DaLefty's 2015 Harley Benton Guitar Challenge - It is photo intensive

Dalefty

So the Harley Benton Guitar Kit that I ordered last Thursday - 19/03/15, has turned turned up, I decided to go the kit route as I figured altering a ready made guitar was taking the easy way out, anyway this is the kit that I ended up going for;

The Harley Benton Electric Guitar Kit ST-StyleLH

''Harley Benton ST DIY-KIT LH, Do-It-Yourself Electric Guitar Kit, LFTHAND e-guitar, bolt-on neck construction, basswood body, maple neck, thomann rosewood fretboard with DOT inlays, 22 frets, 648mm scale, 42mm nut-widt, trussrod, 3 x singlecoil pickups, electronic 1-volume, 2-tone & 5-way switch, chrome hardware, diecast tuners, tremolo, 09-042 strings, natural finish, Requires some craftsmanship and tools to assemble, body and neck are finished thomann with a wood-sealer (which allows the surface to be sprayed with lacquer but when a wood-stain is used the surface may require to be re-sanded)''

http://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_electric_guitar_kit_st_stylelh.htm

I kind of figured us lefties would be under represented during this challenge, so I have taken upon myself to let the whole team down.

So here are some photos taken in my Laboratory of Mayhem of the kit being unboxed and my initial thougts on the challenge and my plans for the challenge.

So here is the way the kit guitar arrives in it's box unopened;



So far so good, the box arrived undamaged.

The box being opened;



I must say I'm sort of impressed here especially given the cost of these kits, it's packed really well, every part is boxed in it's own compartment, you can sort of guess whats in each compartment based on the size and shape of them, but so far so good, I'm happily impressed.

The scratch plate, pickups and electronics compartment opened;



Here is the scratch plate with the three single coil pickups pre mounted and pre wired to the five way selector switch, volume and two tone controls, the bridge, tremolo system, machineheads and other hardware are also here.  Looking at it for a quick few minutes it is obvious that none of the compenents in this compartment are even middle of the range gear, everything is quick connect and solder free, good for those not familiar or comfortable with wiring up a guitar themselves or comfortable using a soldering iron.  I probably won't use most of the parts in this compartment, even with just a preliminary glance at the parts in here I've already pretty much decided I won't use most of them if any of them at all

Now for the compartment that contains the basswood body;



The body came wrapped in it's own polystyrene bag for added protection, Thomann have really put some thought into not just the kits but how to protect them from damage during shipping.

Here is the body out of it's condom;



Here is the body out of it's protective condom, it's not the best pieces of wood, it's been made from at least two possibly three pieces of basswood, not matched too well either, but at under fifty quid you can't really complain.  The routing is quite rough though you can't really see it from this photo so that will need tidying up, I'm not too keen on the huge hook hole inbetween the holes for the neck screws, it kind of forces you to use a neck plate, unless I can come up with a decent way to fill it with dowel, and blend the dowel in, though with the quality of the grain and matched wood, it sort of limits your finishing options towards the less transparent more opaque finishes, perhaps I'll do something with some tattoo ink I have kicking about, or even guild the body in gold leaf after being reminded about the gilded strat I got to work on a few years ago.  I'm also not so keen on the routing for the pickups, it limits you and forces you to stick to three single coil pickups in those positions, I'll probably change the pattern to a 'swimming pool' cavity, that will allow me to use any combination of pickups, and put pickups in any postition I want.

The neck compartment and full over view of the kit;



The neck is made of maple, with a rosewood twenty two fret fretboard, it's got a half paddle headstock which needs shaping, I'll probably just rip off the Fender or Ibanez headstock design but add my own flair to it to at least make it look a little bit original.  It is made with a surprisingly nice piece of maple thankfully so I will be able to leave it 'unfinished' for a nicer feel when playing with out having to sacrifice looks or compromise on them on the neck.  I will definitely change the nut to either ivory - depending on how much of the stuff I have left, or bone at the very least, I have been toying with the idea of a titanium nut, but I probably won't do that for this challenge.  I may even change the fret inlays to mother of pearl or abolone or something else, I don't know yet, as for the fret wire, I'm undecided on that.

