wait. I still don't have the hang of it so there's overspray. I should be able to sort it out when I'm wet sanding, but spraying "light" just feels like it's doing nothing so I add more and invariable get a run or two. I need to trust the process more.
Well that looks better than it did in post #146!
Nice job.
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
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