Q418C roundthebend Eddie Vedder Black P90 Tele replica

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  • Watching this with interest as its the one build i have always wanted to do. 
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  • My kit arrived yesterday and I find a spare moment in a hectic week to open it up.

    I'm well chuffed and excited. The pieces are well packed and everything looks like decent enough quality. The body is a nice looking piece of wood, my wife wants me to keep three grain visible but that's not the plan.

    The fretboard looks nicely made to my native eyes. The frets seem to be cut neatly and seated well. The wood isn't perfectly smooth but it's good enough. The nut is a bit high I suspect, but I wanted to learn about filing that myself. And the pocket door beautifully. If it's all lined up correctly then I've got an easy job there.

    Even the hardware looks neat and of good enough quality. Certainly up there with any guitar I've ever owned. The switch and plate is solid, and the bridge is a chunky plate with smart looking saddles - although they are chrome not brass like the Eddie guitar (I think). One of the pots is a bit loose so I'll have to work that out.

    The pickups look to be the weak link, but I always planned to replace those to get the P-90 in the neck position. I'm looking forward to gouging a bigger hole for it.

    I'd upload some photos but it's a hassle I can't be bothered with now after a tiring week. I don't know when I plan to build this thing if I can't even upload a photo!

    The instructions are in German......
    ......and English. Phew! Neither of my kids did well at German, and I've forgotten most of the French I ever knew.

    I'd best get the pickups ordered, and start thinking about where to begin. Tools I think. Sharp tools. And maybe I need to ask my wife which room I can mess up.
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  • roundthebendroundthebend Frets: 1129
    edited September 2018
    Unboxing photos!








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  • As you can tell from the photos I had a more thorough look at the kit this evening. I'm chuffed with it, I think even I can make this into a usable guitar.

    But.......as we get closer to the kick-off I'm becoming more and more aware of my naivety about the task.

    I've noticed that the body doesn't have holes for string-through-body, nor does it include ferrules for the rear. Even though the bridge has the string holes. I believe Eddie's guitar is string-through so I will need to make that modification. And I really want a 6 saddle bridge so I might order one of these:
    https://www.axesrus.co.uk/Axesrus-Vintage-Bridge-w-Six-Brass-Saddles-p/arutb0406.htm
    That would need different fixing holes too.

    Once the new pickups arrive I will have to plan how to modify the body and the pick guard to accommodate the P90. Initially I thought it would be as easy as drawing round it and then chiseling/drilling/Dremelling. But now I'm thinking about the correct position, making sure the strings pass over the screws, whether I need to make the pocket deeper, or less deep! It's tricky stuff I bet.

    My rough order of action is going to start like this:
    1. modify body and pickguard for P90
    2. drill string-through holes and countersink for rear ferrules
    3. remove the factory wax and generally smooth out the wood
    4. black base paint (a few layers)
    5. sparkle coat
    6. clear coat
    7. cut the forearm contour and smooth it out for staining
    8. stain the contour
    9. copper shield the cavities and install the body hardware
    10. give the neck/fretboard an amateur dress-up - level, fret dress, cut the nut etc.
    11. ??
    I'll have to design my headstock and decals too.
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  • @WezV ;
    or anybody else? I could really do with an opinion about this bridge before I order:
    https://www.axesrus.co.uk/Axesrus-Vintage-Bridge-w-Six-Brass-Saddles-p/arutb0406.htm?1=1&CartID=1

    Looks like it ticks the style box to match Eddie's guitar, should I be worried about the quality?
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  • poopotpoopot Frets: 9098
    @WezV ;
    or anybody else? I could really do with an opinion about this bridge before I order:
    https://www.axesrus.co.uk/Axesrus-Vintage-Bridge-w-Six-Brass-Saddles-p/arutb0406.htm?1=1&CartID=1

    Looks like it ticks the style box to match Eddie's guitar, should I be worried about the quality?
    No, axesrus do some decent stuff!... will be fine quality wise... 
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  • WezVWezV Frets: 16547
    That will work well.

    have you figured out your method for drilling the string holes through the body?
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  • roundthebendroundthebend Frets: 1129
    edited September 2018
    WezV said:
    That will work well.

    have you figured out your method for drilling the string holes through the body?
    Yeah. I'm gonna use a drill.....
    Don't worry, I'll mark up with a pencil first.....

    ....erm..... No, is the proper answer to that question. A pillar drill, or stand for my hand drill. I suspect you could tell me some gotchas about lining it all up and stuff.
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  • WezVWezV Frets: 16547
     its something that is worth some thought even if you have a massive pillar drill and think you can just drill straight through, thin drill bits tend to wander in thick wood.

       Although its worth remembering fender often got this bit wrong in the 50's.  Wonky holes  are authentic

    This vid is similar to the method i use in that i drill the two outer holes all the way through from the front, and the 4 outer holes half way through.   I then flip the body, align the bridge to the outer holes and stick the bridge in place to drill the 4 inner holes from the back


     I don't do it exactly like that because my drill press doesn't have enough reach to get to the middle of most bodies.  I tend to make drill guides first.   My drill guides are just blocks of 1/2-1" wood with the correct spacing drilled into them. 