At the end of the day the kit is extremely good value for money at under fifty pounds, the only disappointment has been the body, but that is nothing too major, and is relatively easy to deal with, it just sort of limits my options for finishes, I think the hook hole inbetwen the holes for the neck screws is a bigger issue and more limiting than the quality of the wood, the number of pieces used, or the quality of the wood matching.  For the money tough I'm not disappointed.

Something that is worth mentioning about Thomann's Harley Benton Kit Guitars is that they come with two very detailed sets of instructions, one in German, and the other in English, these instruction are so well written that even somebody who has never even attempted to build a kit guitar yet alone adjust the string height on their own guitar can follow them and easily put the kit togeter.

Total cost so far;

£0.00 I had a substantial Thomann voucher to use that was nearing it's expiry date.


DaLefy

Dalefty

More from my Laboratory of Mayhem;

I managed to put a bit of time into the challenge today, not much about an hour or two, but enough that I managed to get one of two things accomplished, firstly I decided that the body and parts needed a proper going over before I started to do anything with them, and to make up my mind over what parts I'm keeping and using, and what parts are destined for the bin or 'shit hits the fan emergency box' as I call it.

First thing to get a good looking over was the body, here it is cleaned up a bit with a quick going over with Henry the world's favourite vacuum cleaner;



Other than the hook hole the body is not as bad as I initially thought, though the hook hole is not small by any means.

I then gave the front of the body a bath in acetone;



The acetone really shows up any flaws and joints in the body, now it is quite obvious that the body is made up of two pieces of basswood and on the front at least the joint is very noticeable.

Close up of joint in the front of the body;



It's a very obvious joint in the front, and in not the best position either somewhere where is not going to be easy to hide, so going by this I'm leaning towards a more opaque finish, not 100% opaque, but something opaque enough to distract people from the obvious joint and wood mismatch, yet transparent enough to allow the wood grain to be seen.  At this stage I'm leaning towards doing something with the tattoo ink I have laying around, I've kind of gone off the gilding idea for now, but I may change my mind further on down the road when I'm starting to think about applying the finish to the body.

The back of the body after an acetone bath;



The back of the body was given the same acetone treatment as the front of the body, and it is very noticable that the back of the body is far nicer than the front, there is a better match between the two pieces of basswood that the joint isn't so attention seeking.  It does make me wonder why the back wasn't used as the front.


Close up of joint in the front of the body;



As you can see from the close up, the joint is nowhere near as in your face or as attention grabbing as it is on the front of the body.

I measured the hook hole in the body with a set of digital calipers, and it measured in at 11.61mm, unfortunately the largest diameter of dowel that I keep in stock in my laboratory is 10mm, so I wasn't able to do anything about that today, I have a suspicion tough that I'm going to have to enlarge the hook hole to a round figure, probably to at least 12mm if not 15mm, if I want to fill it with a piece of dowel, blending the dowel with the existing wood of the body will not be an issue due to the obvious seem on the front of the body forcing me towards a more opaque than transparent finish, not to mention that the dowel will also be hidden from the front by the guitar neck, that is of course if I decide to fill in the neck hole, which will depend mainly on whether or not my local hardware store stocks dowel in 12mm or larger and how strongly I feel about not using a neck plate.

Tools Used;

Paint Brush
Acetone
Digital Calipers

Total cost so far;

£0.00

Number of fingers lost; 0, but I did get a paper cut opening some mail, and they seem to hurt the worst.


DaLefty

entee

might be best if you transfer this over to the Modding Challenge section, where the other builds are 

Dalefty

The next parts to get the full inspection in my Laboratory of Mayhem, where the scratch plate, electronics and hardware, here is where I'm expecting to bin most if not all of the parts, I doubt that I will use some if any of the parts this kit came with other than the body and neck, but still it was worth giving them the once over just to make sure.

