Same. I'm thinking I'll make a drawing of the whole idea. Just the act of drawing will help etching the idea into my head.
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Winter Build Off 2023 - Supersymmetry
- Thread starter TFM94
- Start date
Also, it occurs to me that there's a more generalised idea to be found here. Something about finding the easiest way for something. I need to ponder that.
All right, that's enough derailment. Back to you, OP.
This evening I had some time in the workshop to clean up yesterday's mess.
I think the neck joint came out pretty good. Epoxy hardened nicely. I sanded the cutaways so that they smoothly blend into the neck heel and continued the bevel on the back along the heel. After that I carved the heel transition. It's sanded to 180 now, and you can see the joint line as expected, but it's not too bad. I'll take that over the titebond drama any day...
I figured now would be a good time to fit all the hardware, so that if I scratch or dent anything I can still sand it out. I installed the bridges by sticking them on paper with double sided tape and the placed the whole thing on the top, checking for string alignment.
Any tips for grounding all of them? I was thinking to run some bare wire underneath all of them, but I'm not sure if that's enough. Alternatively I could rout a small channel with a dremel and then solder a ground wire to each of them.
I also installed the string holders at the "vestigial" headstock. They are not exactly parallel, and that's on purpose. The strings slightly fan out behind the nut, and the holders follow this offset. Don't worry, the angles are so small that it won't have any effect on tuning stability. I also got started on the nut. Now that I'm going wiht kind of an all black theme, I used a black graphtech nut blank for this one.
The bridges and tailpieces are all ABM headless hardware. They seem pretty good, but the funny thing is that they send you two hex keys for each and every bridge or tailpiece. Now I have a big pile of hex keys. This is only half of it, I already gave some of them away.
I think the neck joint came out pretty good. Epoxy hardened nicely. I sanded the cutaways so that they smoothly blend into the neck heel and continued the bevel on the back along the heel. After that I carved the heel transition. It's sanded to 180 now, and you can see the joint line as expected, but it's not too bad. I'll take that over the titebond drama any day...
I figured now would be a good time to fit all the hardware, so that if I scratch or dent anything I can still sand it out. I installed the bridges by sticking them on paper with double sided tape and the placed the whole thing on the top, checking for string alignment.
Any tips for grounding all of them? I was thinking to run some bare wire underneath all of them, but I'm not sure if that's enough. Alternatively I could rout a small channel with a dremel and then solder a ground wire to each of them.
I also installed the string holders at the "vestigial" headstock. They are not exactly parallel, and that's on purpose. The strings slightly fan out behind the nut, and the holders follow this offset. Don't worry, the angles are so small that it won't have any effect on tuning stability. I also got started on the nut. Now that I'm going wiht kind of an all black theme, I used a black graphtech nut blank for this one.
The bridges and tailpieces are all ABM headless hardware. They seem pretty good, but the funny thing is that they send you two hex keys for each and every bridge or tailpiece. Now I have a big pile of hex keys. This is only half of it, I already gave some of them away.
Looks awesome
I'm doing a headless conversion with individual bridges. I've opted to use a brass nut so I only have to ground one bridge section, the nut will spread the ground to the other 4 strings. I guess a string retainer bar on the headstock would do the same if all the strings made contact with it. It could be black as long as the underside was bare metal.
The dark veneer in the body and the light veneer in the neck coming together is a subtle highlight. Nicely done.
Make a groove on the back at the level of the screw holes. Cut an Allen key to length and place it in the groove, ensuring that each screw touches.
=> one less Allen key to worry about
It might be a thought in a next build to glue in a layer of conductive foil at the level of the bridge on top of the skunk-stripe. if the screws of the bridge penetrate this you have instant connection to ground. Then you just have to bring the ground to the cavity.
Not quite, it's a Seymour Duncan Black Winter pickup in the "blackened" version with double polepieces. Visually, it's very similar to the Full Shred, but it's a much higher output ceramic pickup (16.6 kOhm). For such a high output humbucker, it's surprisingly tight and bright. They're very versatile and clean up nicely if you roll down the volume.
Here's a demo:
Black Winter™ Pickup | Seymour Duncan
Do your bridge sections touch each other? You could sand off the finish on the sides where they touch, maybe even sneak a sliver of metal tape between. Then you only have to ground one of them.
They don't touch, but the separation is tiny. I used strips of photo paper (0.2mm) to align them before drilling the mounting holes. I think a thin strip of conductive tape on each side of the tuner should do the trick. I'll try this before I start routing any channels underneath, because it would be a much easier solution.
I've grounded individual bridges with copper tape under the bridges. Black bridges may need some sanding off the finish from the bottom of the bridges. Multimeter will tell if the finish is conductive or not.
I was also thinking... a brass nut or a string retainer that touches all the strings will ground the separated parts of the bridge trough the strings... so only one section of the bridge should be grounded.
Thanks for all the grounding suggestions. I'll try a strip of tape first and if that's not sufficient I'll go through the other options.
