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First Build - The "Nozcaster"


Norris

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15 hours ago, ScottR said:

A countersink would have chipped, as would any slight degree of angle while pushing them in.

SR

A few chips might have been easier to deal with rather than the meltdown :D

Anyway after another night of scraping back and touching up, the fret area is nearly back to flat - actually it's flatter than it was to start with. One more go on that and I'll get busy with the micro-mesh pads again and see how it's looking

The ferrules will take a little longer. If I've proved nothing else, I have the patience to get it looking good - 2 years of building this thing is fast approaching! ^_^

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  • 4 weeks later...

It's been a little while since I updated...

Fixing the chips around the frets has been a slow, laborious and time-consuming task. Hopefully they are filled enough now, so I am working my way down the board with micro-mesh to get it all neatened up ready for polishing. The fried lacquer around the headstock ferrules is still very much in progress - looks a complete mess at the moment, but will come good with patience. I had to dig out the lacquer that got over-heated as it crystallised and wouldn't blend in with the fresh lacquer.

Anyway as a bit of relief from the tedium, I've now fitted the rear string ferrules into the body. With much more careful use of heat from the soldering iron these went a lot smoother. I cleared out the holes first with some 600 grit wrapped around a drill bit, then carefully tapped them into place until just before they touched the lacquer (I've recessed them flush to the body). Then careful heating and using a 6mm hex drive bit as a drift I drove them home. It went beautifully ... until after the last stroke I put the hammer down, catching the edge of the body on the way! Oh well, another chip to fix. Two steps forward, one back - but it's progress.

I then went on to fit the electronics plate inside and the neck pickup is now in place too.

I just wish I had more time, but pesky job & life keep getting in the way

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  • 4 weeks later...

I was researching something on a Floyd installation on Google just now.

As it's been years since I did one.

And there was a link that looked informative, so I clicked on it.

It happened that it was one of my own posts here :lol:.

So I logged in for the helluvit and saw a notification or two.

Hiya Guys!

 

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Drak!! Howya doing?!?! You know what they say about experts forgetting more than some people even know? I'd like to imagine that the things I don't know are just things I've forgotten....

I hope you're still finding and producing those spectacular tops of yours, and maybe destroying then more seldom....

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23 hours ago, Mike.Mara said:

Little late for this but: Conical Sanding Drums

Wish you luck with fixing that finish... Looks beautiful!

Thanks - although the 150 grit might be a bit "industrial" :)

It's still in progress, just far more sanding than life is granting me time to do at the moment. Certainly no progress worth posting just yet

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1 hour ago, Norris said:

Thanks - although the 150 grit might be a bit "industrial" :)

It's still in progress, just far more sanding than life is granting me time to do at the moment. Certainly no progress worth posting just yet

I know SR disagrees with me here, but sanding is the one thing about working with wood I can't stand... Unless I'm using the sandpaper as a shaping tool.

Have you thought about shaping a little cone on a drill and wrapping some self adhesive sandpaper on it?

All progress is worth showing ;)

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1 hour ago, Mike.Mara said:

I know SR disagrees with me here, but sanding is the one thing about working with wood I can't stand... Unless I'm using the sandpaper as a shaping tool.

Have you thought about shaping a little cone on a drill and wrapping some self adhesive sandpaper on it?

All progress is worth showing ;)

It's a bit late now, but certainly I'm going to give the rim of the neck plate recess a light sanding to reduce the chances of chipping the lacquer. I wish I'd have thought of it before fitting the recessed neck pickup plate - although luckily that was very minor and hardly noticeable. It is proving to be a bit of an issue - getting the lacquer to stay on :D

Certainly if/when I do another lacquered guitar I will make sure that I restrict the chances of chipping, and some sort of angled sanding cone had crossed my mind - something like a countersink bit but using fairly fine sandpaper. It would be very useful, especially where the edge of the hole is covered, as in the tuner ferrules

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  • 3 weeks later...

Yay! Finally finished de-PhotoBucketing all 205 "old" photos in the thread! Unfortunately I can't fix any quoted images. It looks like the PG caching wasn't that successful. Never mind, they are all PG-native images now.