The hardware and back plate all laid out;



Two things really impressed me here the first it that each machine head was individually wrapped in it's own little zip lock back, especially given how bottom of the range they are, I was a little disappointed that only three springs where supplied for the tremolo system and not five, though to be honest it's not a big issue, I have lots of spares, the jack it also solder free quick connect.  And the back plate unlike the scratch plate which is three ply, white black white, is just single ply white.  So far I'm inclined to prety much bin everything here, use the bridge and two machine heads to measure the string spacing, then just bin everything except the back plate, I can live with the back plate, but the other hardware is just throw away rubbish in my opinion, even the string tree.  I will most likely replace everything here with stuff of at least average quality, if not good quality.

This was the second thing to impress me;




This was the second thing that impressed me, not the fact the the kit came with a truss rod and saddle wrench, but the nifty little pouch that they came in, it actually makes it feel as if they put just that little bit of extra effort into these guitar kits.

Measuring the machine head thrust bearing diameter;



For interest and just idle curiosity I decided to measure the diameter of the machine head thrust bearings, they came in at 7.41mm, an unusual size you usually see them in either 8.5mm which is vintage sizing or 10mm which is modern sizing, it hasn't convinced me to keep them, it was just out of curiosity that I measured them.

The scratch plate;



I had already decided when I first opened the kit that the pickups, pots and so forth where not wort keeping, so here I've stripped the 'junk' out of the scratch plate, I'll keep the volume and tone knobs, maybe not use them on this guitar, but I will at least add them to my collection, as for the pickups and five way switch, they are destined for the bin, truth be told I have already got a set of pots that I intend to use in this kit, I'm undecided about the scratch plate whether I want to keep the traditional Strat three single coils or make, get a new scratch plate made that is either humbucker single coil single coil. humbucker single coil humbucker, humbucker humbucker single coil, or even humbucker humbucker humbucker, or some other combination.  I do know that I intend to keep the three ply white black white colour scheme for the scratch plate, but as yet I'm undecided on what pickups yet alone what style of pickups I intend to use for this kit, I have a number of pickups in my spare parts box, but I don't know if any of these take my fancy, I don't actually know whats in the box other than there are a bunch of pickups in it.


Tools Used;

Digital Calipers
Phillips Head Screwdriver
Number 10 Size Spanner

Total Cost So Far;

£0.00

Number Of Fingers Lost; 0

DaLefty

xmrchi

Warmoth??

Dalefty

Measuring measuring and measuring in the Laboratory of Mayhem;

Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance, now it was time to actually measure things up, check fittings and get some sort of plan together, the first thing to do was to check the fit of the scratch plate on the body and to make sure it actually fit the body and that screw holes lined up and that it actually covered the pickup and electronics cavities.

Checking that the scratch plate fitted;



As you can see the scratch plate fits, and covers all the routed cavities like it is meant to, but it has issues, eight to be exact, only three of the eleven screw holes in the sctrach plate line up with their counterparts on the guitars body, the eight the don't line up will need filled and pilot holes drilled that line up with the screw holes in the scratch plate, not to big of a deal as the scratch plate will hide these filled holes not to mention the finish will aswell.

Pictures of the screw holes not lining up;











As you would imagine with so many screw holes not lining up this had me concerned about the quality of the neck pocket and whether or not it would fit, be straight, line up correctly and be tight, so I was checked the neck fitting and a few other details of the neck

Neck fitting;





Thankfully not only did the neck fit but it fit nice and tightly, forget getting a thin pick inbetwen the joint, I couldn't even get a rizla green skin inbetween the joint, it was also nice and straight, so my biggest worry proved to be pointless, the neck fit was for lack of a better term perfect, that's one less worry and a lot less work trying to fix.

Taking some neck measurements;

,
So the hole in the headstock for the machine heads turned out to be a little over 10mm, this one was actually the largest of the six, the fretboard has a radius of 12 inches, it's 42.5mm at the nut and 52.2mm at the twelfth fret, thickness at the first fret is is 24mm and at the twelfth it is 22.7mm, pretty good dimensions and pretty damn near my choice of spec for a neck on a strat, so I'm really happy with the neck, the neck pocket on the body and how the neck fits.

I also checked he bridge to make sure it lined up with all of it's holes

The bridge being checked;



Thankfully the bridge lined up nicely, though I'm probably only going to use it for five minutes to measure the string spacing on the guitar before I bin the thing.  I haven't decided on what bridge I'm going to use yet alone what style to be honest, I've thought about using a Floyd Rose, an original Fender Strat bridge, even filling the tremolo hole and putting a Gibson style bridge with rollers, or even a Bigsby.  Building the guitar yourself you're really only limited by your imagination and the amount of effort you are willing to put into it.

