new low budget build!

[Brett Shotwell]

I really enjoyed reading through this build of yours! I am in the middle of my first build, and it is great to follow the process of other builders. I learned a lot.

Have you applied your final finish yet?

[Leonardo Silva]

Brett, not quite yet, I bought an "acrylic finish" which is some sort of final clear coat, my uncle recommended it to spray it over the wet-sanded nitro.

but first I need to paint the logo (not planning on using custom decals yet) and after it apply the final clear coat that I mentioned.

I didn't want to buy a buffing compound just for the nitro, as later I'm gonna use polyurethane, it's used for cars and lot of friends had really good results with it.

[Leonardo Silva]

ok, the "acrylic finish" was a mess, it's grainy, it shines a lot for sure, but it didn't have the professional mirror like finish I was looking for, please, never use that acrylic stuff, is better to have just a nitro laquer and buy a buffer compound for it, next time I'll use oil or polyurethane for cars.

(and my head hurt when spraying the acrylic, and I'm the guy who can inhale cops tear gas like it's lavender, don't ask why I had to inhale tear gas in the first place)

ok, SOOO I have 3 things left over, I need to perfect the fret dressing, paint the logo (and then apply some more acrylic laquer on top of the headstock) and finish the assembly of all the components remaining.


acrylic finish





now I had a problem trying to ground the circuit (I bought a cheap wiring harness from ebay)


here is where I got my ground from, I guess this is the correct way to do it, right?





I decided to sand the chrome finish a bit in order to ground, first I was supposed to put a bit of melted tin(that's how it's called I guess) with the soldering tip, but it just didn't hold, not even a bit, I tried doing it with somewhere else on the bridge but the product was the same.


well, that's my problem from now, grounding the bridge, I also need to get a bit of Acrylic black paint in order to paint my signature in the headstock or somewhere in the body with white/silver if there is no room for it in the headstock (later on I will deal with decals).

That's it for now, help a poor guy, I'm trying not to rush this to avoid failure, once I finish it I bet I will get a lot of potential buyers and I won't be poor anymore.

well, until I use the money into my workshop, then I will be just as poor.

[Leonardo Silva]

I have an idea, peeling the plastic from the ground cable and put it under the bridge, then screw the bridge on expecting the pressure will make the contact, should that work? (it worked for a tune-o-matic I did last time, I guess it worked...)

[Bob Francis]

That's what Fender has done.

[Barry Daniels]

All the ground wire needs is contact with the base of the bridge. You don't need to solder it or to remove the chrome plating.

[Eric Baack]

if you want the solder to stick then you need to heat the metal enough to make it stick. That takes a torch or a stronger soldering iron. I wouldn't want to torch that as it would risk discoloring the other side

[Beate Ritzert]

You might improve the surface of the finish if You use a few more layers of the acrylic stuff (hopefully You chose a PU-acrylic laquer because of its largely greater strength) and then wet sand / micromesh it to gloss. You should be able to achieve the surface quality of my Gibson EB-11 bass.

[Mark Swanson]

That's some good work on that body, it has really clean lines.
Please, ALWAYS wear a respirator when spraying anything, no matter how good you are at inhaling stuff! Even if it isn't bothering you, it IS damaging your brain and body.

[Leonardo Silva]

Thanks for the replies!, I will address certain points.

but first, let's look at it with some hardware on.



yeah, it's nice.

so, yes, I grounded without soldering, works fine, I guess.

now, there is a lot of stuff you can trust a chinese, clothes, knobs on a budget but for sure, you CAN'T trust the screws, I stripped 2 of the 5 screws that hold the bridge, so in the end I had a very delicate operation of extracting all the screws and replacing them with some steel screws I had laying around the workshop, it still worked quite cool and the look is nice, they aren't chrome but it works better than before (you can barely see in the next pic that there are non chrome screws on the bridge).


I also didn't had the normal(?) screws for standard humbuckers, and I used no ring, so I had to enlarge the screw holes of the humbuckers, put a set of 4 random screws (the ones that had proper length were 4 black ones, so I went for those) and they have foam instead of springs.

now I learned something new, when direct coupling the pickups, you need less cavity deep comparing it to a one with rings, i did the neck pickup with less height (I wanted to keep the most of the set-in of the neck as possible) and the pickups is more tight than the bridge one, maybe some extra foam will fix the problem.



now, to question asked:

I read that I needed some sort of torch in order to solder the ground cable, but it's too risky, I have one but I'm content with just screwing it in place.

sadly, they told me only to use one layer of this acrylic stuff, I didn't liked it, wetsanded the acrylic and finally applied a second coat, I bought a very small pot so I won't have that much extra, either way, last time I use this final finish, it leaves some sort of plastic feeling to the touch the nitro feels nicer.

