Muzz

Here's a more accurate Photoshop mockup.

Definitely keep the scratch plate, that combination works.

Travelling well

I am guessing that black paint in the cavity is a carbon paint to shield the electronics, while I have the plastic cover off I'll shield that too.

Earth soldered to the back of the pot, other wire to the bottom lug of the volume pot, too easy

Yep, that looks cool and classy, beautiful blue finish on the top. I hope you gave Mender some beers for his help It seems there are some great kits available these days, and for people without a workshop or who live in flats or apartments and can't make a lot of noise, a kit is a fantastic way to have some fun and end up with a unique instrument.

I put an Ibanez pick up in the neck position

I love pickups with a shielded cable

and for the bridge I bought a new pick up from an Aussie company Pure Tone, the pup is the Scorpion model, they have pick ups named after animals like wombat, huntsman, redback and croc

And strung it up

I've just never seen the process. No one up here has actually ever requested it. I'm pretty interested in it. Its a shame you couldn't get a recording of before and after potting.

Yes, I am guessing that it would be the kind of process that people with really old pickups might wan't done as a re-potting thing. The potting didn't make any difference to the tone of the pickup whatsoever but it did allow the amp to be turned up a lot louder before the squealing feedback started. But sadly it wasn't enough, I like to crank the amp and I hate extraneous noise, and the potting didn't completely solve the problem for a high gain amp. So I went for a pickup transplant instead. I'll post a pic soon.

That's the first time i've ever seen anyone literally dip their pickups in wax.I always heard horror stories of people frying the pickups, and them never working again.

do you mean instead of a wax/paraffin mix?

I'm guessing not because that would be kind of like saying a fruit/apple mix and there are about a gazillion molecules of paraffin in that goop on my stove. Hey did you know that when you fart a species of paraffin comes out of your butt? (I'm speaking in the second person, not your butt specifically )

here is fralin's tips on using a chip pan for the same job

http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Electronics/Pickup_building/a-lindyfralin.html

Hey that is a great info page, if I was going to pot a lot of pickups a thermostat controlled cooker is definitely the way to go. While I was at that site I had a look around at some of the technical tips pages at the Stew Mac site, there is some great stuff there, I especially liked the page on how to do Gibson style bound fret ends

That's the first time i've ever seen anyone literally dip their pickups in wax. I always heard horror stories of people frying the pickups, and them never working again.

Yes, I think the tricks are,

1. 
   
   
2. make sure you don't put a break the delicate copper wire
   
3. keep the temperature of the wax low, under 150 degrees? Either with a thermometer or just do what I did, turn off the heat as soon as the wax fully melts, it stays liquid for ages after that
   

To keep the kerrang

A couple of weeks back I had a try at potting the pickups on my Fibson, I followed the tute at http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/dip.htm

I took the bridge pup out

Hmmm, a "Gibson" guitar with "Epiphone" pickups

Got the wax runny

Rubber banded the pup and popped it in for 20 minutes, watched the little bubbles come out,

as the wax worked its way right into the coils.

Took it out and let it cool, then gave it a few quick dips

Put it back in the guitar, it made a big difference, but not enough for the Marshall in high gain mode, pickups went in the spares box and I looked around for some replacements.

cool!

Word

The shaping, grain, hardware, it's all working for me

Hi Mender, Sounds like you and I are the walking wounded at the moment. I have been told by my doctor that the carpal fusion is usually very effective in stopping the pain, all the joints that inflame the soft tissue are immobilized and the tissue can heal and settle down. And the wrist can still retain a proportion of movement to allow guitar playing and woodwork. I hope it goes well for you and I think the odds are on your side for a good outcome. I broke my scaphoid a long time ago and had bone graft surgery to rejoin the pieces. I have had reduced (actually no) hyperextension movement in my wrist ever since but I have learned to compensate, and most people would never know. I too have had all the future possibilities explained to me, but it seems to be hanging in there well so far. Good chance that you will soon have a pain free wrist but you might have to relearn how to strum.