Tools Used;

Digital Calipers
Radius Gauge
Phillips Head Screwdriver

Total Cost So Far;

£0.00

Number Of Fingers Lost; 0

DaLefty

Dalefty

The real work begins, I decided pretty much when I opened the box that the kit came in that I wasn't happy with the three cavities routed for the standard Strat three single coils and decided to change the routing pattern to a 'swimming pool' cavity design.

Tracing the outline of the scratch plate;



The first thing I had to do was trace the outline of the scratch plate so I would know how large a cavity I could make which would still be coverable by the scratch plate and apper as if the guitar was made that way to begin with.

The scratch plate outline;



With the outline of the scratch plate drawn on the body I can see exactly how much wood I can remove, and still remain within the lines and hidden by the scratch plate, this way I can maximise the amout of space I make availabe for pickups so I'm not restricted in any way with regards to pickup selection and placement.

Planning the shape for the new cavity;



The plane for the new cavity shape, I'm trying to keep the cavity as wide as the widest point currently in the single coil pickup cavities, while staying both under and within the scratch plate boundaries and not interfere with any of the scratch plate mounting screw holes, even though all but three of them will be filled and redrilled.

The wood to be removed;



The shaded areas are what I plan to remove to maximise the size of the cavity, by the looks of things and if things go according to plan, I should be able to get a very nice sized cavity for pickups and whatever other electronics I may want to use while still remaing not unly well within the area covered by the scratch plate, but also with out disturbing any of the scratch plate mounting screw holes.

Removing the excess wood in the cavity;


Since basswood is a soft wood I decided it would take just as long to set up my router or dremel as it would for me to do the job by hand with a chisel, I decided to just use my smallest chisel, a 12mm chisel, basswood is soft enough and my chisel is sharp enough that I don't even need to use a mallet with the chisel to remove the section of wood I had shaded, I decided to use my smallest chisel because it is better to remove too little than it is to remove too much, it is a lot easier to take anoth small bit away, than it is to put back what you have accidentally removed.

The second section removed;



So far all is going to plan, and things are progressing quite fast, It's takedn me less than twenty minutes with a 12mm chisel to remove two sections of wood, it's as rough as a badgers arse right now, but that will be easy to smoothen up afterwards with some sandpaper.

The third section removed;



Due to it's shape and placement, this third section took longer to remove than the first two sections combined.

The fourth section removed;



Now that I've built up a steady rhythm, even working by hand with nothing but a 12mm chisel, things are progressing steadily and relatively quickly.

The fifth and final section removed;



The fifth and final section is removed, removing all five sections by hand with a 12mm chisel took under an hour, probably closer to forty five minutes, all that remains to do now to the newly shaped cavity is to clean it up with sandpaper, and to double check that I have not caused myself some issues with the scratch plate.

Quick clean up with sandpaper;



After a quick going over with some 80 grit sandpaper to remove the worst of the rough edges and a once over with Henry the world's favourite vacuum cleaner to remove the dust created.  I will eventually sand this even smoother with at least 600 grit sandpaper before I shield the cavity, but I will remove the sealer from the body and plug the misplaced scratch plate holes before I do that.

The new cavity with the scratch plate and bridge in position;




Here I'm just double checking that the new cavity shape I have created is still hidden by the scratch plate, and that none of the scrastch plates holes or the hols for the bridge have been disturbed, so far everything has gone according to plan and worked out well, the cavity took me a lot less time to enlarge than I thought it would, I knew it would be relatively easy to do by hand with a chisel due to the body being made of basswood, I just didn't expect it to go this quickly.



Tools Used;

Pencil
Metal ruler
12mm chisel
80 grit sandpaper
Henry the vacuum

Total Cost So Far;

£0.00

Number Of Fingers Lost; 0

DaLefty

NPP

@Dalefty said: 'The back of the body was given the same acetone treatment as the front of the body, and it is very noticable that the back of the body is far nicer than the front, there is a better match between the two pieces of basswood that the joint isn't so attention seeking.  It does make me wonder why the back wasn't used as the front.'

maybe they first cut out the body shape and then flipped it over to route it for a lefty version? 

