Pardon my ignorance
- Thread starter Jarizme
- Start date
Super Turbo Deluxe Custom said:
im with you on this one. For me, working on a guitar is a good way to take your mind off everything and when you have finally finished everything you need to do, its such a great feeling to sit down and try out your mods/build. I think its a great achievement and learning curve if you have never done it before. the best thing i ever did was completely take apart my old ibanez and put it all back together.
it lets you make all the mistakes your likely to make happen, and then you can learn from it so you dont destroy or damage your custom. the last thing you want to do is have to pay several hundred quid to get some mistake you mad fixed by a pro. know what your doing and dont go into it with half an ass and you'll be fine.
Rickgrxbass
Senior Member
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The part that took longest for me was putting all the little frets in their correct slots, making sure none of them were in backward...
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Cagey
Mythical Status
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They're supposed to be tight. But, just so you know, there are bridges out there where the studs aren't the standard (or maybe I should say "expected") size. For example, it's popular to buy bridges from Guitar Fetish (they're about half price), but they're dimensionally off (studs are larger than normal). Nothing really wrong with them, but if you don't compensate, you can get in trouble. Just because something says "Wilkinson" doesn't mean it has the specs you think it does. You really need to measure it.
Warmoth tells you on the body page what they drill for. Compare that to what you have, and go from there.
Warmoth tells you on the body page what they drill for. Compare that to what you have, and go from there.
RiverCity28
Junior Member
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Jarizme said:
I just finished my first assembly and I had the body and neck for over a year. Most of the other parts, too. When I finally got the initiative to build it, I was most intimidated by the fret leveling. I didn't yet have the proper tools to perform the task or measure the results. I certainly didn't want to be too aggressive and botch the job.
Anyway, I found working on the neck to take the longest (fret leveling and nut tweaking :laughing7
Assembling the parts was easy. I made sure to countersink every hole that I drilled and every hole that was pre-drilled to make sure I didn't chip the finish when driving screws. I also used a beeswax concoction to lube the screws before driving them. Soldering turned out to be much easier than I expected. The Hakko soldering station I bought did a fantastic job.I'm still adjusting the setup slightly after a few days of being strung up. One tool that has certainly given me confidence in the repeatability of my setup is Stewart MacDonald's Nut Slotting Gauge I use it to check string height at the 1st, 12th, and 17th frets. I like the .001" scale. Trying to eyeball those n/64ths rules it too tough on my aging eyes.
Now that I've completed one, I'm guessing I could have the second done in as little as a day if I wanted to. I don't think I want to, though. I enjoy spreading it out.
Firebird211
Hero Member
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The only advice I could give you is take your time assembling, and after it is all together don't be surprised or discouraged when it sounds like a poop sandwich. You could set the truss right away, but it may be better if you let the neck settle under the tension of the strings first. Set your action where it is comfortable for you, and with minimal fret buzz. After that you can go after the intonation, then the sound will improve, but you will have to keep tweaking it until it's honed in.
Jusatele
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Slow down, nothing comes of rush jobs.Jarizme said:I really hope I don't spend a year building this guy. As soon as I get it back from being painted I'm gonna go nuts!
take time and do it right, inspect everything you do, and do one thing at a time, Once finished you will be much happier
Okay, so I had a diagram of the EMG 81/85 ZW set. I soldered everything nice and clean to the pots, toggle, etc. Now for some reason, when I plug in my guitar all the way in, it won't sound, BUT plug it in half way and both pickups work, but the toggle doesn't. Any idea as to what the hell is going on?
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