It's another Tequila Sunrise

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I've never done anything like this before and I'm not real good with tools so it's both exciting and a little scary. Don't want to ruin anything so I'm trying to be careful.

First a couple of box photos, then a quick neck and bridge assembly to make sure it's going to work at all.

Everything seems to line up ok, so that's a relief.  Wasn't really sure what was going to happen when I put a right-handed neck on a left-handed body, but it seems to fit just fine.

 

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neck attachment to test

 

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Having some trouble with attachments, so can't post a lot of pix.  Bridge attachment.

 

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Some conductive paint and jack plate attachment.

 

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So that completes the first day's work.  I'll get together the photos from yesterday and post them shortly.

Today I have to do the hard parts - the strap buttons and back plate.

 

[sixstringsamurai]

well the good thing is that you can line up the bridge Strap button with the Lam top center line.
As far as the upper I mount it SG Style:

And when you say back plate I assume you mean the control cavity cover?

 

[adked]

Took care of setting up the tremolo and the wiring yesterday.  Ended up with 3 springs, that's all I need to float the trem with .009's.  This Gotoh vintage trem is very responsive, gotta get used to it.

I had to move the switch over to the other side of the controls but didn't really want to re-wire everything.  There was just enough wire to move it but it doesn't look as nice as it should in there.

Plugged it in to test that everything was working and all is well.

 

[adked]

Pretty much finished things up today.  Installed the trem cover first.  I should have ordered some black screws for both covers, used the new screws for control cavity cover and old ones from other body for the trem cover.

Finally, I went for the last thing, installing the strap buttons.  This was pretty scary but ended up alright.

Ran though a setup, but there wasn't much to change.  I raised the saddles a quarter turn from my first guess and got the intonation set.  Then adjusted pickup height a little to even things out and that's it.  It's a guitar!

Been playing it all day and it's a big improvement. I'm getting great sustain, nice tone selections, and ridiculously low action without buzzing.

 

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A couple of finish photos -

 

[adked]

well the good thing is that you can line up the bridge Strap button with the Lam top center line.
As far as the upper I mount it SG Style:


And when you say back plate I assume you mean the control cavity cover?

Yeah, I used the line down the middle to center the button left to right.  For top to bottom, I put on some tape, took it off and creased it, then put it back on.  That gave me a pretty good idea where the center was.

The horn button was a little more....no... a lot more difficult trying to figure out where to put it. Then I kept thinking the bit was going to break off inside the wood, but fortunately that didn't happen.  Strap buttons held up fine tonight, so hopefully it will stay like that.

 

[MikeW]

Really nice Strat! Well done.

 

[ming5150]

Superb colour combo

 

[Surf n Music]

Wow sunrise front and candy tangerine back is a winning combo! Looks great!

 

[Great Ape]

Very Nice! :icon_thumright: