GR-1SF Stage Guitar

[Swinging Beef]

After seeing so many of you create such great guitars, I finally decided to have a crack.

Kit arrived in great condition very soon after ordering.
At first look, I am very impressed with the finish.
Binding is neat and no screwy overhangs.
The MOP in the fingerboard looks great
Frets even seen in servicable shape before any work.
Dingotone Uluru is the one Ive chosen, and I look forward so seeing this product used.

The plan is to build a passable stage instrument using all parts from the original package, and measure them on their own merit.
Upgrades will be potentially attempted after we knock this thing together and give it a spin.
I hope to have an instrument that is very playable, and looks good from six feet away under stage lights.

So, we have the kit in mock assembled form.
(Complete with one knob making the maiden voyage into the f-hole.)



After reading a couple of the other threads on this kit, these are my two potential worries.
Neck joint is not as tight as I would have expected.


The headstock seems to suffer from all the symmetry problems discussed in other threads.


I'm not that worried about the headstock symmetry, so long as it stays in tune well.

Ive watched the videos, and I need to do a lot of rehearsal on the matter of soldering

[wokkaboy]

nice looking kit Swinging Beef,
take your time and you should end up with a very playable stage axe !

[pablopepper]

Looks sweet. After all these great threads, I would really like to put one of these jazz boxes together one day. Will be keeping up with this one.

[Nickosaurus]

Love me a jazz box

[keloooe]

Hey Beef, the headstock won't be that bigga deal from the audience, I messed up my Strat headstock and it's passable from the audience's perspective, someone even thought it was a Fender!

Should be pretty jazzy (pun intended ) with your choice in colour! Building a guitar that is stage-worthy is pretty easy if you take your time and not rush anything!

[stan]

welcome SB, cool project, take your time and it will come out well

[Swinging Beef]

Thanks for the support, guys.
I'm not trying to make a Gretsch clone... maybe next time

[Jeff Sheridan]

swinging beef, great to see some one else building the GR-1sf! I am 95% done with mine (all stock hardware except the wiring and one pot) I thought it was both fun and a little more difficult due to the fact that particular model didn't have a wiring schematic. But that made it even more custom. The forum members are really helpful in any questions you might have, Wierdbits took some time and made me a killer diagram of a circuit that I am really pleased with. There are a few build diaries of the gr-1sf that I am waiting to see the finish products since they look like they are turning out awsome. My biggest advice would be to ask questions and actually wait for the answers, I was always too impatient, which lead to a lot of "learning thru failure"!

[Swinging Beef]

I got some time up my sleeve in the past few days, so devoted it a bit to guitar build in stead of guitar playing.

The back of the guitar looked like this with no stain.


After one coat of Dingotone Uluru Red, it looked like this.

[Swinging Beef]

It smells awesome!
Liks someone just peeled a mandarin next to me.

I think I would have been happier with a 'redder' colour, or more base coat in the package, but like I said earlier, this is a budget build using as much existing 'out of the box' stuff as I can without changing or upgrading anything.
I expect the colour will change as things progress.

Next turned my tiny, illogical brain to the minefield of wiring.
I'm a bit intimidated by the wiring, and it didn't make it any easier that the site does not offer wiring harness build strategies for this particular kit.
Fortunately, the original designer of this style guitar has kindly left actual wiring diagrams for their instruments on their site.
Unfortunately, the knob and switches provided in the kit are not the same, but I think I got the right idea.







The plan is for master volume in top left of the guitar with the pick up selector three way switch.
Master tone in the top right. Volume for each pick up in the bottom.

I have things poked in a cardboard box and Ive watched some videos of poor bastards threading plastic tubing though F holes, using coat hangers, long bits of dowel to locate everything.