Salvaging an old Samick Strat copy

[lunaticds]

The jack orientation is certainly different, aesthetically challenging, but not really bizarre.
..snip..

Definitely weird to me, but then I've spent my adult life trying to avoid music shops to see whats outthere given my taste far exceeds my disposable income

Interesting thought though, and thinking about it, yes, it's certainly a safer way than the traditional method.
I used to really hate it, but then I really hated that guitar. I'm more into Les Pauls, so my mind kind of decided this thing was an abomination that I brought because it was half the price of the cheapest LP style I could find at the time and I needed a guitar quickly. Small town, few choices lol.

To be honest, I'm not even hating the jack now like I used to. Something as simple as the guard change to black, cutting the white plastic off the whammy bar and bringing it back to chrome, I'm actually starting to take to it. It's rapidly gone from a project that I really didn't care too much about to being one that I'm really quite eager to do well and achieve a good result.

I have a sneaking suspicion I'm gonna need a lot more wall space soon for guitars :P

[lunaticds]

It dawned on me yesterday that the back plate was still the white(ish).
A quick measure and recreated in TinkerCAD then spat on out my 3D printer this morning. Fairly bogan spec - I didn't even plot the screw holes - I literally just clamped the original on top and drilled it. You can see the usual print pattern up close, but I don't care too much about that.

At some point I'll pull it off, countersink it a bit and find some new screws that are a fraction bigger. The originals are loose.
I considered replicating the cut outs that allow access to the screws holding in the claw for the trem, but I couldn't be bothered. Once I set that trem up, I probably won't change it.
Now literally the only "Samick" bits left beyond the logo are the body, the bridge and the neck. No electronics, no covers.
It'd be nice if the gear for the fretboard work would arrive next week so I can get on with that.

[Simon Barden]

Nice. It works, looks OK. Job done.

[lunaticds]

Nice. It works, looks OK. Job done.

Pretty much my theory. The cost is negligible for something that has limited function. One day I might do something a little less bogan, but in the mean time, it saves me some cash for the more pressing issues.

[lunaticds]

New Gotoh machine heads arrived today. As did the new frets.. which are about .01mm narrower.. just enough look dicky, but I'll probably just use it for now anyway given I only need one.

I've put the machine heads on. Frets will wait until I've got something that can pull the bad one out and some gear to get the replacement done and frets leveled and dressed.

[lunaticds]

Quick update:
I pulled the dodgy first fret off and replaced it. Seems to be about .01mm narrower. Just enough to stand out lol.
Anyway, it's on. The edges are slightly beveled. I only received some low tack tape yesterday so I've taped the board up. Just waiting on my fret leveler to arrive so I can have a crack at getting it flat then moving on to filing and crowning.

Amusingly enough, I took the original fret and worked on it with a crown file and managed to get it looking half decent minus the cuts in it.

[lunaticds]

If I ever had to explain to someone an IT error that many a meme has been written about - the "Successful Error" or "Failed Successfully" messages, this guitar would be it.


It was never abundantly obvious how far out of whack the pickup poles were going to be relative to the strings until I put it back together (and I lacked the experience to check this).
There isn't any real room to be moving the pickguard to get any more out of it.. it was pretty tight to get it to this point.

I did replace the first fret, releveled the board, crowned then polished up the frets. A coat of Dunlop's 65 on the fretboard was added for good measure.

I haven't even tested the electronics yet. Waiting for the body to settle. The tuning isn't yet stable (I've got the bridge floating a bit so that won't help), and the first fret on the 1st string is dead thanks to the action being set stupidly low for some reason.
I'll bring it up shortly and drop the others down to where I'd like the action to be and see what happens. I figure I'll get the guitar playable and not stress about the pickup issue at the moment,

This guitar was a learning exercise first and foremost, and I've learned a few things. I may just have to solve the problem by changing pickups to a different design so no one notices

Otherwise, it still needs a bit more tidy up, most of the screws on the pickguard aren't in all the way, and I still need to tidy up the shaping around the horn - something I may do oneday if I ever do something about these pickups.

[lunaticds]

I've since worked on the action. I need it a little high.. possibly due to the slightly smaller.. and thinner first fret. Dropping the action on the other strings gave me a similar result, so I'm reasonably convinced that's the culprit.
Still reasonably playable. I'll wait a few days before I screw with the intonation. It's been a long time since I've had to listen how bad I sound through single coils (or any pickup really), but alas, it is what it is. A few minutes messing with the amp to deal with the lack of grunt coming out of it and trying to load in some bottom end and it's starting to grow on me again. I spend most of my guitar time using a Cort KX5DX with active EMGs so everything that works for the Cort sounds like an empty tin can with the Samick.

[lunaticds]

I've ordered a set of Wilkinson hot rails to go into this. That should get around my pickup issue without breaking the bank. It also means that I can move these pickups over to the 3D Plasticaster build rather than wasting time putting new covers on the old Samick pickups I was going to salvage. Also means that the Plasticaster will get a dual tone + volume setup that the Samick gear didn't have.

[lunaticds]

I've put some time into playing this sans pickups just to try to get back into it.
Now it's had some time to settle, the annoying noises are starting.
I think the big one is replacing the nut - the original on there is done for, and the strings are deep.
Both E's are problematic. The 6th is hitting the first fret open and making a lot of noise.
The 1st is problematic on the second fret. If I fret the 1st fret, I'm hitting the second and coming out with a dead note. The string is cut well into the nut so I'm thinking that perhaps it's just too low. I don't want to jack the string up at the bridge and blow the action out to get around it. 2nd string is better, but it's on the edge of hitting it.
I thought for a second it might have been the new fret, but then I remembered that it's been a bug bear for this guitar for years.

I've ordered a couple of cheap synthetic nuts to have a crack at. Not entirely sure how I might go about remove the old nut yet, so that should give me something to look into this weekend.