Sportbilly's ES-1GT First Build

[Sportbilly]

Hi Andy,

Thanks. Yeah I figured I'd need to sand or scrape in the F-holes as the masking fluid painting was looking a bit fiddly there... I've seen some vids of guys using a blade to finish bindings off. Hope it works...

[Andy40]

I'm sure it will scrape or sand off easily

[Sportbilly]

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since my last posting but I've been busy applying the finish. Took ages with time between each coat and the gloss etc. See photos. Pretty happy with it if I say so myself... not perfect, but pretty good for my first attempt...

Now I need to clean up the binding of the latex fluid and stray paint so it has a nice contrast to the Wudtone Carmine Gypsy red. Also the f-holes. Any tips welcome. Perhaps a good sanding. Perhaps a bit of a scrape with a blade...

Now I need to turn my attention to next steps... glueing the neck I think and ensuring it's straight and the correct distance for the scale length...

Thx. SB

[andrewdosborne]

Coming along nicely, for the binding I would very carefully scrape with a blade (I use a Stanley Knife blade)

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

[Sportbilly]

Hi All,

So, neck glued, tuners on (just screws needed to finalise)' pickups on and wires threaded, bridge pins in and grounded.

Starting to swot up on the wiring diagrams, soldering and wiring. Mentally preparing myself for the f-hole instalation checking out various YouTube vids. Any advice welcome.

Still pretty happy so far and no howlers... spoke to my guitar teacher about levelling the frets and will prob borrow some of the specialist tools from him to help...

Thanks,

[UpperCaseH]

That's looking very very cool.

I've seen videos where people pre-assemble the wiring harness for a semi-hollow on a sheet of cardboard with cutouts for the pots and stuff. That seems like a great idea, especially if you're a bit unsure if you're going to get it right the first go. Make sure you get or have a desoldering pump or braid or something and fixing any mistakes is very easy if everything's easy to reach.

[gavinturner]

Looking great man!

cheers,
Gav.

[Andy40]

Hi All,

So, neck glued, tuners on (just screws needed to finalise)' pickups on and wires threaded, bridge pins in and grounded.

Starting to swot up on the wiring diagrams, soldering and wiring. Mentally preparing myself for the f-hole instalation checking out various YouTube vids. Any advice welcome.

Still pretty happy so far and no howlers... spoke to my guitar teacher about levelling the frets and will prob borrow some of the specialist tools from him to help...

Thanks,

Looks great Sportbilly. love the colour and the flame.

Oh got I just went through this wiring process...twice..... my recommendation is...patience....and lots of it. I followed Gavs guide with the tubing.

http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...ead.php?t=1826

[Sportbilly]

Hey guys!

So here it is, the finished article! Spent a couple of evenings on the soldering of the rig but the vids were very helpful. In hindsight I think my soldering iron wasn't hot enough but I got there in the end.

I used a large cable tie as the backbone of the rig from a YouTube vid I saw, with the rest of the wiring attached by small cable ties to keep it all neat. This gave a nice rigid horseshoe shaped rig to work with once all the pots and switches were inserted in the f-hole.

I used a shoebox as shown in the same vid to mock up and prepare the rig which worked really well.

I threaded a smaller cable tie through the jack and the bend in the cable tie threaded it nicely through the hole. Then the only pot I couldn't access and position with fingers was the neck tone pot so I tied some thread to that and to another trusty cable tie to thread through and that worked a treat.

Despite putting the high and low E strings on to balance the tension on the tailpiece and give me strings to test the electronics with, it took three goes to get the thing working once wired as the ground wire to the jack came off twice due to my crap soldering. But I got the installation procedure down pretty well in the end so we're done.

I've been playing it today and to sounds cool!

I'm going to take it in to my guitar teacher tomorrow for the full intonation thing and a proper setup.

But delighted with the result. Great fun. Hugely rewarding.

[wazkelly]

Top effort. Nothing more frustrating than solder joints coming undone but you managed to overcome that.