Keith's ST1-L

[Keith Walters]

Then it’s just a matter of moving the scratch plate and bridge around so that the lengths of string coincide with the outermost pickup magnets and the centered bridge saddles are lined up with the blue marks on the strings.



I recommend you initially drill just one pilot hole for the bridge mounting foot and fit just one screw, so you can make any fine adjustments required. Tighten the single screw enough to hold the bridge firmly in place, but not so tight you can’t move it.



Then mark and drill the five other holes and fit the other screws. (In normal operation, there screws are loosened off a little to allow the bridge to be “wobbled” slightly to produce the tremolo effect. This will be described in more detail later).

Then similarly mark and drill the scratchplate holes and fit its screws…

[Keith Walters]

The tremolo spring assembly next has to be mounted. This requires the two mounting screws to be mounted at the neck end of the cavity, approximately halfway up the height of the cavity and at a downward angle of about 15º from horizontal. Take particular care with this, as the tremolo spring claw assembly and the springs themselves must be accurately centered and must not touch the sides of the cavity. The springs fit into holes in the diecast bridge block (not shown).



Next comes mounting of the machine heads. First, loosely assemble them in their headstock holes…



…and then use a straight edge or ruler to get them lined up….



Mark and pilot-drill the screw holes...



…and then fit the screws. Be careful, as the maple headstock wood is very hard and it’s easy to snap the screws.

[Keith Walters]

I’ve decided to modify the design of my guitar to take a Telecaster-type edge-mounted socket




I’m going to fit a valve (tube) inside the normal jack socket hole with an orange LED to make it look like it’s actually running. (Actually it will just be the pilot light for my on-board electronics :-).

Finally, you have to mark and drill the holes for the tremolo cavity cover. Inserting a couple of screwdrivers into the string access holes of the diecast bridge block makes it easier to line this up.



So here it is, all assembled, ready for staining and finishing



Next step is to completely dismantle it and carefully pack everything into ziplock bags. Some people are reluctant to do this, but I can’t see why; it only takes a few minutes, (with a power screwdriver at any rate) and it makes it much easier to do the woodwork finishing.

[MrNm]

Your head stock looks awesome.

[Keith Walters]

Yes; I haven't finished it yet. It's got to have the tips carved to look like platypus claws. (The other advantage of doing the headstock re-shaping with the neck mounted on a board is that you can easily duplicate the pattern by using the same holesaw guide holes).
My plan is to finish the claw tips in black gloss enamel, and then stain the top brown using inkjet printer ink. By the way, I did the initial yellow staining with yellow inkjet ink last night:



That was done with just 2ml of yellow refill ink in about 25ml of methylated spirits and 25ml water mixture. I'm going to do a waxed finish, but it should also work with sprayed clear lacquer. The great thing about inkjet ink is that you can mix up just about any colour with it.

[phrozin]

Yes; I haven't finished it yet. It's got to have the tips carved to look like platypus claws. (The other advantage of doing the headstock re-shaping with the neck mounted on a board is that you can easily duplicate the pattern by using the same holesaw guide holes).
My plan is to finish the claw tips in black gloss enamel, and then stain the top brown using inkjet printer ink. By the way, I did the initial yellow staining with yellow inkjet ink last night:



That was done with just 2ml of yellow refill ink in about 25ml of methylated spirits and 25ml water mixture. I'm going to do a waxed finish, but it should also work with sprayed clear lacquer. The great thing about inkjet ink is that you can mix up just about any colour with it.

you could have just gone and got some rit dye which is easier to do than using injet ink using lacquer over some things like enamel i would check it will go over your metho injet before you get down to it as will craze like buggery specially when you start getting a few coats in

[Keith Walters]

"you could have just gone and got some rit dye"
Inkjet dyes are specifically designed to be mixable to produce an extremely wide range of colours. They also bind extremely well to wood as they are they are designed to be used on paper. Unlike fabric dyes, they are also extremely dense, so only a microscopic amount is needed. Plus, I already had some.

"it as will craze like buggery specially when you start getting a few coats in"

Well it won't because I'm not using lacquer; I use an oil/wax finish.
Not only is lacquer much harder to apply, unless you're extremely good at it, generally all you're going to wind up with is something that still looks like a cheapo Chinese knock-off bought in a music store.

