Saturday, November 11, 2006
Final Assembly
No more painting! No more sanding! No more waiting for things to dry! Smooth sailing from here! Yeah, right.
Bolting on the neck seems like a trivial task. Technically, it should be. Either the wood had swelled or the finish inside the neck pocket built up too much. In either case this was not an exercise in finesse. In hind sight I should have sanded down the sides of the neck pocket until the neck went in snugly, but easily. As it was I pretty much jammed it in there and used to neck screws to snug it down. I'm lucky I didn't break anything. I really wanted a black neck plate but I couldn't find one before I decided to mount the neck. Now it's never coming off! Notice the reflection of the light reveals an uneven surface. This is what happens when you don't use enough sanding sealer.
Well, at least the big stuff is done. Now I'll just hook up some wires and start playing! As if.
It turns out that the pockets for the pickups don't fit the pickups (why didn't I test this earlier?). The neck pickup fit particularly poorly but there was little I could do about that one. I just use a rat tail file to open up the corners of the pockets a bit and managed to get the pickups in. This would have been a lot easier before the body was finished.
My enthusiasm still intact I installed the bridge and tuners. Remarkably, this went extremely smoothly despite the fact that installing the studs for the bridge required using a hammer (I wasn't forcing it, that's just the way you do it!). I test-fit the tuners and marked where to drill pilot holes for the set screws. At first I tried it without the holes but those tiny screws are difficult to get into that very hard wood.
Installing the rest of the wiring and various bits and pieces was trivial. There were two screws missing for the back cover, but it fit snugly enough to not worry about it. However, I did notice that the holes didn't line up correctly -- something else I should have fixed earlier. After that I put on the strings, tuned it up and started to jam...
Hindsight:
Bolting on the neck seems like a trivial task. Technically, it should be. Either the wood had swelled or the finish inside the neck pocket built up too much. In either case this was not an exercise in finesse. In hind sight I should have sanded down the sides of the neck pocket until the neck went in snugly, but easily. As it was I pretty much jammed it in there and used to neck screws to snug it down. I'm lucky I didn't break anything. I really wanted a black neck plate but I couldn't find one before I decided to mount the neck. Now it's never coming off! Notice the reflection of the light reveals an uneven surface. This is what happens when you don't use enough sanding sealer.
Well, at least the big stuff is done. Now I'll just hook up some wires and start playing! As if.
It turns out that the pockets for the pickups don't fit the pickups (why didn't I test this earlier?). The neck pickup fit particularly poorly but there was little I could do about that one. I just use a rat tail file to open up the corners of the pockets a bit and managed to get the pickups in. This would have been a lot easier before the body was finished.
My enthusiasm still intact I installed the bridge and tuners. Remarkably, this went extremely smoothly despite the fact that installing the studs for the bridge required using a hammer (I wasn't forcing it, that's just the way you do it!). I test-fit the tuners and marked where to drill pilot holes for the set screws. At first I tried it without the holes but those tiny screws are difficult to get into that very hard wood.
Installing the rest of the wiring and various bits and pieces was trivial. There were two screws missing for the back cover, but it fit snugly enough to not worry about it. However, I did notice that the holes didn't line up correctly -- something else I should have fixed earlier. After that I put on the strings, tuned it up and started to jam...
Hindsight:
- Test fit everything first. Trimming the neck and pickup pockets would have been easier if I didn't have to worry about the finish.
- Be very careful when installing hardware. One slip of a screwdriver can gouge that beautiful finish (not mine fortunately).
- Don't be stingy with the sanding sealer. Not only will it look better at this point but it'll minimize the chance of sanding through.
# posted by Mark : Saturday, November 11, 2006