Dalefty

NPP said:

maybe they first cut out the body shape and then flipped it over to route it for a lefty version? 

That's what I've been thinking as well, that it was originally intended to be a righty and at the last moment before routing and contouring, was picked out at random to be a lefty.  It's night and day difference between the fron and back.

DaLefty

NPP

even so, it's no worse than my Fender

Dalefty

NPP said:

even so, it's no worse than my Fender

To be honest I'm not realy complaing about it, just sort of really pointing it out for people, for what these kits sell for they are extremely good value for money, and a great way for people to learn about how their guitars work and are put together for very little cost and with out putting any of their main, or more expensive pre built guitars at any risk, not to mention once built they can be used for experimentation at their costs.  Sorry if it seems as though I'm complaining about it, I've never actually kept a journal sort of thing of what I sometimes get up to at work, so apologies if it comes off as me complaining, or as a how to manual, like I said I'm new to this posting progress of what you're doing and forums in general.
 
In a way, it's kind of good, as it has given me an excuse to experiment with tattoo ink as a way to finish a guitar, now if only I can figure out how not to look like I'm anally retentive because I'm measuring dowel with digital calipers in a hardware store, I really don't like te hook hole and would really love to fill it, even if I decide to still use a neck plate.

DaLefty

JudasVigilante

Loving all the photos. And fair play to you for going with a kit. I would have done the same had I not just built one after Xmas. Looking forward to seeing your progress etc. What sort of finish are you thinking of and what about pickups? Any thoughts yet?

Dalefty

JudasVigilante said:

Loving all the photos. And fair play to you for going with a kit. I would have done the same had I not just built one after Xmas. Looking forward to seeing your progress etc. What sort of finish are you thinking of and what about pickups? Any thoughts yet?

Finish wise I'm thinking of experiminting with tattoo ink I've got kicking about, mainly to save me the hassle of ordering someting in, I have nitrocellulose lacquer, it's something I always keep in stock, but as for tints there are a few colours that I always keep in stock but not many, paints I would have to order in as its not something I keep in stock, and though I 'm not going for a transparent finish, I'm not wanting an opaque one either, I still want to be able to see the wood grain through the finish.

Pickup wise I haven't a clue, I'm going to have a poke around my pickup box and see what I have in there, configuration wise I'm leaning towards the H,S,S layout of a Super Strat, but that would mean either making a new scratch plate myself - I would have to order the material in for this as I don't have enough of it at the moment, or order a custom plate from somewhere.  Tone wise I'm looking to put something that is really heavy, beefy, meaty and ballsy in the bridge humbucker, the two single coils I want to keep as close to the standard strat sound as I can while having the really heavy, beefy, meaty and ballsy before mentioned humbucker in the bridge.

I haven't set myself a budget, as it's supposed to be to build a Harley Benton Kit Guitar or mod a Harley Benton Guitar into something you would be happy to gig with.  So I'm open to all and any suggestions pickup wise but they have to be available in white, though I don't want to use actives, I've been putting actives in quite a few guitars for other people recently so I am kind of fed up of them, and they are not pickups that I would use myself even though one of my favourite guitarists is famous for using EMG's 80 and 85 set.

I have to head into work for a meeting at four, and I want to stop by the hardware store on the way in for dowel, so I'll update the post I meant to edit after walking the mutt last night, and post what ever else I manage to do to the project today when I get home from work later tonight at some point.

DaLefty

NPP

Dalefty said:

NPP said:

even so, it's no worse than my Fender

...  Sorry if it seems as though I'm cokplaining about it, I've never actually kept a journal sort of thing of what I sometimes get up to at work, so apologies if it comes off as me complaining, or as a how to manual, like I said I'm new to this posting progress of what you're doing and forums in general.

no criticism intended at all, sorry if it came across like that. I enjoy build threads, and as a lefty, this one is of particular interest to me. 

