jello's workbench: One for @Guitar Heel...and one for me as well...FINISHED!

Fret work...

Due to the fact that Heel's neck has sharp fret ends, and mine need a good polishing anyway, I'm going to do a very light fret level and polish to both...

Heel's neck is a WD, mine is a Warmoth...first observation; Warmoth neck is straighter overall than the WD, and needed far less tension on the truss rod to get perfectly straight...

First step, straightening them and masking...

2017-09-25_08-29-49 by jelloman 1965, on Flickr

Lesson one: masking tape does NOT stick well to solid rosewood...had to wrap it all the way around the neck...

Too hot to do more than that...plus "Vietnam" is on...
 
OK, back to work...

First up, rout Heel's body to accept humbuckers...

2017-09-30_04-05-21 by jelloman 1965, on Flickr

Then, leveling the frets on both necks...

2017-09-30_06-42-27 by jelloman 1965, on Flickr

...both have been leveled, radiused, polished to 2000 grit, and thoroughly cleaned with Naptha and oiled with Music Nomad F-One...

Once again I am nothing but impressed with the quality of Warmoth necks...Heel's WD neck needed a surprising amount of leveling ( @Guitar Heel was it new or used?)...the frets needed a lot more "elbow grease" for both radiusing and polishing...my Warmoth did need more leveling than I at first anticipated but the frets cleaned up much faster...

Next...wiring the 2 new pickguards...hopefully they will be ready for re-assembly by tomorrow evening...
 
miguel said:
Love the paint/color on "Skinny" :love::love::love:

Thanks for posting the builds!
Click to expand...
My pleasure!:)

"Skinny" generally looks better in person than it photographs...it's my first successful (meaning playable) build, but it's gone through a number of rebuilds, this just being the latest...
 
jelloman said:
OK, back to work...

First up, rout Heel's body to accept humbuckers...

2017-09-30_04-05-21 by jelloman 1965, on Flickr

Then, leveling the frets on both necks...

2017-09-30_06-42-27 by jelloman 1965, on Flickr

...both have been leveled, radiused, polished to 2000 grit, and thoroughly cleaned with Naptha and oiled with Music Nomad F-One...

Once again I am nothing but impressed with the quality of Warmoth necks...Heel's WD neck needed a surprising amount of leveling ( @Guitar Heel was it new or used?)
Click to expand...
Used
 
Guitar Heel said:
Used
Click to expand...
Okay, good...I'd hate to think they built it like this, the mileage explains a lot...

It soaked up a LOT of oil...might be the first time anyone ever took the time with it...I'm looking forward to playing it now...

What ever happened to the body I routed in the barn and the maple neck?
 
jelloman said:
Okay, good...I'd hate to think they built it like this, the mileage explains a lot...

It soaked up a LOT of oil...might be the first time anyone ever took the time with it...I'm looking forward to playing it now...

What ever happened to the body I routed in the barn and the maple neck?
Click to expand...
@smurfco took the pickguard and was waiting for me to send a wiring harness but life happened. Maybe it'll all come together in October. :)
 
PunkKitty said:
I want a full report on the rosewood neck. I have a Strat project in the works and have been thinking about getting one.
Click to expand...
I have a rosewood neck on my Cabro. They're awesome because they don't require a finish, so it's just bare wood. The only drawback is that if it's a freshly made neck like mine was (Warmoth), it stinks for a few weeks and your hand smells after playing it. It's not like stink-the-house-up strong, but it's noticeable.
 
Heated up the old soldering iron and set to work...

Heel's was up first...since I was using a blade switch and 2 knob set up I went with a variation of the standard Tele wiring...

2017-10-01_05-42-32 by jelloman 1965, on Flickr

...took that pic a bit prematurely...hadn't got all the grounds wired in, and I had to change the switch wiring from how it is pictured...:embarrassed:

Then I did the final assembly of the body...

2017-10-01_06-22-22 by jelloman 1965, on Flickr

...I treated the pickups to a long exposure silver polish before I installed them in the guard...they were a lot grungier and heavily patina'd before that...

Tomorrow, probably, the neck gets installed and setups commence...
 
After a supper break I got to work on mine...

The 4 conductor wiring on both pickups and the 5 way super switch made this a much more complex wiring job...

2017-10-01_08-12-47 by jelloman 1965, on Flickr

I have it wired as I described in a previous post, but to repeat it goes like this...

Position 1: Bridge double coil humbucker
Position 2: Bridge single coil
Position 3: Bridge and neck single coil parallel
Position 4: Neck single coil
Position 5: Neck double coil humbucker

Then, as with Heel's, I assembled the body...

2017-10-01_08-45-36 by jelloman 1965, on Flickr
 
jelloman said:
Heated up the old soldering iron and set to work...

Heel's was up first...since I was using a blade switch and 2 knob set up I went with a variation of the standard Tele wiring...

2017-10-01_05-42-32 by jelloman 1965, on Flickr

...took that pic a bit prematurely...hadn't got all the grounds wired in, and I had to change the switch wiring from how it is pictured...:embarrassed:

Then I did the final assembly of the body...

2017-10-01_06-22-22 by jelloman 1965, on Flickr

...I treated the pickups to a long exposure silver polish before I installed them in the guard...they were a lot grungier and heavily patina'd before that...

Tomorrow, probably, the neck gets installed and setups commence...
Click to expand...
:love:
 
OK, mission accomplished...

@Guitar Heel your guitar is finished...

2017-10-04_07-31-49 by jelloman 1965, on Flickr

2017-10-04_07-31-58 by jelloman 1965, on Flickr

2017-10-04_07-31-41 by jelloman 1965, on Flickr

First impressions...

The neck is quite chunky, and the body isn't exactly a lightweight, so there's some heft to this thing...not gonna bother weighing it, but it's probably high average weight for a strat...

The action set up a touch above 4/64" with the neck relief at .008"...it's possible that putting .010s on it might make it possible to get it a bit lower, but Heel's a .009s guy...

I don't think I'd do much whammying with it...(BTW, you didn't send me the bar for the bridge...do you have it? If not I have one that will work if you need it)

Sound wise it's quite impressive...the bridge pickup is quite spanky, and there's nothing better than a P90 at the neck position...I feel like the rosewood neck is contributing quite a bit of definition to the notes as well, and there's a noticeable increase in sustain over a maple strat neck...

Overall it came out really good...I'm sure Heel is going to be happy with it...

It's cased up and ready for Barn Storm!:thu:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top