TL-1 (Factory second)

[peterh]

Well my two kits (TL-1 and ES-3) arrived in the mail today. Amazing delivery speed - 8 days from AUS to CAN - and there weren't any import or customs fees to pay either (bonus!). Packaging was intact and after initial inspection everything looks to be in good shape. Both of these kits were factory seconds that I picked up on the Sunday night special Adam had last week. Since these will be my first guitar kits ever, I thought a kit with some existing flaws might lessen my anxiety about getting things just right.

First up will be the TL-1 which should be a much easier build. Adam put this kit up as a factory second due to a crack between two of the basswood blocks in the body (see pics below) but from what I can see, although there is a gap between the pieces, the gap is completely filled with glue and solid, so I don't think I can do much to improve it. I expected it to be an open crack that would require gluing and clamping.
Overall things look pretty decent although I do see some minor headstock drilling alignment issues - around 1mm on a couple holes in both directions.

LIkely won't get a chance to start sanding it for a couple days yet, but here are some pics from the unboxing.
Opening the box:

The body:

Body with neck fitted

Glued crack from front:

Headstock (has some minor drilling alignment issues):


More pics in next post (max of 5 per post?)

[wokkaboy]

good stuff Peter, got to be happy with 8 days to Canada !

Kit looks pretty good. When the tuners are on the headstock and turned at different positions doubt anyone will pick up the tuner holes are slightly out.
Look forward to the build diary

Good move starting on the tele before the ES-3

[peterh]

The fit of the neck into the body is nicely snug but there is a bit of a fit issue where the bottom of the neck (heel?) meets the bottom of the body routing. There is about 1mm gap on the low E string side (top) of the neck.


The neck fit on the top and bottom sides is quite good though. I did notice that there is a bit of rounding on the bottom of the neck where it fits into the pocket in the body which results in a not perfectly flush meeting of those two parts (see pic below). Is this normal for these kits? Should I try and square it off or just leave it?


Neck fit from top side:


Here are a couple shots of the sealed hardware parts. I've labelled them and I'll try to identify as many as I can but please let me know on the ones I'm not sure of, or if I get the others wrong
A- ?
B - top bit is a string retainer (goes on headstock?). looks like a bit of solder in there also.
C - Screws to mount neck to body
D - sleeves / washers for tuners

E - Screws to hold down pickup (which one - neck)?
F - Screws to attach 1/4" jack?
G - ?
H - screws for mounting tuners

[wokkaboy]

Hi Peter,
'A' jack plate screws - should be 4 screws
'B' correct string retainers on headstock and solder
'C' correct
'D' correct with 6 small screws
'E' 2 screws for neck pickup and should be 5 springs for neck/bridge pup. Bridge pup probably has 3 screws in the pup mount ?
'F' strap pins, rubber/foam spacer and screws
'G' bridge mount screws think there are 4 screws
'H' screws for pickguard and 2 to hold control plate down

with the small gap in the neck heel/pocket you can try and sand the corners of the pocket a little but don't be too worried. Do a mock build as the pickguard should hide this gap.

[DrNomis_44]

@ peterh, That 1mm mis-alignment of the tuner hole should be fairly easy to correct if you use an 8mm rat-tail file, or, I would just leave it since a 1mm mis-alignment isn't really going to be a major issue when you have the strings installed.

[wokkaboy]

@ Doc really the only fix for mis-aligned tuners is to plug and re-drill.
I doubt whether it will be visible to the naked eye, only you will know Peter

[peterh]

Finally it's the weekend and I've had a chance to poke around the kit a bit more.
My notched straight edge and fret rocker arrived yesterday so I was eager to check out the neck for straightness.
I've looked through a bunch of forum posts but didn't see any specifics about how much bow is average or really far off, but when I put the straight edge on my neck and held it tight at the heel, there was about a 0.9mm gap at the nut end. Is this normal? The bow seems to be most noticeable starting at the 5th fret - higher than that seems pretty level.



I did give the truss rod a 1/4 turn counter-clockwise (when looking at the top of the truss rod nut) and will let the neck sit for a bit to see if that makes a difference. I assume that the neck should be as close as possible to perfectly flat before doing any fret work?
May be a silly question, but once the fret work is done, do you put a bit of back bow back into the neck on the assumption that the string tension will pull it forwards again? Or do you leave it flat and the string tension provides a bit of forward bow to aid in string/fret clearance further up the neck?