As to pickups, what about this: http://oilcitypickups.co.uk/strat%20hioutput.html

themeinside

Dalefty said:

I decided to go the kit route as I figured altering a ready made guitar was taking the easy way out

Not at all- that was the entire point of the challenge! Kit builds were last year's challenge, this year's was specifically to modify a ready made guitar. Having said that, kit builds are interesting and always welcome, and I myself did a left handed Strat build last year!

Dalefty

NPP said:

no criticism intended at all, sorry if it came across like that. I enjoy build threads, and as a lefty, this one is of particular interest to me. 

As to pickups, what about this: http://oilcitypickups.co.uk/strat%20hioutput.html

Way to put a guy at ease and not make him feel like he is on the spot.

And since I put all that time and effort into reshaping the pickup cavity into a 'swimming pool' cavity yesterday, I plan on using at least one humbucker in this project, and not a stacked single coil, but a proper humbucker sized humbucker.

DaLefty

Dalefty

More from my Laboratory of Mayhem;

Today I set myself the task of routing out a cavity in the back of the guitar body for a 9v battery box, and to fill in all of those misaligned scratch plate screw holes in the body with some of my home made wood filler.  I also had plans to buy some dowel

The battery box to be fitted;



Here is the battery box I plan to fit into the back of the guitars body, I'll make a template first so that I can position it and get the size and shape right, since it's a template that I'm only going to use once I'm just going to make it out of some craft card.

Making the template;



Here I've stuck the battery box on to the craft card with some double sided tape, it stops the battery box from moving around while it's footprint is being traced and cut out off the craft, not to mention that it is also easily removed from both the battery box and card.

Completed template;



Here is the craft card template ready for rough positioning, before it gets trimmed to size and placed in it's final position on the guitar body, and the shape and position of the battery box is marked out on the guitar.

Rough positioning of battery box on guitar body;



Here is roughly where I plan to place the batery box in the guitar body, this is just to double check that making a cavity here will not disturb any of the cavities already made into the front of the guitars body.

Finale template and battery box positioning;



Here is the template trimmed to size, with the screw holes marked, and placed in the exact position that the battery box cavity will be carved into the guitar body, it won't won't be a flush mount, or at least it won't be set up for a flush mount today, as the back plate is not flush mounted, and I don't see a point in having one flush mounted and not the other, so if I do decide to flush mount it, I will also flush mount the back plate.

Template taped into position for marking the shape onto the guitar body;



Here is the template taped into the finale position, it's taped down wit masking tape to make it easier to trace out the shape, in this case I'm tracing out the shape with a stanley knife, to make it easier to keep nice sharp edges when it comes to carving out the cavity with a chisel.

Committed now;



There is now turning back now, the outline of the footprint of the battery box is carved into the back of the guitars body, this is to make it easier to carve out the shape with a chisel and not over shoot the edges.  Like the pickup cavity I'm just going to use a 12mm chisel to carve out this cavity

Carving out the cavity;



Here is the cavity almost completed.

Completed battery box cavity;



Here the cavity for the battery box is completed, it's rough, and needs to be cleaned up, but I will do that when I sand the sealer off the guitars body in preparation for applying a finish and go through the vaious grades of sandpaper.

Test fitting the battery box;



It fits, the battery box fits nicely into it's cavity, and there is no break through on the other side which I was a little worried about due to the kit guitar body being slightly slimmer than an American Strat, a MIM, and MIJ strat, not by much, by less than 5mm, but by enough to have me worried about breaking through the other side of the guitars body while carving out the cavity for battery box.

The battery box in action;



Here is the battery box in action, it is one of the ones with a hinged lid so you can't loose it unless you are really rough with it and snap it off.  I decided against flush mounting it with the body for now as the back plate is not flush mounted, and it would look a bit unbalanced to have one flush mounted and the other not, I might flush mount them both later on when I start to sand of the sealer in preparation for applying the finish, but for now I'm happy with it as it is, I was a little disappointed that I was unable to get a battery box in this style in white to match the back plate, I could of simply carved out a cavity to mount a PP3 clip in and simply cut a singly ply small white back plate to cover it, but that would mean havig to remove screws to change the battery, this style makes changing the battery a breeze.

