FrankenWashie's Fourth, The TLA-TH

[FrankenWashie]

Mainly into body parts or necks too?

A little from column A, a little from column B.😉

[FrankenWashie]

Well, it’s been strung and played a bit.
A faulty barrel jack caused some swear words, along with a bad HB Connection to the mini on/on/on. These have been replaced/resoldered and it is all sweet.

One of the things I had not scoped properly with the Schaller hannes bridge is the height adjustment, it is a screw under the front edge of each saddle
This is a little fiddle when strung up. It does provide a good range raising the saddle but is limited in lowering if you need to.

At the moment the bridge end action is a little higher than I’d like, but this is also in part to the Graphtec nut I made which is sitting far higher than needed



It definitely needs to come down at least a mm on the low side and probably a smidge on the high side. Once I’ve done that then I’ll probably drop the saddle heights some as well.

It sounds good. It has been 2 years or more since these pups were fired up (both have been recycled from the SC/HB/SC arrangement on the original FrankenWashie) and they still sound smooth and cool as I’d remembered them.
The neck feels good under hand, it’s certainly not a shredder feel but it’s comfortable for thumb on back playing or thumb grabbing play.

We’ll see how it shapes up and settles in over the next little while. I didn’t have a set of kit strings to throw on it, so it has a set of MMF 11-52’s on it, which should give it some pull and show me how the neck is going to react and move.

Still going to remake the covers, really not happy with how they turned out. This initial testing also makes me wonder if I should have done an arm and belly cut. Perhaps this might be best left to a future revisit. For now, I am calling this one done.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[wazkelly]

Lost count of how many others you have on the go at the moment.

Good to see you have finally arrived at the finish line on this one. Aftermarket bridges can tend to throw up unexpected challenges, as I found out with one I was going to fit on my EX-5 where lowest saddle heights are way higher than the kit supplied unit. Not much use when needing to lower the action.

[FrankenWashie]

Lost count of how many others you have on the go at the moment.

You and me both Bro, and thankfully the bride as well!!

[wazkelly]

So long as she has her sewing to keep her occupied. I hope I got that right as my memory seems to recall you mentioning having to build something for your wife for one of her crafty past times.

[FrankenWashie]

Well as mentioned in another thread, this fella is in the process of being reimagined.
The DT clear body had turned sticky in patches, Electrics had got a bit hinky and the decision to leave the fretboard uncoated had resulted in it looking tatty.


After what seemed like a brief eternity, using at first sand paper then Chem stripper then sand paper then a wire brush then rougher sand paper, then finally resorting to card scrapers, we managed to rid the body of the horrid tacky mess that the DT had become.
Mod list
- As shown above, a belly cut and arm cut.
- drilled out and doweled neck screw holes
- doweled neck screw holes in the body
- bored out and filled the jack socket hole ( jack was off Center)
- doweled mount recesses for the Hannes bridge
- neck heel reshaped to match the new body socket profile below.



The plan was to use stainless threaded inserts in the neck heel and Flat headed furniture screws to mount the neck.

All was going swimmingly…..until it wasn’t.

I’d followed a three step drilling process to mount the inserts
- step 1, 12mm drill in marked mounting points 4 mm deep for flared end of insert.
- step 2, 3mm drill into Center 12 mm deep to provide on Center guide hole
- step 3, work up in mm increments to 9.5mm to open hole out to the required diameter for the stainless inserts.

On the last hole, after drilling everything, and mounting the insert, I’d realised that I hadn’t gone quite deep enough in the 12mm drill to start with. I backed out the insert and proceeded to try and deepen the recess of the hole some more, and the neck decided it didn’t want to play this game.






This is a great shame as the neck reshaping had gone so well to this point. I’d thinned the neck somewhat, and spent a great deal of time and patience modifying the heel and blending the transition.
I’ve yanked frets 15 through 21, spread glue through the breaks and clamped the hell out of it to see if it can be salvaged. If that works, then with some other fettling it may prove okay.
If not, then I’ll salvage the truss rod and make a new neck from scratch.

Bit of a bummer but it’s all a learning experience.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[Simon Barden]

Oh dear, that is a shame.

Remember kids, don't do Dingotone or threaded inserts!

[dozymuppet]

Oof

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

[FrankenWashie]

Oof

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

What I said started with oo, F.

[Simon Barden]

I expect Igor is jumping with joy though, as he now has something to repair.