It sure was fun revisiting the progress. I'll admit that I have been lacking in enthusiasm recently due to some of the setbacks, but will come out fighting again now. It may not be quite as perfect as I'd have liked, but it's still not bad for a first build :)

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40 minutes ago, Norris said:

Yay! Finally finished de-PhotoBucketing all 205 "old" photos in the thread! Unfortunately I can't fix any quoted images. It looks like the PG caching wasn't that successful. Never mind, they are all PG-native images now.

It sure was fun revisiting the progress. I'll admit that I have been lacking in enthusiasm recently due to some of the setbacks, but will come out fighting again now. It may not be quite as perfect as I'd have liked, but it's still not bad for a first build :)

I've got to admit I've been enjoying replacing all my photos in earlier builds much more than I expected to. It brings back some great memories and a load of ideas that seem to have slipped by me.

As far as being not bad for a first build...this thing is great for a 10th or 20th build...it's just fantastic period. I doubt that any of us hear have produced a build to the degree of perfection we aspired to initially. We all are our own worst critics and we can't unsee what we perceive to be a flaw once we've seen it. And in reality the things we nitpick ourselves to death over are trivial compared to the things we find when we bring a factory built guitar home from the guitar store.

The trick is to stand back a couple of steps and look at it like everyone else looks at it and taken as a whole you'll have to admit that - damn, this thing is gorgeous! And if it feels and plays as good as it looks, quit messing about and start playing it!

I'll be will to bet that anyone you've shown that to, has been amazed and have said so too.

SR

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I'm glad that you have the patience to do so Scott. Especially given that your build threads have always been especially demonstrative and frank. Being a bit more real about how we do work makes a difference to people that do not have as much experience, so they know it's not some form of magic, decades of skills you can't take on or worse, "a trade secret".

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18 hours ago, ScottR said:

As far as being not bad for a first build...this thing is great for a 10th or 20th build...it's just fantastic period. I doubt that any of us hear have produced a build to the degree of perfection we aspired to initially. We all are our own worst critics and we can't unsee what we perceive to be a flaw once we've seen it. And in reality the things we nitpick ourselves to death over are trivial compared to the things we find when we bring a factory built guitar home from the guitar store.

The trick is to stand back a couple of steps and look at it like everyone else looks at it and taken as a whole you'll have to admit that - damn, this thing is gorgeous! And if it feels and plays as good as it looks, quit messing about and start playing it!

I'll be will to bet that anyone you've shown that to, has been amazed and have said so too.

SR

Thanks. You're absolutely right. As I've managed to avoid any major calamities throughout the build, I've gradually set the bar higher & higher for myself. Having "drawn the line" I set about polishing the rest of the neck up last night and am now itching to get it completed - definitely this year if not this month.

I will give the body another polish though. The lacquer has sunk a bit in the time it's been sitting there, now showing a bit of grain pattern that definitely wasn't there before

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've had some time on this recently and we finally seem to be there bar a few minor fettling issues. I've fixed the chips in the lacquer, polished up the frets and assembled it. Last night I finished and fitted the nut, cut the slots and strung it up for the first time. 

There were a couple of things that still could have been wrong. The neck alignment...

20171121_083304.thumb.jpg.707c9c60fe7343c7770b4c1cf62efa12.jpg

... which is fine, and the clearance on the E string from nut to tuner...

20171121_083349.thumb.jpg.ace692d881b5e03099f353776bd05532.jpg

... also ok despite the long ramp

So to finish off I need to sort the neck pickup out - it dropped off one of the adjustment screws, adjust the bridge as some of the grub screws are rattling, and take up the slack in the truss rod - I'm hoping that settles to have a little more relief. 

Anyway it was good enough to have a bit of a thrash last night :D

Sexy pics and GOTM entry to follow soon!

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On 22/11/2017 at 12:04 PM, Norris said:

One day very soon :)

GOTM locks tomorrow, so it will be in the December one - guaranteed!

Phew!  I've just snuck mine into the closing hours of November's....definitely don't want to pitch up against this beauty - I've seen it in real life!!!!!

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