stratamania said:
I have a question for Ozopart as I am curious why someone with an eye for symmetry has embarked on putting this guitar together and I don't intend or want this to be taken the wrong way but you seem to be lacking in various basic skills such as marking holes and drilling them so I wonder if so why choose to set out to do this without researching ahead of time.
Your question does not offend me in the least. I appreciate what you are saying. I did research all of this for months and months prior to taking the leap and ordering. But research only takes you so far. Especially given that for every task there are multiple, often conflicting opinions and advice. Based on this research I so far have managed to eliminate or mitigate any of the issues with drilliing. I basically considered all of the options and went with taping, using an awl, drilling and then screwing.
As to lacking in basic skills, you are correct, I have never been handy. But a few things went into my embarking on this project. I will try to list them here, but will likely forget one or more of them.
(1) I looked for a built guitar on Fender and other places, including local guitar shops. Either they were not in stock (like at Fender where to this day the guitars I was interested in are "Notify me when Available", or they had some in stock but I didn't like the parts used and/or colors. I should add I didn't want a guitar from China or Asia in general.
(2) In this strange world where it is so hard to get things done, and in my case I have a hard time finding people to do the work as it is usually not enough to get their interest, I feel that even someone who isn't handy like me, needs to learn. I am not wealthy but I figured this would be a good project to try and learn, recognizing that I would make mistakes. Sure I obsess over the mistakes, but I am trying to be logical and less emotional and recognize that even with research, mistakes will happen and that the important thing is to learn. In the end I figured the worse case scenario is I would mess up the build and have to take the guitar to a tech to fix/complete. So far my mistakes (knock on wood here) haven't been that critical. I looked into the bridge setup work by a tech and couldn't find anyone who wanted to do it. Not sure why.
(3) I really wanted a guitar with better parts than most of the stocked models.
In general I just want to learn to be more handy and with the support of people like you I feel I am making some progress. It might not look like it. But at least I have a working guitar, albiet one that still needs tweaking. Even though painful and stressful, I guess the "joy" is in the journey and as long as I don't completely ruin it, I will live with it. And again, had I found what I was looking for in stock at Fender, I likely would have bought it.
I hope this helps. I do apologize for the questions. I think perhaps now I should just try to figure things out on my own and through the internet.