Hey everyone, just kinda finished up making my TLD-1TP, though I'd share my experiences with you all in case it helps out in the future. I chose this one because it was a kind of oddity; tele-ish shaped body, strat neck, ebony fretboard, F-hole, tuneomatic bridge, 2 P-90's and i think its a jag style trem system. I decided to go with wudtone butterscotch for the colour, extra gloss, and vintage amber for the neck. The vintage amber in particular came out beautifully, as did the buttersctotch. I spent a hell of a lot more time and care this time with the sanding and finishing than on my last job (makes a difference when you suddenly aren't in a mad hurry) and was over all very happy with the results.
In comparison to the JM-1 I made earlier this year, the neck pocket was a lot cleaner and installing the neck was an absolute breeze, the hardware all went on without a hitch (minus the tree saddles which mysteriously didn't arrive as part of the kit). I decided to not wuss out and did the wiring myself, which was not as terrible as I thought it was going to be, but there were only two problems. Firstly, as I had already rammed the bridge posts into the body before i started the wiring, I suddenly realised it was now going to be impossible to solder the earth wire to the bridge post (I'd stupidly assumed the earth wire would be running to the trem plate). Once that bridge post is in it ain't coming out, so all i could do was just push the wire through and hoped it made connection with the post.
When I plugged it in, she actually sounded great, which surprised the hell out of me as i assumed i would have screwed something up along the way. However, when I discovered that my volume pot was working as a tone pot, and that the tone pot did nothing at all, my elation dimmed somewhat. I had used the Two Humbuckers to 1 Volume, 1 Tone and a 3 way Switch wiring diagram on the website, but must have gotten something wrong along the way. No biggie, just happy she sends a decently clean signal for now.
Most importantly though, how does she feel? Well, having gathered a little bit more experience in setting up a guitar, i got cracking. First straightened out the nasty back bow on the neck and spent considerable time on the action and intonation... The result was very surprising... It plays like an absolute dream, was able to set the action very low and have almost no buzzing problems along the neck. The intonation is a little out on the g string, but I've pulled the saddle all the way back and still can't get it right, so maybe changing the relief on the neck will address that. Only weird thing is i can't get the trem to work at all... No idea why, without the strings on it works fine, but once strings are on it doesn't budge at all... Like I said, no idea why.
I really enjoyed the process of making this guitar, like I mentioned before, not having time constraints on me made a huge difference and weirdly as I was getting close to finishing the project i began to feel sad, and started thinking about what my next guitar would be.
So all in all a very satisfying experience for me, with a lovely playing guitar as the outcome. Cheers ;-)
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