Prostheta Posted March 19, 2016 Report Share Posted March 19, 2016 Ah, you kids don't get spam these days. Our minds were ruined by promises. Just white wine tonight. A reasonable Riesling/Gewürztraminer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sirspens Posted March 19, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2016 (edited) 6 minutes ago, Prostheta said: Ah, you kids don't get spam these days. Our minds were ruined by promises. Are you making fun of me making it out of a pill bottle? It works perfectly. Edited March 19, 2016 by sirspens missing word Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sirspens Posted March 19, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2016 Okay. Not a dud truss rod. I got the bow out of the neck. It did not, however, fix my action problem. I mean, it did some. Like 20% of the distance has been closed. I now have some decisions to make on how to address the problem. As has already been discussed... (A) Lower the bridge by routing out the body a bit; (B) Raise the neck with a shim; (C) Angle the neck with a shim. I am going to ponder this a bit. (C) is my least favorite option. I'm gonna go measure some shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted March 19, 2016 Report Share Posted March 19, 2016 Try C. It will take 10 minutes to do and you can take it out again if you don't like it. I have three bolt ons at home at the moment. Two have shims and one doesn't. I would give anyone a $1000 if they could tell me - other than pure luck - by sight or by sound, which ones have the shims. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sirspens Posted March 19, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2016 I tried C. C took like 10 minutes. C worked. Action is set (might actually raise it a bit). Intonation is set. Neck is straight. Guitar plays beautifully. .... Thank you very much, @Andyjr1515 I guess now I have to take it apart and get it ready for finishing. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2.5itim Posted March 20, 2016 Report Share Posted March 20, 2016 Yayyy!!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted March 20, 2016 Report Share Posted March 20, 2016 Great news 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sirspens Posted March 20, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2016 I decided to spend more time playing the guitar before taking it apart. It is very nice. When you hit an open chord on this thing, the entire body resonates. Quite nice. Also, I wanted to update the specs on this thing, since they have changed over the build. And, you know, be self-indulgent documenting the state of the guitar at this point. Body: 1 piece mahogany Neck: One I had laying around. Maple neck. Bolt on. Fretboard: Rosewood Scale: 25.5" Bridge: Top-loading Hardtail. I will never use another top-loading bridge. Stringing this thing was a bitch. Tuners: Gotoh Single Pickup: TV Jones Power'tron Plus Electronics: 1 volume pot with Chrome knob. I'm considering switching out the knob for a push/pull so I can coil-tap the pickup. Side jack. Strap Buttons: Grover Quick Release Strap Locks That top-right ferrule, I can't get the screw in any further, and it isn't for lack of depth of the pilot hole. It is PLENTY deep. I'm still working on that one. I have left plenty of room in the control cavity if I ever want to come back and add a tone knob. Just in case. I may end up raising the action a bit more. I am surprised how much difference the neck shim made. I think I also need to get longer screws for the pickup, as it probably needs to be raised just under 1/4". You know, if this is going to be a punk rock guitar. I originally was going to use this random scrap acrylic for the control cavity cover, but now I plan on using the same material as the pickguard. The guitar is a bit neck-heavy. Which is to be expected with a small bodied guitar. So... work to be done before finishing.... I need to get this area filled.... I'm going to round out this corner... That's the state of the guitar right now. Just a bit of clean-up work to do before starting on finishing. And here's the plan for that.... The pickguard is going to an 1/8" piece of translucent acrylic, which will also be used for the control cavity cover as well. The finish will be a light cream, used for the headstock, too. I'm not sure about the finish for the back of the neck. I don't like lacquered necks. Should I go with True Oil here? I want to keep the maple pretty light, and I think True Oil would make it quite a bit darker. Any suggestions? As an aside: There is another body, identical to this one, which will be finish off very similarly, the two differences: Maple fretboard, GFS Retro'tron with the the same specs as this Power'tron. I am interested to see the difference between the $150 pickup and the $35 GFS pickup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a2k Posted March 21, 2016 Report Share Posted March 21, 2016 It looks great! I only saw the neck pocket gap on the full shot because I knew to look for it. That said, now that you know you can bolt it on square, I think it'd be cool to turn the gap into a design detail somehow. Perhaps bend a thin layer of contrasting wood around the pocket or something? For the back of the neck, I'd tried some Watco "Natural" Danish Oil (it's #W-15) on a sample of my maple and it added almost no color. That might be an option. I'm using #w-1, which is light but still adds quite a bit of amber. I'm about to post a before/after photo on my build thread so check there for details. I've got a sample of the W-1 around somewhere - let me know if you want to see it and I'll post a picture. Your high action issue caused me quite a bit of lost sleep over the weekend. I (gulp) didn't do a test string on my bass before finishing and because it's a neck through, there's no shimming. Hopefully the truss rod does it's job. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sirspens Posted March 21, 2016 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2016 5 hours ago, a2k said: Your high action issue caused me quite a bit of lost sleep over the weekend. I (gulp) didn't do a test string on my bass before finishing and because it's a neck through, there's no shimming. Hopefully the truss rod does it's job. Yeah. It worried me quite a bit, and I had some room to play. But, even with a neck-through, you still have the bridge to play with, as well. It might take some creative thinking, but you can play around with it to get your strings where they need to be. I'm looking up the Watco oil right now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PDX Rich Posted March 21, 2016 Report Share Posted March 21, 2016 On 3/19/2016 at 4:40 AM, Prostheta said: Personally, tapering the body is what I would choose. The Aria Pro II SB-1000 (a favourite of mine) had a tapered body from back to front. Even many owners don't realise this (paging @PDX Rich)! The last time I did this, I did so in the thickness sander. I made a plywood sled to hold the body, with small offcuts of wood placed around the perimeter to hold it securely in place (below the sanding line of course). Underneath and across the leading edge of the sled (corresponding to the front of the body) I placed a shim which raised the front of the sled up by the amount I wanted the taper to drop by, plus the amount that the angle brought up the back of the body. A few passes through the sander dialled it in perfectly. This kind of idea: A couple of safety notes of course. If you screw the offcuts down, make sure they don't end up above the sanding line. Sparks plus dust extraction mean fire or explosion. The surface of the sled bearing onto the conveyer is low. Following the sled up with a flat board and hold down the trailing edge so that it doesn't get tipped forward is important. You can always plane the front shim so that it sits flat to make it better. Correct! I did not realize that until you pointed it out while I was building my "interpretation". That said, I did not use any sort of break angle as my Hipshot bridge is low profile. The bottom of the fingerboard is about 1/8" proud of the body. If I was using a taller bridge, I'd likely cut the angle into the top of the body portion of the neck blank, then run it over a jointer to square it up. I think I will hold off on taller bridges until I build a Les Paul-like instrument. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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