First Build: Tobacco Burst Fenderish

[TheElvis]

Greetings from over-seas!

I started my first build and will post some updates from time to time. And of course there will be lots of questions  :binkybaby:
It's gonna be a mixture of all my favourite features:
- rear-route Ash Strat body with Maple Top in TBSB and natural  masked binding
- Hardtail
- Roasted Flame Maple Vortex Neck with mostly PRS-specs (59 rounback etc.) but giving the compound a try
- H-H route, I plan on Suhr Thornbuckers
- I try to keep the Hardware mostly nickel-style

And now the best part: Pictures!!

 

[fdesalvo]

WOW! Welcome - that's going to be one helluva guitar.  Love your avatar too lol!  :laughing7:

 

[Logrinn]

Sweet! ccasion14:

 

[rgand]

That's one of the prettiest burst finishes I've seen. It'll be a real looker.

Welcome to the forum. Looking forward to your pics.

 

[TheElvis]

I agree, the body came out pretty awesome. And the pics dont even do it justice ;-)
On the other hand, warmoth makes a lot of great finishes.

 

[TheElvis]

So I burnished the neck wit up to 2500 grit and installed the tuning machines, sadly one is a little crooked.

For the body, I painted the cavities with conductive shielding paint and installed some Hardware.
The Thronbuckers won't be here till August/September, so I'm thinking of ordering some p-rails, which would have been my second choice and maybe I wanna try out some P-90 sounds. Not sure...

The Knobs are a little high, I think I've got a problem with imperial knobs on metric pots (they are from allparts). Any tips on that?

Pictures!

 

[bagman67]

If you asked me to tell you which of your tuners is crooked from the front, I couldn't tell you.  I'm sure it looks much worse to you than it will to anyone else. 


Overall the whole thing looks beautiful.  You should be very pleased.

 

[rgand]

Looks good from here, too. That finish is really outstanding. Lookin' fine, there.

 

[Cagey]

The Knobs are a little high, I think I've got a problem with imperial knobs on metric pots (they are from allparts). Any tips on that?

Best treatment I've read on mating knobs and pots is here.

 

[exaN]

Gorgeous combo! GotM material, calling it now.

 

[TheElvis]

Best treatment I've read on mating knobs and pots is here.

Cagey always has some answer

Gorgeous combo! GotM material, calling it now.

Thanks, will sent it in  :bananaguitar:

 

[TheElvis]

So the pickups arrived and it took me some time to get the direct mount work. I'm still not perfectly happy about, but we'll see.
Attached the neck, and letting the strings strech. Tomorrow hopefully will be set-up day  :headbang:

 

[TheElvis]

I did the setup yesterday. Half way through the nut came off, so I had to glue that in again.
I'm pretty happy with the action, interesting though I had to put the sattle of the high e-string to the lowest possible position. Seems like there is not a lot of space with 720 mod.
Testing: Damn the thing is light. Some more sound testing will take place tonight where I can go a bit louder, but I noticed the sustain doesn't seem to good. I forgot to take off the sticker in the neck pocket so there might be a little improvment possible, but asides that I'm not sure if there is anything to do.

 

[davegardner0]

I did the setup yesterday. Half way through the nut came off, so I had to glue that in again.
I'm pretty happy with the action, interesting though I had to put the sattle of the high e-string to the lowest possible position. Seems like there is not a lot of space with 720 mod.
Testing: Damn the thing is light. Some more sound testing will take place tonight where I can go a bit louder, but I noticed the sustain doesn't seem to good. I forgot to take off the sticker in the neck pocket so there might be a little improvment possible, but asides that I'm not sure if there is anything to do.

Regarding the sustain, one suggestion I can offer is to properly seat the neck into the neck pocket using string tension:

To do this, after the neck is installed and the guitar is strung up to pitch, carefully loosen each of the 4 neck screws by a quarter turn. (Don't worry, the neck won't fly off). You might hear the neck move a little to the back of the neck pocket. Then re-tighten all 4 neck screws, and your sustain should be improved somewhat as the neck and body are now more tightly connected.

You don't need to repeat the procedure when you change strings, but you do it you ever take the neck off.

Just my 2 cents on a small sustain improvement, good luck! And beautiful guitar!!

 

[TheElvis]

Thanks!!

I gave it a try, I think it helped a little. I'm still satisfied how good-looking it came out and the pickups seem to do pretty well too. Gonna be a good axe