muttley wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 6:18 am
Careful trying to open them up with standard drill bits
I would go so far as to say definitely do not use drill bits. I tried it with my Sparrow when i was making mods to it and the pot holes needed a bit of expansion. In my own arrogance i used a drill bit and told myself go slow, go easy, take your time ... ZZZIPPPPPPPPPP, off it went rght thru the fucking thing. Fucked the surface clear coat and paint. Luckily a little bit of CA glue in the crack sort of hid it and also it was entirely covered by the washers and reflector knobs.
Don't be a Shan, Get a reamer.
yep ... another thing a drill bit will do is rip a chunk out ..... that sucks.
So reamer ..... and really the cheapest one you can find'll be fine.
They all work well new and you'll do so few of these, your reamer will always basically be new.
JD01 wrote: ↑Wed May 15, 2024 1:14 pm
Cheers, aside from possibly pickups when I get that far, I'll have spent way more on tools that the guitar for this one.
That is kind of how it goes. Think of it no differently than playing music. Try and think of a few other things you want to do down the road on top of this project to justify it all.
A ukele kit for Dodd 2.0 and 3.0. ???
haha, fuck no! 2.0 will likely want a guitar shaped like a dinosaur, and 3.0 will want a drum-kit made of human bones and skin.
That is kind of how it goes. Think of it no differently than playing music. Try and think of a few other things you want to do down the road on top of this project to justify it all.
A ukele kit for Dodd 2.0 and 3.0. ???
............. and 3.0 will want a drum-kit made of human bones and skin.
Hmmm. Now you mention it, I am looking for interesting projects now I have cleared my bench and semi retired. Leave it with me.
OK, fretwork is going well. They're level, which I thought was gonna be really tricky, but turned out to be OK. And I've got them crowned and pretty shiny. A couple more grits to go though - I want to get them really nice.
Next question - aside from pickups. I'm gonna need a tone pot, volume pot and 4 way switch. Is there anything else I likely need? I'm thinking stuff like capacitors and bits of wire.
JD01 wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 6:07 am
OK, fretwork is going well. They're level, which I thought was gonna be really tricky, but turned out to be OK. And I've got them crowned and pretty shiny. A couple more grits to go though - I want to get them really nice.
Next question - aside from pickups. I'm gonna need a tone pot, volume pot and 4 way switch. Is there anything else I likely need? I'm thinking stuff like capacitors and bits of wire.
Got my neck on... in the right place. Had to glue some dowels into the body to fill a few holes in before getting the exact location of the bridge. Then I'll string it and see if I can get it to play nice before I decide whether to spend money on pickups.
This is where we're I'm up to, I'll get the bridge and a set of string on it soon to start working on making it play decent. Then I'll do the electronics
20240611_151812.jpg
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Warning!!! We're now entering the realms of a truly half-arsed home-made botch job.
20240617_085111.jpg
It actually looks OK with the pickguard in place... you can't see all my dodgy workmanship.
There was a split in the wood between the pickup cavity and bridge cavity... when I re-drilled the hole for the bridge mount the body started to self destruct.
I'm gonna wing it, see how it goes - I'll get all of the electronics done, see if I can get it set up and playing good - which is what this project was all about anyway. I've already bought a cheap neck pickup. If the body self-destructs, I'll just get a new (shitty old) one. They're only about 20 quid on eBay.
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It's a shame you are not nearer to me as I would have sorted that bridge pin issue with a router and set in piece in an hour or so. If it lets go, let me know.
muttley wrote: ↑Fri Jul 05, 2024 9:11 am
Nice one.
It's a shame you are not nearer to me as I would have sorted that bridge pin issue with a router and set in piece in an hour or so. If it lets go, let me know.
Ah, if it lets go, I'll just get another 20 quid body off eBay... and hopefully not fuck up the routing quite so badly.
I just need to pop a few more screws in the pickguard then I'll string it and see how it sounds before getting to work on the nut. I'm actually going to replace the nut with a bone nut, but I'm gonna practice on this plastic one first.
It wouldn't be hard to save that body. I'd take out the timber between the pickup cavity and the trem route and replace it with a solid piece and redrill the mounting holes. It's hidden so you wouldn't even know it was there unless you pulled the pickguard and bridge. I probably add a few dowelled fixings into the new piece for good measure too. Not a hard job if you approach it carefully.
Cool - I'll keep that in mind. I do quite like the colour of the body.
I'm looking forward to hearing how this sounds - I should get around to recording it on the weekend.
JD01 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 05, 2024 10:08 am
Cool - I'll keep that in mind. I do quite like the colour of the body.
I'm looking forward to hearing how this sounds - I should get around to recording it on the weekend.
That is a nice colour!
Back in the 90s, when Levinson guitars were having a moment, I bought one. It's essentially a not-quite copy of a Blackie strat, in appearance. And R1, whatever that means. The one I really wanted, but didn't buy, was the R4 which had a very similar colour body to your new baby. It was significantly more expensive and apart from the decoration with the colour coded headstock and neck, I wasn't sure why. As it was it cost more than the US strat it was knocking off, so I really couldn't justify spending even more on it at the time. The old story - the guitar I should have bought...
I still have my R1. One day I'll get a "real" strat I guess just to fill the official strat hole in the collection, but my R1 is a brilliant guitar.
muttley wrote: ↑Fri Jul 05, 2024 9:26 am
It wouldn't be hard to save that body. I'd take out the timber between the pickup cavity and the trem route and replace it with a solid piece and redrill the mounting holes. It's hidden so you wouldn't even know it was there unless you pulled the pickguard and bridge. I probably add a few dowelled fixings into the new piece for good measure too. Not a hard job if you approach it carefully.
Ok. This.
I've noticed that the bridge is shifting as I bring it up to tune. I think I'm gonna have to do what you suggest above. How do I put my new pice of timber in? Gorilla glue?
This is a pretty cool little project man. Literally a Frankenstein if ever there was one. I like where it is headed. If you and mutt do this be sure to document it lots if you start getting wood and adding dowels.
I think i have to move my bridge back a few millimeters on my sparrow. The into action is still out to lunch. I will likely have to go the dowel route.
muttley wrote: ↑Fri Jul 05, 2024 9:26 am
It wouldn't be hard to save that body. I'd take out the timber between the pickup cavity and the trem route and replace it with a solid piece and redrill the mounting holes. It's hidden so you wouldn't even know it was there unless you pulled the pickguard and bridge. I probably add a few dowelled fixings into the new piece for good measure too. Not a hard job if you approach it carefully.
Ok. This.
I've noticed that the bridge is shifting as I bring it up to tune. I think I'm gonna have to do what you suggest above. How do I put my new pice of timber in? Gorilla glue?
Definitely not Gorilla glue. I'd use Titebond original which is pretty much standard across guitar building. A small tub would only cost a few quid. Failing that I would use a good white PVA but even that is inferior in terms of being elastic.
A couple of more things I would do. Add a couple of dowels or screws to add strength as it is hidden. You can screw it down to clamp it as the glue dries then pull the screws and drill them out for dowels or just throw the screws right in.
Cut the body and infill piece with a slight wedge shape from the trem route to the body route so that the piece can be tapped into place from the trem side. That will help stop the piece pulling forward once done.. you don't need much of an angle just enough to seat the piece in tight.. Cut the wedge first over length and then mark the body and cut it as tight as you can and trim the wedge before glueing it in place.
