The Practice Project

[bigdaddy]

A craigslist score, all for less than the price of a squier affinity series. Added bonus, 2 Dimarzio HB's for my Epi LP. The body is Warmoth, '88 or by the "dedication". It appears to be one solid slab o' wood but it's a little hard to tell under that paint.

My goals for this project are:

Learn a lot about the custom building process from finishing through final setup.
End up with a guitar that plays and sounds at least as good as an MIJ Strat setup by the yahoos at my local GC.
Have the confidence to know I can handle all of this well enough to justify spending the dough for a WGD with a wenge neck for my next project.

First step is to strip off that beautiful paint job. Second 'adjust' the neck so it fits the cavity. What's the best choice here? Sand the neck? Router? Table Saw? Chisel? Vise grips?Any tips appreciated.

BigDaddy

P.S. Sorry If I have posted about this project in too many topic ares. What's the general ettiquette when a feller has a bazillion questions? All in one topic area or weac question in the appropriate topic area?

 

[Mor Paul]

What brand neck?

And you'll need to do a grain fill on that body, if you didn't know  :icon_thumright:

 

[bigdaddy]

The neck is import, says Eleca on the headstock. Nothin special so perfect for a first time. I was gonna skip the grain fill and just use the body to file my fingernails... :laughing8:

 

[nathan a]

Personally, just cause I think it is cool, I would leave the 'dedication' there. But that's just me.

 

[tfarny]

Nice score on a first project! I like these kind of projects. You'll need to give more details about the lack of neck fit:
Is it too wide for the pocket? Too long? Do the holes line up? What scale is the neck, what scale is the body? If you don't know, try to find out before you bother sanding anything - it may be that your neck won't intonate on the body. In which case you should just go neck shopping. Easiest method would be to measure from the nut to the center of the 12th fret. If it's 12 3/4 you'll probably be fine with the scale. It's a fair assumption that a warmoth body is probably drilled for 25.5 scale.
General practice is to enlarge the neck pocket and not mess with the neck when parts don't fit. However, if you like the body a lot more than the neck, I'd carefully modify the neck. No sense messing up a fine body for a throwaway neck.

Do the grain fill, it's good standard practice. It'll hone your sanding skills and it will look better. Also, I would just keep everything about the project in one thread (this one). Good luck!

 

[bigdaddy]

And we're off. Despite my strong urge to keep the magnificent artwork and only play "Tears of a Clown" with "Eruption" style solos on this axe, I applied the stripper.

I must point out a very creative technique that all the married guys will appreciate. I used the stripper on a small test patch of our porch floor that needs to be refinished, thus moving the cost of the stripper out of the guitar expenditure column and into the honey-do-list column, freeing up $9 for additional guitar related purchases.  :headbang:

I was joking about the grain filling. Some of the grain is actually higher than the frets. I'm guessing water-based paint with no sealer. Neck measurements coming right up...

 

[bigdaddy]

headstock side of nut to center of 12th is exactly 12.75. The neck is too wide for the pocket  by somewhere between 1/32 and 1/16th by eyeball. Also what is the standard hegit from body to top of fretboard w/o the 720 mod?

 

[bigdaddy]

Looky what was under that paint. I guess veneer is out of the question! Swamp ash. 2-piece but dang hard to tell. It looks like somebody created the jack hole with an anvil but otherwise, she's a beauty! I'm pretty against the whole idea, but........., I may be thinking relic...

:glasses9:

 

[tfarny]

Cool! You work fast. Sounds like you want to widen the neck pocket next, just enough to get that neck to fit in there and see how it goes. Take a sanding block and carefully open up both sides, keeping it as even and level as possible, until the neck snugly fits in there. Remember to push down from the top, not in towards the bridge. Then you can put some neck screws through the pocket and see if you need to fill and redrill for those, or if they'll go into the existing holes.

 

[tfarny]

From the W site.

 

[bigdaddy]

It's starting to look like a guitar. I ended up just cleaning up the neck pocket on the body, same anvil was used here that made the jack hole, and then sanding the neck. Question: I assume I want some play in the neck fit, i.e. headstock can move parallel to the face of the guitar, from base side to treble side. How much is appropriate?

 

[tfarny]

Huh? If I understand you right, zero is the ideal amount of lateral movement in the pocket. Last thing you want is your neck shifting around, but that can be fixed.
Once you get the bridge together and the neck actually bolted on you'll be able to look at that.

 

[bigdaddy]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. Zero when bolted down of course, but some to get alignment correct b4 bolting, no?  :icon_scratch:

 

[Mor Paul]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. Zero when bolted down of course, but some to get alignment correct b4 bolting, no?  :icon_scratch:

You want a tight fit  :icon_thumright:

 

[nathan a]

Ideally, you want your alignment to be correct without having that lateral movement. Tight neck pocket = good neck pocket. Unless it is too tight. Then it is bad neck pocket.

 

[bigdaddy]

Ok. I have filled the grain (I used plaster of paris tinted with black artist's acrylic, nice look, kinda hard to sand back) and am into a practice fitting of hardware. I used a long straight edge and aligned the neck using the pickup routing for reference. Now I need to work out the tremolo placement. The body is routed for a Floyd Rose and I have a Gotoh 1055. I will have some of the routing exposed, but am ok. I'v enever had a guitar with a trem before so this is kinda a dumb question but,

Does the Gotoh 1055 mount on studs (which I don't have) or with screws, which should be easy to come by? :help:

 

[bigdaddy]

Well, I played it today. I finally stopped thinking about all the ways I could screw it up and just put the thing together. I ended up having to shim the neck, but it ended up setting up really nicely with very little effort and adjustment. I can't decide on a finish and on whether or not to use the old questionable pup I have or spend a little dough and do the bucker + 5-way rotary setup I really want. Part of the idea was to build this thing on the super cheap and that's way I am torn.

 

[NonsenseTele]

Looks good!

 

[taez555]

The fact anyone could cover up that beautiful grain in the first place is insane.  Looks cool so far, can't wait to see where you go with this.

 

[hannaugh]

What are you doing with the refinishing?  Are you going to stain it?