    Making these is good practice for doing the body, because if you cant do these you definitely don't want to drill the body just yet


    see this old thread here
    http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/18377/finished-wezv-tele-build/p4
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  • @WezV ;
    It's not completely clear what's going on in that video, due to the lack of commentary and my lack of woodworking knowledge.

    I assume the big problem is wandering drill bits due to them being flimsy and the wood of varying density. Another issue is making sure that the ferrule countersinks line up accurately with the through-holes.

    I thought that perhaps just drilling a few millimetres of depth at a time would be good enough, but II'm guessing that has been tried and shown to be ineffective.

    My engineering head then says I could drill a few millimetres of each hole on one side using the bridge as a template. I could then find a scrap piece of wood fixed in place and drill another hole, tap a piece of dowel into it and then flip the guitar body over and use the dowel to locate so that the opposing holes line up. I might hit the dowel, but I could replace it to do each hole.

    Perhaps I'd do the countersinks at the same time.

    I'll probably be using my Dremel 3000 on a workstand so it'll be properly amateur. That'll also be my router.
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  • roundthebendroundthebend Frets: 1129
    edited September 2018
    My new bridge from Axesrus arrived today, so I excitedly unpacked the guitar kit and sized everything up.
    Hmmm....seems to be a possible issue. The new bridge is smaller. I don't mind it not fitting snugly into the pickguard cutaway, but it's shorter so I need to understand the potential issues of scale length etc.

    Kit bridge:


    New bridge:

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  • My new bridge from Axesrus arrived today, so I excitedly unpacked the guitar kit and sized everything up.
    Hmmm....seems to be a possible issue. The new bridge is smaller. I don't mind it not fitting snugly into the pickguard cutaway, but it's shorter so I need to understand the potential issues of scale length etc.

    Kit bridge:


    New bridge:



    It looks like the saddles and string holes are in the same place (on the left they have been moved back from the end of the screw), so it shouldn't cause any issues, you just have to hide the holes, which won't be a problem with the tape. 
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  • enjoenjo Frets: 250
    Pop the neck in place and measure from the nut to the 12th fret then double that length to see where the saddles should sit. As above it looks like it will be fine but will leave the 3 original holes to fill. It's normal to have a gap between the pickguard and the bridge plate. I can measure mine later to tell you how far from the neck joint it is if you like? (FWIW Mine is not a Fender so may not be 100% correct) New bridge looks 100% better by the way!
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  • @olafgarten @enjo Thanks both. That puts my mind at ease. I'll measure up this evening, but like you say the string holes and saddles are roughly in the same place so it shouldn't be too different to what I was going to end up with in terms of distances.

    Even though I will probably be taping over the body, I think I'd still like to fill those holes just for the experience. Should I save some of the dust from when I route the pickup cavity and pack it in with some superglue?
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  • @olafgarten @enjo Thanks both. That puts my mind at ease. I'll measure up this evening, but like you say the string holes and saddles are roughly in the same place so it shouldn't be too different to what I was going to end up with in terms of distances.

    Even though I will probably be taping over the body, I think I'd still like to fill those holes just for the experience. Should I save some of the dust from when I route the pickup cavity and pack it in with some superglue?

    Yeah, I'm not an expert with wood, but I think that will work, they are quite small so won't be that visible.
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  • Toothpicks might be easier than dust. Probably better tone from the toothpick wood than the existing wood too :lol: 

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  • RolandRoland Frets: 8591
    Wood dust from the body will give a better colour match than toothpick. There’s no tonal impact.
    Tree recycler, and guitarist with  https://www.undercoversband.com/.
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  • roundthebendroundthebend Frets: 1129
    edited October 2018
    Slow progress in week #1. By slow, I mean zero until today. I'm quite nervous about making catastrophic errors, and the first tasks are the ones most likely to go wrong - fitting the new bridge, and drilling the string-through and ferrule holes.

    First step was to measure the scale length and think about positioning the bridge.

    12th fret is correctly 12.75" to give a 25.5" scale length:



    I found it tricky to get the neck tightly into its pocket whilst also measuring up. My tape has a loose end so I'm never completely certain of the accuracy. And I don't know if my line is square to the centre line of the neck. But I have a 25.5" (ish) line marked that looks about right.

    Next, I placed the new bridge in situ to try and work out whether it'll fit correctly:



    I think it looks fine! Question is how close to my 25.5" line do I need to be? I guess the saddles can be adjust back from where they currently are, but not much forward so I have that amount of wiggle room.

    I could go ahead and mark the bridge fixing holes and then think about the string-through holes. I haven't quite got a plan there yet, other than to just take it slow and hope for the best.
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  • I've also had a think about how to fit the neck P90 and think it'll be a fairly simple job with a chisel and my Dremel to tidy things up. 


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  • paulnb57paulnb57 Frets: 3044
    Bridge position looks fine to me, there is plenty of adjustment in the saddle screws.
    The end of the tape is supposed to be loose, to accout for the width of the tang that sticks down, so that if you use the end butted up against something the measurement will be correct as well as when you hook it on something.....
    I prefer to put masking tape where I make pencil marks, then I dont have to sand them off....blue is best as its less sticky
    Stranger from another planet welcome to our hole - Just strap on your guitar and we'll play some rock 'n' roll

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