Lots of sanding going on right now. I hope to finish the whole sanding process and start applying tru-oil this weekend.
It's also official grain pop day. I never realized how much flame there is in the neck, that was a nice surprise when I applied some sanding sealer.
Lots of sanding going on right now. I hope to finish the whole sanding process and start applying tru-oil this weekend.
It's also official grain pop day. I never realized how much flame there is in the neck, that was a nice surprise when I applied some sanding sealer.
Just over one week to go, so far the finishing schedule is holding up.
This weekend I leveled, crowned, dressed and polished the frets. I used my trusty Crimson three-corner file for crowning, but I'm increasingly annoyed by the coarse tool marks it leaves behind. It requires lots of sanding/smoothing and polishing afterwards. I might look into fine concave files for my next fretting job.
After sanding, fretwork and cavity shileding it is time for finishing. Tru oil is once again the weapon of choice, and the first three coats are already on. The top is still a bit streaky, but that should go away with a few more coats.
The bad news is that I won't have time to finish the logos that I started a few posts earlier, at least not until the deadline. I'll have to order more pigment and the epoxy needs to harden...the logo might be a post-build-off addition.
This weekend I leveled, crowned, dressed and polished the frets. I used my trusty Crimson three-corner file for crowning, but I'm increasingly annoyed by the coarse tool marks it leaves behind. It requires lots of sanding/smoothing and polishing afterwards. I might look into fine concave files for my next fretting job.
After sanding, fretwork and cavity shileding it is time for finishing. Tru oil is once again the weapon of choice, and the first three coats are already on. The top is still a bit streaky, but that should go away with a few more coats.
The bad news is that I won't have time to finish the logos that I started a few posts earlier, at least not until the deadline. I'll have to order more pigment and the epoxy needs to harden...the logo might be a post-build-off addition.
Finishing halftime intermission report:
After seven coats of tru-oil I found that the surface was quite rough and had a lot of particles and fibers in it. So I wet-sanded the entire thing with 1200 grit until everything was smooth and applied another coat. Same thing, lots of fibers again. Huh. More sanding. I'm applying it in the same room as all my previous tru-oil finishes, so I'm suspecting that my rag is not as lint-free as it should be. I ran out of old white T-shirts, so I used a fairly new one. It's very soft fabric, perhaps that's the issue. I now switched to an old, blue, dull-feeling cotton shirt and luckily the the color does not transfer. So far it's looking a little better, but I'll need a few more coats after sanding this much.
The keen observer will have noticed that this thing is still missing an output jack hole. I ordered a barrel jack from Germany almost four weeks ago, and after the postal strike was resolved, it finally arrived today. It requires a 1/2" hole and the best way would be a drill press with a custom holding jig, but that's not going to happen. I drilled it with a handheld drill, which turned out ok. I was planning to recess it a bit, but I think a felt washer would do just fine filling the gap to the curved surface.
In case you're wondering why I put the jack in the spot with the tightest radius: It's so that it doesn't get in the way when playing it in the classical position, which is what I prefer when sitting down.
After seven coats of tru-oil I found that the surface was quite rough and had a lot of particles and fibers in it. So I wet-sanded the entire thing with 1200 grit until everything was smooth and applied another coat. Same thing, lots of fibers again. Huh. More sanding. I'm applying it in the same room as all my previous tru-oil finishes, so I'm suspecting that my rag is not as lint-free as it should be. I ran out of old white T-shirts, so I used a fairly new one. It's very soft fabric, perhaps that's the issue. I now switched to an old, blue, dull-feeling cotton shirt and luckily the the color does not transfer. So far it's looking a little better, but I'll need a few more coats after sanding this much.
The keen observer will have noticed that this thing is still missing an output jack hole. I ordered a barrel jack from Germany almost four weeks ago, and after the postal strike was resolved, it finally arrived today. It requires a 1/2" hole and the best way would be a drill press with a custom holding jig, but that's not going to happen. I drilled it with a handheld drill, which turned out ok. I was planning to recess it a bit, but I think a felt washer would do just fine filling the gap to the curved surface.
In case you're wondering why I put the jack in the spot with the tightest radius: It's so that it doesn't get in the way when playing it in the classical position, which is what I prefer when sitting down.
IIrc the abasi concepts has a strat-style jackplate recessed into the upper half of the body, on the back side. I have not tried this myself, but I think ergonomically it makes sense, especially for sitting down in the classical position.
The only downsides I can think of:
a) It requires some additional routing/drilling from the control cavity into the upper half of the body, potentially running underneath the bridge. Should not be a problem if it's already done before gluing the top on, but it's tricky to do later.
b) The old "cable through the strap" trick might not work because the jack is now above the strap button
c) Angled jacks might be tricky.
Please let me know how it works out for your build. I'm intrigued!
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I'm sorry, can someone explain what the classical position is? It must be something I don't do, because I never play seated.
