Besides growing weed, what are some of your other hobbies?
Aside from my fruit and veggie garden in the warm season, I also write and play music (used to perform, but not so much anymore). Lately I've been getting into building guitars. I started with some upgrades on my existing guitars (changing out all of the hardware and pickups on my explorer, updating the hardware and pickups on my warlock), then I moved to buying guitar kits that you basically paint then assemble the guitar and play. Very minimal stuff, but it's still fun, and once I get everything set up in the basement, it'll be a good project to do with my son when he gets a little older.
My buddy is a really skilled carpenter, so we're going to start building guitars from the ground up. We've already templated out an SG style body, and will be doing a flying V next. I have a background in electronic engineering (plus a former professional musician), we figured this might be a decent way to make some extra cash. While there's nothing for us to show of our own guitars just yet (he's preparing the wood to make the bodies out of, so between drying, gluing, and planing, it'll probably be a few weeks until we have something to show), I've snagged another flying V kit which has proved to be a bigger project than anticipated.
The kit arrived and I wasn't prepared for the work required for this thing.
Problem #1: The neck pocket came chipped. While not the end of the world, I'd really prefer to not have a cosmetically damaged guitar. Company issued a replacement (which also came in damaged, so we're working on a resolution for that now)
Problem #2: The neck isn't a bolt on, but a glue on. This is more my issue than anything as I wasn’t paying attention.
Problem #3: the pick guard doesn’t fit properly if the neck is positioned properly.
Problem #4: the screw holes drilled to mount the pickups are too close, making it impossible to attach the pickup. You can’t redrill either, because it would drill into the existing holes and wouldn’t have proper support.
Problem #5: bridge and tailpiece post holes aren’t drilled.
Problem #6: every other hole needs to be drilled (machine head/tuner screw holes, pick guard screw holes, strap button holes).
So, ignoring problems 1 and 2 since they’re not issues with the kit itself, the drilling isn’t necessarily an issue, if you have the tools and instructions, which I didn’t have and this kit didn’t come with instructions. The big issue is this was toted as a beginner kit, but it really isn’t.
The real issue comes with the pick guard. The company said to “just move the neck up”, but that’s not the correct way to resolve this. You don’t build a guitar around the pick guard, you design the guard around the guitar.
Here’s the pickguard with a pickup “installed”:
I ended up modifying the guard that came with it to have a neck cutout so it would slide into place and have the proper alignment with the pickups. I goofed on that, but only a smidge (one side has a chunk cut out, oops). I bought a piece of 3 layer black plastic/acrylic anyway to make a new one since the screw holes for the pickups are wrong, so I outlined the factory one into the plastic:
Then I used a dremel routing table and routing bit to cut it out and did some fit testing:
After that, I changed the router bit to a sanding bit and cleaned up the edges:
I still have some sanding and filing to do, but so far it’s coming out pretty good.
Here’s a pic of the guitar (and the other kit I put together):
I have to finish putting the hardware into the dimebag style, but that one is basically done.
Oh, and here’s the bridge and tailpiece post holes:
I’ll be sanding and staining her up this weekend most likely.
So, what are ya’ll into?
Aside from my fruit and veggie garden in the warm season, I also write and play music (used to perform, but not so much anymore). Lately I've been getting into building guitars. I started with some upgrades on my existing guitars (changing out all of the hardware and pickups on my explorer, updating the hardware and pickups on my warlock), then I moved to buying guitar kits that you basically paint then assemble the guitar and play. Very minimal stuff, but it's still fun, and once I get everything set up in the basement, it'll be a good project to do with my son when he gets a little older.
My buddy is a really skilled carpenter, so we're going to start building guitars from the ground up. We've already templated out an SG style body, and will be doing a flying V next. I have a background in electronic engineering (plus a former professional musician), we figured this might be a decent way to make some extra cash. While there's nothing for us to show of our own guitars just yet (he's preparing the wood to make the bodies out of, so between drying, gluing, and planing, it'll probably be a few weeks until we have something to show), I've snagged another flying V kit which has proved to be a bigger project than anticipated.
The kit arrived and I wasn't prepared for the work required for this thing.
Problem #1: The neck pocket came chipped. While not the end of the world, I'd really prefer to not have a cosmetically damaged guitar. Company issued a replacement (which also came in damaged, so we're working on a resolution for that now)
Problem #2: The neck isn't a bolt on, but a glue on. This is more my issue than anything as I wasn’t paying attention.
Problem #3: the pick guard doesn’t fit properly if the neck is positioned properly.
Problem #4: the screw holes drilled to mount the pickups are too close, making it impossible to attach the pickup. You can’t redrill either, because it would drill into the existing holes and wouldn’t have proper support.
Problem #5: bridge and tailpiece post holes aren’t drilled.
Problem #6: every other hole needs to be drilled (machine head/tuner screw holes, pick guard screw holes, strap button holes).
So, ignoring problems 1 and 2 since they’re not issues with the kit itself, the drilling isn’t necessarily an issue, if you have the tools and instructions, which I didn’t have and this kit didn’t come with instructions. The big issue is this was toted as a beginner kit, but it really isn’t.
The real issue comes with the pick guard. The company said to “just move the neck up”, but that’s not the correct way to resolve this. You don’t build a guitar around the pick guard, you design the guard around the guitar.
Here’s the pickguard with a pickup “installed”:
I ended up modifying the guard that came with it to have a neck cutout so it would slide into place and have the proper alignment with the pickups. I goofed on that, but only a smidge (one side has a chunk cut out, oops). I bought a piece of 3 layer black plastic/acrylic anyway to make a new one since the screw holes for the pickups are wrong, so I outlined the factory one into the plastic:
Then I used a dremel routing table and routing bit to cut it out and did some fit testing:
After that, I changed the router bit to a sanding bit and cleaned up the edges:
I still have some sanding and filing to do, but so far it’s coming out pretty good.
Here’s a pic of the guitar (and the other kit I put together):
I have to finish putting the hardware into the dimebag style, but that one is basically done.
Oh, and here’s the bridge and tailpiece post holes:
I’ll be sanding and staining her up this weekend most likely.
So, what are ya’ll into?
i love it. But i just enjoy being outside.
