willliam_q

I think the reason I go into a rage is more to do with the people around me not leaving things as They found them. If no one had been in the garage I may still have damaged my guitar but I wouldn't have gone into the rage that I got into.

I have a lot of arguments with my dad for leaving a trail of destruction behind him in anything he does. Even though it is his shed :-)

In addition to what Swedish has said I would suggest watching loads of YouTube videos and also purchase Melvyn Hiscock's Make Your Own Electric Guitar. I would say that the majority of people on this forum that build guitars on a regular basis own this book. It's got great information for building your first guitar.

As far as tips go I would say the most important aspect is to keep your workbench tidy and free of clutter. A lesson I learnt well this week when I dinged my guitar during the finishing stages due to having an untidy workbench.

Sorry Tim! Sarcasm doesn't always shine through on forums lol

Tim, I thought Ansil had done the same but looking closer I now think it is an optical illusion due to the angle of the humbucker recesses.

Does anyone else get into a wild rage when things go wrong? My bro had used the garage yesterday to work on his car. When he was leaving I asked him if he had tidied the work bench to which he replied that he had.

Well today I grabbed the guitar from the house and walked to the garage. He hadn't tidied the work bench and I had nowhere safe to place the guitar. I held it with one hand and tidied the workbench with the other. When I was complete I grabbed my old towel and placed it on the workbench. As I raised the guitar to put it on the bench I caught it on the band saw table!!!

I took a small gouge out of the corner of the guitar, I had had it perfect and ready for base coat and now this! I flew into an awful rage and started kicking everything in sight including the workbench. This in turn caused the guitar to fly into the air and come down on a screwdriver!! Thankfully the guitar body had landed back on the bench but I could have cried, I lifted the sledge hammer and was about to beat the walls of my tin shed when I caught myself on!

So I took a few deep breaths and decided how best to repair the guitar. I sanded down the bad spots and filled with body filler. I then sanded smooth and applied another coat of primer. I have to say the repair is seamless and I am in a much better mood now. I just got so frustrated at having been put back another evening due to someone else using my garage (I know it was mostly my fault but if he hadn't have used the garage I wouldn't be in this mess )

Anyway rant over and tomorrow evening I hope to get my first coat of base colour! I just can't wait now till I'm strumming the life out of this guitar!

Excellent, I prefer science over voodoo any day! I was the kid at school who alway had useless facts about nearly anything (except sport) pitty I didn't actually learn anything useful when I was at school!

It's amazing the difference between first and second coat. I applied the first coat over the wood which had been sanded to 320 grit. Then today I sanded back the first coat with 600 grit and sprayed the second coat. The second coat looked like glass it was beautiful, until I got the run that is :-(. This primer is so white it could nearly do as the base coat, but I'll spray a separate base coat anyway. Has anyone ever used the primer as a base coat and just lacquer over the top?

Excuse the mess in the garage. It's my dad's garage and he has a pile of junk in it. My bro serviced his car on Saturday which is why all the tools etc are a mess and there's a load of oil on the floor! I didn't bother to tidy up as he will be working again on Wednesday evening.

I use a hand plane. As long as it's sharp it will do a great job. It gives loads of control and you can see exactly what you are taking off. That will give you a nice flat bevel, if you want to curve it I would use a rasp.

That's actually a good tip when I cut myself I always forget about the superglue when in reality that's what it was originally designed for.

I did similar to my hand just before Christmas. I was lucky it was a chunk of my hand I took out, not a chunk of finger so it didn't affect my mobility. I didn't get stiches although I probably should have.

Hope it heals well. Inlays sound good, are they for fretboard or as a body inlay?

Looks good! It will be nice to have it as a Christmas pressie to yourself, good timing!

It's a great way to repurpose wood and make some money for yourself at the same time. I like authentic relic look guitars so this is right up my street. Looks great!

I don't have much experience with this but I'm pretty sure you are only supposed to steam the bare wood. If you steamed lacquer the moisture would penetrate and give you a haze on the lacquer.

I know this as my sister ironed directly on top of my mothers good dining table!

Thanks. I wasn't happy with some of the frets. I don't possess fret pulling pliers or even anything that can be file down as such. I used a very fine chisel to remove the first fret. In the process taking a reasonable size gouge out of my hand!

I probably could have done with a stitch but it seems to have closed up ok now. Anyhow note to self... Keep hand well out of harms way! On the same fret I got a fair bit of chip out. Glad to say it's been repaired with superglue. I couldn't get the piece from one of the tear outs so dust and superglue did the trick.

I replaced four frets as I had gouged too much with the hammer when installing them originally. I had been beating them down but the fret slots were too shallow. They are now ready for levelling an doing a full fretting job on the neck. Sorry I've no picks but you wouldn't be able to make out the repair job from them anyway.

How do you know? Lol

I've actually stopped watching his new videos since I last posted about this. he goes too far of topic recently. I agree it's likely he has a lot on hi mind but the video suffers too much for it. I also find that you have to watch an hour just to get the smallest little tip that just might be useful.

I watched some of Perry's videos, quite entertaining, don't know what your work experience guy thought when you offered to shave his balls after sharpening a chisel! :-)

Cavity cover recess done:

That's actually a great idea. I would likely have just put it all together and assumed it would work!

Yes I've never had to buy high quality figured woods yet as I am just not good enough. It's hard to believe the prices for a chunk of wood sometimes. How many necks do you think you would get out of each of those blanks?

Thanks, tbh that's what I expected I just didn't want to hear it. Ah well just another job to add to the to do list.

Mowi have to decide to connect a ground wire directly to bridge or to the posts. I'll prob go to the posts but I originally drilledy post holes slightly deeper than they needed to be so the ground wire will need to be attached or soldered to the post

I am maybe asking this a little early since I haven't started the electronics aspect of my build yet, but I need to know if I should drill more holes before finishing.

I have a cheap powder coated TOM style bridge. I'm using string thru body to hold the strings. Most searches I've done say to run a ground wire from the bridge post to the control cavity. If I do that there are a number of slight obstacles.

The powder coating is everywhere, the adjustable saddles are powder coated, the bridge is powder coated, the posts are powder coated. How on earth (excuse the pun ) am I supposed to ground this thing when the saddles are insulated by the powder coating at the bridge?

Any ideas?

I can't run an earth point from one string ferrule at the back of the body as that would only ground one string. How necessary is bridge grounding?

Looks like a good repair. Have you had a chance to try out the gfs pickups?

Is that a tuneomatic bridge you've used?

Got a fair bit done this evening. I've drilled for the jack plate and carved out the belly contour, arm contour and contoured the heel to make for better access.

Guitar is yet to be sanded, I've given it a very slight run over at 80 grit but that was just to clean it a bit for photos, not by any means finish sanded.

Some goodies arrived in the post, Dimarzio Fast Track 2 and Tone Zone pickups thanks to Sancho Marino for sorting me out with that!

Ok thanks. Makes sense that if not fully seated they should lift out easy enough. I will have to give this a try later in the week.

Looks great so far! I would not like to be the man cutting that with a handsaw. If you allowed 15 mins for fretting I think I'd be allowing a full day for cutting the body by hand!

Just on a side note. Did you get any chipping when lifting the frets out again? I've the same issue where a few slots aren't deep enough. I'm afraid to pull the frets as when I was installing them my ebony fret board was starting to chip in some places. The frets are currently holding any chips down so they are invisible. When prepping the fretboard for my frets I beveled the edges with the intention of making the frets easier to lift out.