ES-3 Build - First Timer

[whalenb]

hey peterh,

good to hear you got your kit! post some photos on here as you go. would like to see what you do for finishing and all that.

the white block is a fret end dressing file. one does 90 degrees so the frets don't extend past the neck and the other is angled to put a bevel on the frets. ebay is the place to go for most tools as you will find them for way cheaper. the other place that i got stuff was a place called neck check guitars. excellent products for a really great price. they sell all sorts of stuff. i do my best to stay away from stew mac. more expensive than is necessary. ebay is the place to go….

the bottom of the neck block is rough. and that ok. whatever you do don't sand the neck block and don't sand the neck porting that will fit into the guitar. you will see that there is a number put on each piece and they should match. your neck has been routed and sanded to fit your body. don't mess with it unless you really have to and even then i would take it to a pro. you can really mess up the neck angle and alignment if your not careful.

shouldn't be a concern for strength. use titebond original glue it is stronger than wood and will fill the voids are required. don't use titebond type 2 or type 3….. for reasons explained earlier. and i do not agree with people who say just use any regular wood glue. i would only use titebond original.

good luck with your kit and let me know if you have any questions….

fyi when finishing other than the top coats i would recommend taping your binding…...

[dingobass]

Coming along well, Whalen.

I agree with you on the titebond, the original is the best.
Only other glues I use are hot hide glue (mainly on restoration jobs, and only after several industrial strength coffees... Ya gotta be highly organised and fast with hide glue) and CA glues..
Used to use contact cement for thin veneers and caps, but now I am using fish glue.

It would have been nice if wudtone supplied instructions... Nothing worse than flapping around in the dark with finishes!!

[tonyw]

Doing well Whalen as above original titebond, the red one.

Yes hide glue, i ran very fast past some yesterday to get to the original Titebond. There used to be an old glue pot in my mates workshop in the 70's and i used to sit close to it when winding pickups for him, always had hide glue on the go, you could smell it, i can still smell it, although the product is a bit more refined these days.

[gavinturner]

The burst is looking awesome Whalen! Great job.

cheers,
Gav.

[Tweaky]

Yeah I bought a 946ml bottle of original titebond a while back when I saw it was the recommend glue to use.
The only place in Sydney that I could find that had it was Masters...just as well I got a big bottle, it will last longer than them from the looks of things.

I've been thinking on this neck joint issue, it's not just the clamping that is the problem...well if your kit is anything like mine.
There is also the issue with unsightly gaps on mine where the binding and the body don't meet, both behind the neck heel, and on the low bout of the body...then there is the issue of the probable gap between the body and the neck once glued do to the inability to clamp it in that direction ...my body also suffered minor splintering of the top veneer while dry run fitting of the neck.[see photos below - click for better view]



I have the same problem with the gap behind the rear of the necks heel on my ES-1 kit

I think I have come up with a solution to all three problems, but I think this needs to be addressed before you start any finishing, as you'll see why in the photo below.



Basically it would need a small block of wood glued to the necks heel to extend over both the side gaps on the left, and the gaps directly behind the neck....if feeling confident, you could also glue and shape a extension to the right side of the neck joint, covering any gaps between the neck and the body...plus in my case, unsightly veneer cracks.

You'd need to create a flat surface on the latter side of the neck [only say 10-15mm ] to glue the extra wood to, as it is shaped at the moment.
Once the extra blocks of wood are glued in place, just rough shape then with a rasp, then sand.
I've looked at just how much hand extension one would lose by adding this extra piece of wood down the side...I think it is minimum, as the neck /body is so thick anyway, you tend to slip your thumb under the neck rather that trying to grasp the heel to get to the bottom frets.

[whalenb]

Hey Tweaky,

interesting idea with the wood blocks. if you do it please sent throughout some photos, id like to see how it turns out! depending on how you are finishing maybe you could consider some stain friendly wood filler. or stain the wood filler the final colour prior to putting it on. then you could fit the neck and sand the filler down until you had a perfect fit. this way there would be no visable features on the exterior of the guitar…...

[dingobass]

Nice work around, Tweaky.
I have had to similar things with a Silver Falcon kit but what I did was install some shims to block out the heel and then slapped on some binding to match. Problem solved.

[Tweaky]

I thought about the binding fix, and if it was solid wood I'd probably try that first, but since it's ply we are dealing with here, and there already is some fragility of the ply in the place I would have to route, I thought the ply might split even worse.

Anyway, since I have had these kits several months, I had noticed these problems ages ago, and have taken my time to try and work out solutions for them, so this stuff isn't just coming off the top of my head.

Try as I might, I haven't been able to source a small block of maple to do these mod's with.
The nearest and best solution to date I've found has to been buy a rolling pin from Victoria's basement [nearly typed in secret LOL ]



I think it's Palm wood, the density is about the same as Maple, and the colour is as well as you can see....the wood grain isn't quite as tight, but I figure that I could probably use some complementary wood filler to sort that, and as the pieces of wood needed to do these mods is so minimal, it shouldn't announce itself by clashing with the rest of the build

[whalenb]

coat number 3 done. doing coat 4 now. moving on to the base colour coat.

[whalenb]

Hey everyone,

picked up this Vox pathfinder 15 amp for 40 bucks (canadian) off kijiji. great deal. however it was broke. got a new 1/4 inch jack off ebay for it that i will solder in, give it some elbow grease and it should be a great little amp for my new kit guitar in my basement.

also got those gibson vintage style tuning machines. should look sharp on the headstock….