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Popping my build cherry.

#21
I haven't had a whole lot of time to actually get on a computer to update in a while so this is gonna be a fairly big one.

A lot has happened since my last post, I put the bridge on, drilled the body for the string-through, routed the pickup and control cavities and drilled the hole for the input jack.

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I also got the neck on, then I strung some wires across where the E and G strings should be to get my pickup placement right then I proceeded to route the pickup holes in the pickguard.

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I made the decision (due to my own impatience, something I'm not proud of) to route the pickguard freehand. While it didn't come out looking that brilliant, it's not super noticeable from a distance. If it really gets to me I can just make a new one.

I also started to putty the rip outs in the body routing. I'll only just did this today so in about 24 hours I can start sanding that back down and slapping more over the top.

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By the way, thanks for the tip Joe. I looked around for Bondo but I think it might have a different name here in Aus. I found a suitable filler anyway, it's not a two pack but it seems to be pretty solid.
 
#26
I finally received my tuners today, so I've strung up the bass (with some used 34" strings I had lying around) to see how it intonates. I originally planned to do this by assembling the guitar and putting it through my tuner on my effects board and then giving it a whirl through the amp but that didn't really happen.

I assembled the guitar how it should be, turned on my amp, plugged it in and... Nothing. Not surprising really, it's just so disappointing when that happens, you get all worked up for nothing. After checking it over with a multimeter and finding absolutely nothing I had a closer look at the wiring - bingo! Looks like my brain was on holiday when I wired it up, I left out one of the wires going from the volume to the blend pot.

After I soldered this wire in I plugged it into my tuner and... Success! That's a relief, I wasn't looking forward to complex issues in the wiring since I'm a bit of an electronics n00b.

With the electronics functioning as they should I tried the intonation and there's no worries with it, it tunes up and intonates really well. Now the finishing touches are my only concern, finish sanding and getting it ready for paint.

Headstock
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Schaller BML Lites.
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And the whole thing strung up...
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#29
FINALLY!

Ok, so for those of you actually watching this, I finally got past the christmas rush at work and had some time to do some work on the guitar! I decided after all to paint it myself, partly because I want the guitar finished so I can use it for a show on the 7th so there's not a whole lot of time.

This is just one coat with the undercoat/filler and there's a few runs and thick spots but it's nothing a bit of sanding can't fix. Plus it feels so good just to have even a tiny bit of progress on this thing!

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#30
So after sanding the primer coat smooth and repeating the process a couple more times I was ready to shoot my finish coat, it came out like this -

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It looked ok, not spectacular but a lot better than I expected my first try to look. the only problem was that I accidentally smudged it with my finger when it was tacky, so I sanded it back and I've shot another coat. It's not perfect either so I'll just have to keep sanding back and re-spraying until I get it right, practice makes perfect I guess, haha.
 

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