I can sympathize with the pain, I spent the weekend in critical care after a back injury. I was at level 8 pain when I went in to the hospital, then suddenly went into pain at the top of the scale, at that point I couldn't move apart from shaking uncontrollably and swearing my head off and just heard someone say, quick get a line into him, and then I felt the warm rush as the morphine swept through my body taking a good chunk of the pain with it. I have had the MRI scan, the injury is minor (geez I would hate to have a major one ) and I am back on my feet again and the pain is back to manageable levels and easing slowly with the passing days. I have just been able to get some sleep since yesterday. My doctor tells me I should be fully recovered in 3 months.

Hang in there

So I checked out my guitar, nice straight neck also.

Looks OK.

Good join.

I thought the pickups will sound like crap, so I plugged it in to my modelling practice amp and the pickups sounded great. I thought wow lightening strikes twice until I plugged it into my Marshall JVM410.

This amp is cool, it has four channels each with knobs, not preset controls, I love it. The two OD channels have so much gain and it takes a really good quality pickup to handle that. The ones in my new guitar howled uncontrollably when the guitar was plugged into this amp. I had a go at potting them with wax, it's already happened but I will post pics of the potting process tomoz or later.

DON'T PANIC

It's often repeated but good advice, practice on scrap. Let the guitar dry, sand it smooth, practice your spraying technique then keep spraying the guitar, you'll be fine. Check out my Hondo Bass Renno or any one of a thousand posts on painting to get some tips, good luck with it

Hey OSi, You know I dig the retro stuff so much, and to me the cracks and scuffs are all now part of the guitar. If it was me I would get an insulin syringe and carefully put some glue in the cracks so they don't open up any more, they might not even need that I can't tell from the pics, but whatever you choose it would be nice to preserve the look of them. I think Wez is right, clean up the hardware a bit and that would be it apart for looking for a spot to hang the guitar in the den or bar. I can imagine warm nights out on the porch with a beer and the Harmony plugged into a nice little tube amp.

Score, better than a Les Paul, they are as common as muck, well maybe not '59s

That's a piece of history and so unusual, have you plugged it in yet?

A friend saw my project guitars and wanted to know if I could help him make a guitar for the other guitarist in his band. I let him know how slow I am at building and said a kit might be a good way for him to get a taste for working on guitars and had a good chance that his band mate had a reasonably decent guitar. He agreed and a few weeks later came over with a big cardboard box with a Les Paul copy kit in it. But he had tried to stain it with tea that had had steel wool soaking in it. And the kit was finished in a hard two pack, so it was a real mess. I cleaned up the top with 1500 grit wet and dry. I spoke to the guy the guitar was for and he said he wanted the guitar to look real natural. I immediately thought of Marc Bolan's Les Paul.

This meant all the guitar needed was a decal, finish over that and the headstock, buffed up and constructed, which we did.

I plugged it in, and played it, great action, the glued in neck was dead straight, the pick ups sounded fantastic, they are Wilkinson humbuckers, the friend was stoked that for $300 he got this cool, retro looking guitar that plays and sounds so good. I couldn't believe it, I thought it would come out OK, but this exceeded my expectations.

Put me in the mood to do a little bit of simple maintenance on my Les Paul copies.

The one on the left is an old Ibanez from the 70's I bought second hand and the one on the right is a Fibson, a gift from a friend of mine.

The eagle eyed among you will have spotted that its not perfectly straight along the centre line of the billet, This is because the grain in this board does not run paralell to the edge. So the guitar follows the grain & not the saw edge

Not a waste there were knots either side of the neck, McLovin the look of this so far. And toes ..... in safety boots, I now have a pair

What do you think of it so far?

The basic version of AmpliTube 3 is free now, with 23 free gear models to start with, plus a high percision chromatic tuner.

www.ikmultimedia.com/amplitubefree

I must give it a go, the link doesn't work for me, I'll give Google a shot.

Hope you are feeling better soon, look forward to seeing some more pics

I can see little people swimming around in the top, it's either a beautiful finish or my current state of mind, or both

Man you gotta be stoked with that, great stuff. I haven't heard of tried Bare Knuckle Pickups yet.

that vote was a photo finish!

well done!

Well it would have been if I hadn't voted, I am still in shock that the colours on this guitar all go with each other Just teasing you John, this was a clear winner.

thanks

That is a beauty, the crisp edges just make it.

I'm actually really diggin' it. It's giving off some really nice mojo.

I hear you, I love it, especially the scoop under the machine heads on the body.

:D

and yep, one of the enjoyable parts of making a guitar is thinking about what to do next