DaLefty

Dalefty

The next thing on my to do list was to fill in the misaligned scratch plate screw holes in the body with some home made wood filler.

Some of the wood filler ingredients;



For wood filler I mixed some, well all the saw dust in this cup that I made from the shavings from the 'swimming pool' cavity I carved yesterday with some white wood glue, I then used a scraper and stanley knife to fill the screw holes and smooth over them.

Screw holes filed;



Here I have filled all but three screw holes, I made more wood filler than I actually needed, a lot more actually, so I decided to use it to cover some of the bottom of the 'swimming pool' cavity I carved yesterday, I'll give this at least twenty four hours to dry and set before I sand it down, I most likely will not sand it down until I sand off the sealer that is on the guitars body for when I'm getting ready to start applying the finish to the guitars body.

The other thing I had hped to get round to today was visiting the local hardware store to get some dowel in order to fill in the hook hole in the guitars body that is inbetween the neck screw holes, lucky for me the joiner was at my work today doing some work on my old/new Laboratory of Mayhem - don't ask, so he was kind enough to give me a few inches of 15mm diameter dowel, so I am now in a position to fill that hook hole and have more options open to me than using the supplied or a diferent neck plate.

One option for attaching the guitar neck to the guitar body;



Now that I have dowel big enough to fill the hook hole this is one option that is now open to me for attaching the guitar neck to the guitar body, I'm not sure yet if I'm going to do this, I have all the parts for it and the tools to do it, I'm just undecided whether or not I'm going to go down this route as of yet.

It was at this stage of the night that the boss made it clear that he wanted to go home, either that or he wanted some attention;



Over the next few weeks I'm not going to have much time to work on this project I'm going to be quite busy with work and going through people's C.V's, so progress on this project is going to slow down quite a lot, my goal for the next two weeks is to fill the hook hole in with the piece of dowel I was given and decide how I'm going to attach the neck to the body.

I also had a hunt through my pickup box to see what pickups I have that I could use in this project, and I have none, well I have lots of pickups they're just the wrong type, they are either pickups I don't like due to their sound or flavour, or their colour, I have every colour of pickup in my pickup box except white, there is chrome, brass, black, fluorescent green, fluorescent pink, fluorescent yellow and even fluorescent blue and red, but nothing in white.  So I'm going to have to buy a set of new pickups for this project, one humbucker, and two single coils, not to mention I will also need to either order in the material to make a H,S,S scratch plate, or send off to have one made for me.  Since I want a really meaty, beefy, ballsy pick up in the bridge position, something that makes Tony Iommi's signature pickups sound like anorexic pussies, I've been toying with the idea of using a bass guitars pickup in the bridge position, maybe I'll make up two different scratch plates for this project, one with a H,S,S configuration, and another with a bass guitars pickup in the bridge position and two standard single coils for the middle and neck position, I'll think more on this during ther week.


Tools Used;

Pencil
12mm chisel
Craft card
Double sided tape
Masking tape
Stanley knife
Scraper
White wood glue
Metal ruler
Sawdust
Cutting mat
Plastic cup
Henry the vacuum - for clean up

Total Cost So Far;

£0.00

Number Of Fingers Lost; 0

DaLefty

viz

If you get a new scratchplate, you do realise that it will only align to the holes you filled and not the holes you left open, don't you?

Plukky

So you're keeping the knobs...

Can we assume they're left handed then?

(They don't look it...)

Dalefty

viz said:

If you get a new scratchplate, you do realise that it will only align to the holes you filled and not the holes you left open, don't you?

That was the whole point in filling the holes in in the first place, they don't line up with the corresponding holes in the scratch plate, so even if I didn't fill them with wood filler I would still have to make eight new holes for the scratch plate to be seated firmly on the body, even if I use the original scratch plate.

Plukky said:

So you're keeping the knobs...

Can we assume they're left handed then?

(They don't look it...)

Well spotted.

I'm keeping the knobs, whether or not I will use them on this project I don't know yet, but they will be kept nonetheless, especially since the Strat is ripped off by almost every every electric guitar manufacturer, so it it is always handy to have U.F.O. knobs in amongst my collection of spare parts.

DaLefty