I tested the inkjet dyes thoroughly on pieces ordinary wood using the wax finish. Three months down the track, no sign of problems. But I do have some clear lacquer so I can soon try that out to see if you're right. The amount of dye needed is so small that I can't see that it could possibly make any difference. Also, fabric dyes contain a lot of other substances apart from the dye itself.

[phrozin]

"you could have just gone and got some rit dye"
Inkjet dyes are specifically designed to be mixable to produce an extremely wide range of colours. They also bind extremely well to wood as they are they are designed to be used on paper. Unlike fabric dyes, they are also extremely dense, so only a microscopic amount is needed. Plus, I already had some.

"it as will craze like buggery especially when you start getting a few coats in"

Well it won't because I'm not using lacquer; I use an oil/wax finish.
Not only is lacquer much harder to apply, unless you're extremely good at it, generally all you're going to wind up with is something that still looks like a cheapo Chinese knock-off bought in a music store.

I tested the inkjet dyes thoroughly on pieces ordinary wood using the wax finish. Three months down the track, no sign of problems. But I do have some clear lacquer, so I can soon try that out to see if you're right. The amount of dye needed is so small that I can't see that it could possibly make any difference. Also, fabric dyes contain a lot of other substances apart from the dye itself.

I couldn't agree less wood inherently expands and contracts with different air temperature inkjet ink is a water based it can bleed in to just about everything specially with reducer dye you can get just about any colour you want for $8 in powder form and when dry wont bleed but you only have 4 basic colours Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and black in inkjet ink. that's last place one should go for colour the beauty with fabric dye is you can make it as strong or weak as you like and you can use any liquid to mix it with and is great for showing the grain, wood also excepts pretty much any finish one would want use because of the grain gives just about everything a great surface to adhere to sometimes too good that’s why you use wood binders for. As for 2k and polys they dry pretty much hard as a rock which doesn’t allow the expansion of the wood and after time it will pretty much crack and falls off in time. Ever had that chest of draws which the vanish is cracked and flaking off where you put your coffee cup but I guess whatever floats your boat

As for cheapo Chinese knock-off bought in a music store I take issue with, that’s pretty much what a guitar kit is and selling a guitar with wax or oil makes its resale pretty much a no go. that’s just a plain ignorant comment as for the use of oil wax I don’t see to many manufacture’s using that as a finish guys like Warmoth who do some amazing finishes which are 2k Urethane finish and I would be stupid to say they look like cheapo knock-off.

I am old school I would use oil wax on a coffee table or my dining table not on a guitar, Gibson’s have been putting nitrocellulose lacquer on guitars since the 1902 as have fender which has been pretty much been phased out it’s a terrible finish when it comes to durability and shine replaced with Lacquer which will soon be phased out for 2k which is being phased out by water borne 2k’s. When I see wax or oil on a guitar I see that as the easy way out! lacquer requires you haft to know what you’re doing the planet is full off projects that people who have approached it thinking it’s easy and buggered it up.

Ill qualify myself am a tradesman furniture polisher and auto re-finisher for over 45 years i started my apprenticeship in a furniture manufacture till i was 22 and ended up in a crash repair till 2001 where i got into building race cars till 2014 when i had a M/C accident and now retied due to it, I have painted coffee tables to show cars used just about every type of finish you can think off and my hobby now is i do guitars which i enjoy quite a bit and keeps my clocking along and try to help guys who need it so you really cant tell me too much i don't already know

[Keith Walters]

I’ve got the platypus “claws” carved out now. To give the headstock a more “organic” look, I earlier filed out some some flutes between the machine head holes, but now I think it will look better if I continue them down the sides. Also the pointy bit up near the mounting screw will probably look better if I round that off as well. That should thoroughly erase any Strat heritage :-)



Carving the claws was a lot easier than I expected. I’d previously bought a cheap set of “Diamond” files to assist with fret dressing (“Sapphire” is probably more like it!) As it turned out I never actually used them on the frets but they were very handy for shaping and tidying up the woodwork. It’s like having high quality rigid sandpaper that doesn’t come apart.

[Keith Walters]

To carve the “claws” I first cut guide slots on the sides and top of the five "Pointy bits" with an ordinary semi-circular file, and then used a rat-tail diamond file to produce a circular notch on both sides and the top. Then it’s just a matter of using the flat diamond files to smooth down and sharpen the “claws”, and finish off with 800 grit sandpaper. It’s a lot easier to do this than to explain how to do it!