Saturday 22 November 2014

Putting it all together...

Well that's the neck bolted on and the locking strap hooks fitted
 

 Bridge and tail, yeah I signed the pickup cavity, you never know I might be famous one day...


Strings are on and the nut height tweaked, although there is one slight problem...


BOLLOCKS!!!! The neck socket is too deep, I'd like to blame the issues I had with my router but I can't really, at the end of the day I measured it out wrong.  I think the mistake I made was in the blending of styles.  I measured the socket to look like it does on my Les Paul with the finger board sitting on the body.  However the bolt on socket style I actually copied off my Yamaha where the finger board sits above the body.  Ah well live and learn and it's not a complete loss as I can fix it!


Using some of the sound board off cut I made a piece to go under the neck that follows the contours of the body thus lifting it up a perfect amount.  I thought about painting it to match the body but thought that given the amount work involved in blending the colour on the body it might look patchy whereas leaving it natural makes it look deliberate.  I sealed it with the matt lacquer before fitting it.

*edit 21/11/2015* I have since found out that I didn't actually route the neck socket too deep.  In my inexperience I didn't account for the fact that a tune-o-matic style bridge is much taller than the Yamaha RMPro2 bridge, that and the lack of carving on the top.

Saturday 15 November 2014

Finishing the headstock and neck

As this is a wedding present I made their wedding date the serial number


Using a dremel hobby drill I engraved their names into the maple in an American diner font.  It's a little shaky but not bad considering I did it free hand



And then carefully, with a fine brush I painted in some chrome paint.  It looks more like silver but it still pretty against the red background.


Next job is to cut the bone nut that came with neck.  I used a pencil sliced through the middle and run over the frets to work out the string slot height.  I also leveled the frets with an oil stone and re-crowned them with a needle file.

For love nor money I couldn't find a simple chrome truss rod plate so I bought a small off cut of mirror finished stainless steel off eBay.


30 minutes of playing with hacksaw, file and drill and hey presto - one shiny truss rod cover!