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Should I document my kit builds here?
- Thread starter Markshan
- Start date
And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...
This crescent that I drew on here is my new goal for the carving.
This crescent that I drew on here is my new goal for the carving.
This is about 20 minutes of Shinto and 5 minutes of scraping tools. It fits much better now.
That one spot where I missed isn't as bad as it looks in the picture. I would have to sand that deep just to get rid of the sealer anyway.
DURATION: 25 minutes
That one spot where I missed isn't as bad as it looks in the picture. I would have to sand that deep just to get rid of the sealer anyway.
DURATION: 25 minutes
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This is my Bexgears Okume Jazz kit. When i ordered the kit the company claimed the body was raw with no finish. When i opened it up i was surprised to see how ORANGE it was. So i ended up having to sand the entire body to remove the finish, i also reshaped the hell out of it! This restored it to the colour i expected. My intent with this kit was to duplicate the vibe of a 70's Jazz bass, to that end i finished it with black shoe polish topped with tung oil. I also had to re think the nut which took out a chunk of the crappy synthetic board toward the head stock. To fix this a made a solid brass nut and scalloped it for no other reason than i could. Basically ended up with what i think is a good looking bass. Cheers.
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I bet that feels good enough to make you want to do another one. 
Agree completely on the sealer. What do you dislike about the synthetic ebony? I am not far enough along to actually play it yet, but I think it looks and feels terrific.
The finish doesn't photograph well but it feels very smooth but very worn, just what i wanted. One other issue with the kit was, that some of the screw holes were not accurately placed and the maple neck is really, really, hard which emphasized how crappy the fasteners are. Nothing like getting a tuner screw in to almost the last thread and having it snap!
3 pin-vises (#3&4 - 1/16", #6 - 3/32", #8 - 1/8") and tub of butcher block wax living on the bench saves a lot of time and frustration during hardware mounting sessions.
Rick
So I just watched a telecaster build video, and the guy who built it ran a ground wire from the bridge to the control cavity. I chuckled to myself thinking that he knew it needed to be ground but he didn't really understand what he was doing. I assumed that the screws holding the bridge pickup to the bridge plate would more than adequately ground the bridge plate. But then I thought about it again and went what if I'm wrong I've been wrong before. So what say the experts here when I get to that stage do I need to run a ground wire to the bridge?
If a multimeter shows continuity from the pickup ground wire to the bridge plate and / or saddles you’re good. If not, run the separate ground wire. Traditionally (Leo did it. It must be right!) the separate ground wire would be installed.
Edit: now that I’m thinking about it, the screws will only have continuity to the ground wire if the pickup has a metal base plate (not all Tele bridge pickups do) or if the screws are in contact with other grounded metal inside the pickup which isn’t guaranteed.
Edit: now that I’m thinking about it, the screws will only have continuity to the ground wire if the pickup has a metal base plate (not all Tele bridge pickups do) or if the screws are in contact with other grounded metal inside the pickup which isn’t guaranteed.
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I always check all my grounds for continuity. It was more a question of me watching the video and wanting to know if my assumption was correct or incorrect. Sounds like a definite sometimes, LOL.
Plus, given the choice between having two reliable grounds or none, that's a pretty easy decision.
Plus, given the choice between having two reliable grounds or none, that's a pretty easy decision.
Not as easy as one might think. In the case of bridge/pickup grounds, then yes, more is better. In the case of for example active speakers and amps it's not that easy. Having two ground connections (grounded power and signal) could cause hum. This is why many devices have ground lift switches.
You also often don't need bridge ground with active pickups. Not sure it it's actually detrimental, though.
Today is the rare day that I am home and it isn't either 100 degrees or pouring rain, so I took my Workmate bench and my random orbital sander out to the front yard and sanded this body down to 220 grit. With any luck I'll sit in my living room this evening and molest the curves with a piece of 400 while I watch AGT. If I'm really lucky I'll get the grain filler on it tonight so I can sand again tomorrow as it is supposed to rain Thursday and Friday.
DURATION: Two lovely hours in a cool breeze under a shade tree.
DURATION: Two lovely hours in a cool breeze under a shade tree.
I had no idea that black wood grain filler was this thick. This was like troweling shoe polish onto the body of the guitar.
DURATION: twenty minutes.
DURATION: twenty minutes.
I was getting tired. A little more waste doing the back because I wasn't as inspired to keep scraping.
DURATION: Another twenty minutes.
DURATION: Another twenty minutes.