I'm quite aware of the toxic nature of the finishing products, I use protection on my eyes, hair as well as gloves, but I need a new mask, I had one but it just didn't helped a lot, smelling that thing felt more toxic than not using them, it will be a priority to buy a proper respirator, specially if I'm planning on increasing the production level and I have to do more laquering.



oh, and also, I used 2500 wetsanding in order to smooth the neck, I know guys finish with 1500ish grit wetsanding, but with the 2300, the neck feels incredible smooth and fast, I guess it will slow down as it collects greasse from the player, also, the neck does not have acrylic, it's only for the body, the neck feels so comfortable, I don't know why, the measures are quite identical to a chinese neck I had laying around, but the profile feels quite good without being that thin.



you might ask, what is left?, painting the logo (I won't work with decals for this project) spray some acrylic finish on the front of the headstock, get the tuners on and put the strings!!!!! (also, soldering the pickups)



you see I already have the masking of the headstock sorta of, I already oiled the fretboard, but don't have quite the picture of it, for my surprise it looks quite cool with the oiled fretboard.

[Beate Ritzert]

If that semi gloss surface was your goal, this looks really fine.

If You want high gloss You'll achieve it even with the acrylic finish if You sand it up to grit 12000. Those final steps will not take much material off. So that process is surprisingly fast.

[Mark Swanson]

I mount my pickups that same way, and do not like the rings. But, I think it makes a noticeable difference in my guitars if I mount the pickups hard to the body, so when I find the right height for each pickup I replace the foam with solid blocks of wood, so the pickup is firmly hard-mounted to the body. it seems to bring more of the "woody" tone to it.

[Jason Rodgers]

Mark, how do you measure the height under the pickup to create the wood spacer block?

[Gordon Bellerose]

Leonardo,
You are becoming quite the wood carver. Good job on the lines on this body!

Mark,

I can figure out the height of the wood block with some simple math, but do you also taper it to get the treble side closer to the strings? Or is the difference in string height enough to cause the necessary pickup / string spacing?

[Bob Francis]

I was unsure about the body design until I saw the hardware set in. Outstanding!

[Hans Bezemer]

Leonardo,
You're doing a great job!
Great guitar.

[Mark Swanson]

I use foam pads or springs and screws to get the height where I want it, and a part of that is determined by player's preference. Once it is set, then I measure the distance between the strings and the pickup and make wood blocks to replace whatever it is I am using to hold the pickups up to that point.

[Jason Rodgers]

Aha, measure over the top, not underneath!

[Leonardo Silva]

so, now I have a time to sit down and write a lot, I'll give a description of the instrument in its whole and then a swarm of pictures.

I'll go from best to worst in this instrument.

the best by far, oh god it's extremely ergonomic, it's light and really nice, I mean, the cutaway brings absolute access to all the frets (minor problem at 21-24 for last two strings) all the countours give a really good grip on your body even when playing with the strap, it balances perfectly with the neck slightly upward with no effort (I mean, how is supposed to be), the neck profile is amazing as well as the transition from neck to body, it helps the access.

next is the sound, I don't know what the laurelia(body) has, or the lingue(neck), or the Cumaru(fretboard), but this thing sound really great, the pickups are cheap magnetic, but you just can't tell from hearing it, the sustain is brutal, extremely clear and defined notes and such a huge dynamic range, amazing clean tones but can get incredible agressive with just some extra strength in the picking hand, I don't know why it sound so good, but it does, and I'm really happy of it, well, anyway, the guitar is quite versatile, for sure its not a traditional tone by any means, hear no Ibanez, no gibson, no fender, I can take some really good progressive sound from it (it's my style after all) but a friend got some really good hard rock and metal too, it's not a shredding machine but it just sound good.

also, the finish is a bit meh, love the matte nitro in the neck, its so fast, but the acrylic laquer thing, it just isn't my thing, feels a bit plastic, also, the stain, it's almost paint, too dark, next time I'll do some gradient on stains in order to see the wood beneath, maybe leave the endgrain very dark, I don't know, next time I see how I can improve it.

then we are reaching the bad stuff, the hardware isn't the highest quality, but by far, the worst thing was the fretwork, it doesn't buzz and works just fine (good action, the neck stays strong), but I feel the edges of the frets are a bit too sharp, people who had tried it say they don't find it such a big deal but I just plain hate it, they are too sharp and are too low, maybe I just don't like the medium/low frets that I used and would rather have medium jumbo, need advices in order to get good fret-ends, if anyone bother to complain, I'll do a free refret with some medium-jumbo jescar frets, this ones are medium/low as I said, so you need a few minutes in order to get used.

and well, that's it, I just love the wood combos, I really feel them in the tone and it just sound so different from mi original dean vendetta guitar (cheap starter guitar), since it used the same pickups.

now, a question for some of us, I'm wondering if the waxpotting had any influence in the tone, I know it shouldn't, but it might had cleaned the coil from mud or impurities, as I find such clear tones from it, something far different from the original tones the past guitar ever had, it used to sound so "cerami-cheap", a guy couldn't believe it were just generic used pickups.

next are some pictures, thanks for anyone reading!

[Leonardo Silva]

(it says "Made in Chile")






and that's it , I guess the thread is closed unless I post some audio recording or share some extra info about this, thanks a lot to anyone reading it, this forum has helped me a lot <3