The frets look to be reasonably level (with the bit of neck bow) - there are a few that will definitely need some work. If I use an 8" sanding block, does it matter which end of the neck you start levelling at? Using DB's idea of taping some sandpaper to a spirit level and levelling the frets, I'm guessing that it might be easier to get the frets for the whole neck in line with each other.

Peter.

[peterh]

I'm ordering a bunch of incidental stuff for the build (glue, reamer, dr. ducks,etc) from Amazon and came across these bone nuts. Wondering if I should pick them up to replace the plastic one - it does look a bit cheap/rough. Anyone have thoughts on whether these would fit okay and/or be better than the stock plastic one?

Peter

[Andy40]

Hi Peter,

Misaligned hole - I had one with my ST-1. The slight difference is not easily seen with the naked eye, it doesn't affect the play ability (that I have found) of the guitar. It only was slightly noticeable for me from the back of the headstock as I put vintage Kluson style tuning heads on, but not enough for me to plug and re-drill (the Kulsons are square at the back so when they are not aligned it looks bad. I know some of the perfectionists on the forum would disagree with me and I've added it to the list of things I will re-visit on that guitar one day but for now, the guitar rocks!

Neck bow - I've had some kits come with bows in the neck and some that are dead straight. You've got a notched straight edge so go with that. keep it straight before fret work and, personally, I wouldn't over compensate with any bow to allow for string tension. When its time to do the fret work, I would use a fret rocker (or a stanley knife blade) to check and mark any high points and low points first. again I have had a kit that did not need any fret work right out of the box! I don't have any special tools but you can have a look at my build diary for the ST-1 as to what I did with my fret work there. http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...?t=4399&page=5

Bone nut - I am not sure if the amazon bone nut is any good. Just a suggestion, Why don't you order a blank for Stewmac and slot it yourself? It would be a good skill to learn/try.

Fret markersAlso give some consideration to taking the plastic fretmarkers out and replacing them with MOP, if you like that sort of thing. I did it on my TLA-1R and it looks cool, relatively easy to do and cheap. Just have a look at Brendan's thread on it here http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...ead.php?t=2584

[Tweaky]

Regarding the notched edge.....hold it down at the 9th fret, then see what sort of gap you have at either end of the fretboard.
0.9mm seems to me that the truss rod still needs to be loosened a bit....if it was down at the pickup end of the neck I wouldn't be that concerned, but you have the correct tools to do a great job, so don't rush it, and try and get the neck as flat as you can before doing any actual levelling.....It took me ages to get one of my kit necks level, much of that was due to the vast, quick changes in the weather at the time [un sealed wood will swing a lot].

Allowing a small deviation of around 0.5mm dip in the fretboard down at around the 17 -18th fret onwards to the end of the fretboard is considered desirable [commonly know as fret drop off ]

Regarding how much back bow you should have once you have levelled the frets....well that's what they call the 'Action'...you adjust this by putting a capo on the first fret of your guitar and holding down the High E string at the last fret.

What you want to do is to then look at how much of a gap there is between the top of the fret and the guitar string at the 10th fret.

Ideally you want to be able to slide a piece of paper the thickness of your printer paper under the string without it moving the string at the 11th fret, you do this by adjusting the truss rod.

Here's a video explaining all about this.


As for levelling the frets, well use your fret rocker to find the worse offenders, and write down which ones they are.
If they all tend to be in the same general area, then you won't have much to level, but if they are spread out all over the neck, well you you'll going to have to do the whole thing....not much of a difference really, levelling that is....reshaping all of them is though.

Just mark the top of all your frets with a felt tip pen, then start levelling, the high ones will lose the felt tip mark first, then gradually you will be able to see when they are all starting to be correct, check with the fret rock every now and then to check progress.

By the way, you don't need to tape up your neck to level the frets, as there is little possibility of damaging your fretboard.
After going through this process several times, I can tell you you don't need to tape it up when dressing your fret either...if you buy some of those little metal fret covers made for the purpose.


They are not very good if used as is....but, add a piece of tape either side of the metal cover and it makes life SOooo much easier than having to tape up a neck.... [sorry, just grabbed the nearest guitar to photo for a example ..obviously do this without strings ]