SH1 build - thoughts, questions, progress and otehr stuff
Well it has arrived, undamaged despite having travelled about half way round the world since leaving Perth Western Australia.
Checking the wooden bits first:
The neck looks to be OK, probably will need a fret levelling when completed and a tweak on the truss rod, but that is to be expected as even new Fenders and Gibsons need that all too often.
Body looks OK, but that is going to get a lot of tender loving care from various tools so any minor imperfections will vanish in a cloud of sanding/saw dust.
Neck/body joint is over tight, with the neck about 0.5mm wider than the pocket (it's a screwed on neck). Easy to solve and better that way round than the 4mm of packing on width that was needed on a friend's bass (not from PBG). Not able to comment about alignment yet as I've not got the tools and sandpaper out yet.
Now for the first question....
How does one go about fitting the bridge/tremolo unit (from Overlord of Music) . There are four mounting holes in the base plate, but they are hidden under the moving part, which "anchored" by spring pressure against two posts. The spring is held in a cavity between the two lumps, pressing firmly against a stop on the fixed part and the adjuster screw on the other. It's a heavy looking spring, and I fear that releasing the tension might send it, or something else into either orbit or that dark forbidding corner where lost screws lurk unseen. I foresee bloodshed (mine) and that is a long way down the list of desirable outcomes.
No idea about the bridge, though a few people on here have made the kit, and there is quite a lot of info on the Overlord bridges on the web. They aren't great, but they can be improved.
I'd wait a few days before deciding to do anything about the neck pocket. Temp and humidity changes in their trip from Australia to the UK can make the neck pockets feel tighter due to relative shrinking or swelling changes in the neck and the body. The changes tend to be smaller on bolt-on neck guitars than on glue-on neck guitars (or at least glue-on neck hollow body guitars where there's more exposed wood area), but it is worth letting them both acclimatise for a week.
Thanks Simon, I was just doing a dry fit to make sure everything was more or less OK and doodling the cut lines. As I'm now packing for a few days working away from home nothing other than laying the bit in place will happen until the weekend.
I've had a couple of looks on the web for installation instructions, but most of the links are to derogatory pages, many of which are just regurgitating one person's bad experience with the bridge in use. I'm sure I'll find the solution.
This video shows someone taking apart and reassembling what I assume is a OOM bridge. Looks like you do need to release the spring and take it all apart to free the baseplate.
On the bass unit, there are nylon washers between the fine tuners and the body which disintegrate very easily, so if you have anything like that, I've seen videos advising you to replace them with steel washers.
Getting all the moving threads lubricated is important as well.
Thanks Simon, I just found that video, and a PDF set of instructions.
And I can verify that once that screw is a long way out, while there is a tiny amount of spring pressure left it is easy to overcome and dismantle (and re-assemble) the bridge.
Ah, those "PTFE" washers. On my bridge they are bronze/brass which should be far more stable than PTFE/nylon and less prone to jamming than steel.
I'll lubricate the threads when it comes to assembling the guitar, they do feel a bit dry just now (parched by the Australian desert perhaps?)
Simple task to get the neck to fit, just scraped off a couple of high points and the neck squeezes in, tight but not overly so. I'll have to check that all the routing is OK, but the pickups & bridge all sit in the pockets but I do need to check the alignments.
More thoughts on the reshaping....No cutting yet as I'm not sure.
That's all the arrival photos (well, not all, just a few to show the condition on arrival.
Since then I've dry fitted the neck, checked the scale-length, marked up for re-shaping the body....
Then got the saw out and the reshaping has begun, roughed out to a few millimetres outside the finish line and sort of started to think about the various scallops. Lots of dust being generated :-( (I must remember to put a mask on BEFORE getting the sander going)
After cutting to the line I put the neck on (unbolted) just to make sure the new shape felt right - it didn't, the angle at the lower side was too square to the line of the neck, so that's going to be sorted later today.
One thing I did do was mask everything apart from the cavities so they could get a good few coats of a copper-loaded "paint" that I've used at work for EMC screening. I'm now pondering if on whether to leave the copper-colour or go with my first thought of having them black. I suppose if I don't paint them I can see what it looks like against the finish and paint if I don't like the appearance, but if I paint them now I won't be able to go back...... I think I'll leave them as they are until the finish is on.
I'll post a couple of pictures later on today.
A bit more progress.
First I've finished the reshaping, power tools to get to the basic shape. Basic shape using a saw in a multi-tool, next level of shaping with a flap disk on an angle grinder (lots of dust generated), then a palm-sander to get down to the line; finally finishing by hand with a variety of sand paper and flexible pads (more, finer dust).
The add the colour. I'm using Chestnut's green Spirit Stain, it took a few coats to get the depth of colour I want. Then a very gentle flat with 600 grade paper (just to get rid of the suicidal flies that arrived...) before a very light blow over with clear varnish (again from Chestnut). I did this because I'd tried various approaches on some of the off-cuts generated in the re-shaping and I found that trying to get a "mirror smooth" wood surface without a coat of varnish meant I lost the depth of colour, and using a sanding sealer before putting the stain on led to the stain "skidding off".
After the first sealing coats a quick flat (600 grade again) and a couple of coats to build some depth of varnish so I can start the final build-up, which will be in stages.
One other thing, I have a great dislike of jack-plates sitting on the surface, so I've routed out a shallow pocket for that to sit in.
(sorry the last one's a bit fuzzy, but I couldn't see a sharp edge to focus on)
SH1 build - thoughts, questions, progress and otehr stuff
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