And the parts start rolling in

I got the shipping notice from Warmoth. Tracking number says it should be here tomorrow.
 
All the parts are here. Here is a test fit.

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A short-scale Frankstein! Albeit with a hillbilly floyd rose (Joe Naylor coined the term).

Get some tape and Schwinn bicycle paint!

I like the idea of the single pup.
 
So it is wired up, the tuners on the neck and the neck on. I just need to mount the hillbilly floyd, add a few pickguard screws (I only had 4 left), strap buttons, string it up and set it up and it is done. I did have 1 mishap, I drilled through the headstock when drilling the hole for the little peg on the Sperzels. I might plug it, but I might not. I need to run out and grab some string (to mount the bigsby), some pickguard screws and strap lock strap buttons.
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I got it all assembled last night. I am going to need to shim the shit out of the neck, but once that is done, it will be ready to rock.
 
Chad said:
I got it all assembled last night. I am going to need to shim the shit out of the neck, but once that is done, it will be ready to rock.
Click to expand...


If the shimming is going to be substantial enough that it creates a gap, consider marking the inside of the neck pocket with pencil, and then tape around the outside of the heel to mark how much of a tiltback you need, then use a file and angle the neck pocket back.

The only thing is you'll want to score the paint across the end of the heel horizontally.... this will keep the paint on the end of the heel from flaking off when you run the file forwards and back.

I did that with the superstrat that I did for Newbuilder after the neck repair.
 
baimun said:
If the shimming is going to be substantial enough that it creates a gap, consider marking the inside of the neck pocket with pencil, and then tape around the outside of the heel to mark how much of a tiltback you need, then use a file and angle the neck pocket back.

The only thing is you'll want to score the paint across the end of the heel horizontally.... this will keep the paint on the end of the heel from flaking off when you run the file forwards and back.

I did that with the superstrat that I did for Newbuilder after the neck repair.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip, but I think that is way above my skill set. If it gets too big, Bigsby makes a shim for it that covers the entire neck pocket, it looks like a thick neckplate that is tapered to get the angle.
 
Make sure to mount the Bigsby slightly crooked. A friend of mine mounted a Bigsby slightly crooked back in 1962 and people have been following his lead ever since. I have one Bigsby equipted guitar that is mounted crooked. No there is no musical reason to do it, it's strictly cosmetic. He went with a buddy to Hessey's Music in Liverpool to pick up a special order Bigsby. Not wanting to wait they pulled the guitar out, put it on the counter, eyeballed it then grabbed a screwdriver. One held it down and the other attacked it with a screwdriver. No pilot holes were drilled. When they were done it wasn't straight. Since then one of the things people judge a replica of that guitar by is whether or not the Bigsby is the correct number of degrees off center. Kind of funny how their screw up became something people are still doing over 50 years later.
 
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So I couldn't get the action going right with the Bigsby. That and the controls on a Musicmaster are very close to the strings, so it was hard to actually use the Bigsby. I ended up installing a tele half bridge I have and I love it. The wiring schematic I looked up was wrong and the tone sounded like shit, so I went and found another, but I ended up busting one of the lugs on the tone knob when rewiring, so I skipped the tone knob (I never use it anyways) and now it sounds amazing. I am going to have to go back and forth with the McFeely and see if I want to put a TV Jones in the bridge on that.

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