"My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)

Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)


Did they HAVE to use mismatched screws on EVERYTHING?

I get wanting to have your guitar back ASAP, but would it kill you to spend a whole minute looking for a screw that at least matches a little? OK so maybe I just have OCD or something...
 
Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)


Guess which string rattled and vibrated like a mofo?



Well that's better... It's not loose anymore, either.
 
Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)


THe bridge base was pretty beat up looking, and screwed right to the top (nothing was underneath where the bridge is, the block inside is halfway between the bridge and where the tailpiece rested) It never moved, at least-I've had floating bridge guitars that the bridge moved around on me while "enthusiastically strumming" (cough Gretsch cough)


I dyed both bridge bases with Fiebing's. And managed to NOT dye myself or the table! Win!
 
Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)




I know I should put in a "real" (open, Switchcraft style) 3-way in here, but... Hey if the old one lasted 40 years, this one ought to be good for at least a couple.
The wiring harness is 100% ready to go back in, the pups are cleaned up (they were all scratched and coated in years of dust and sweat, and whatever else... I thought I'd have to wetsand out the scratches, but it was mostly crunge that came off. Cool.
 
Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)

The worst of taking this apart was the neck pocket. The red body is solid and looks fine, this one I could tell something was going on in there. These guitars have very little "meat" in there, and real thin/light body construction so over time they fold up like cardboard boxes. The green one, the top was separated from the neck block, and the top was actually split. The binding is pulling away from the top, too. The body isn't caving in like some of these I've seen, but I knew if I didn't do anything it would eventually come apart.





Crappy pics, I know... The "floor" of the pocket was actually split. It's all together now though.
 
Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)


Last but not least, I started filling in some of the tailpiece holes on the bodies. The green one seems to only have had one tail, but there were (at least) 2 sets of holes on the red one (none of which matched up with the tail that will end up on it)



My daughter took a couple pics of me while I was working on these. This is the best one of the bunch. Not bad for a 2-year old.

While I deleted the 150 pics she took of the floor, her hand, the underside of the table and the counter, she took all of the parts she could reach and hid them in her toy kitchen thing... I still can't find some of the screws and a volume knob. Oops.
It should all come out looking kinda like THIS though
 
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Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)


So I got a new bridge. It's a lot taller than the old one

I've been sanding it down to fit the top, but it's slooooooooow going.

Lay a sheet of sandpaper where the bridge will live and rub it in circles until the "feet" are the right shape. And because it's hollow, it's suprisingly loud when I sand-SQUEEEAK SQUEEAK SCRAAAAPE...etc.
I keep taking a break from this job (or being avoidant, I can't tell which) So today I had a WHOLE DAY OFF WORK, not just starting later, so I managed to:
scrape down about half the bridge height,

sand the whole top of this with 100-220-320 grit (it's still green though)

sand THIS 220-400 then mask off the top/fretboard so I can FINALLY stain it (I bought this in '05, for a "quick" project, I can't believe it's not done yet)
and insulate and drywall part of the basement ceiling



(most of our heat loss is thru this part of the basement-where the wall connects with the garage. It's 20 degrees colder in that part of the house than anywhere else. I've had the insulation and drywall sitting there since this fall, but apparently not enough motivation to actually install it...
 
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Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)

OK so I was able to pick away at some more of this today. I sanded and sanded... and sanded the bridge base.

I even tried to take it apart to sand the top part, where the screws go into (cause that part's flat, and would go quicker) but it wouldn't have gone back together afterwards. Now I have it 99.9% done. The problem with it originally was that the "feet" of the base weren't curved like the arched top of the guitar, plus the whole thing was taller than the original bridge.

I had to take it all down 2-3mm, plus match the curvature of the top. Man sanding that was boring... almost as bad as stripping the neck was.
I do have a question about the bridge- The screws sticking out of the base, go into the holes on the bridge itself. The screws are a lot smaller than the holes in the bridge... They're supposed to match, right?

I also soldered all the wiring together (2 fullsize 500K vol, 2 500K tone, real Switchcraft 3 way toggle, 2 Mosrite-style single coil pups) I started the "ship inna bottle" deal to put it all together. I got fishtank hose instead of fishing line, I read somewhere that it would be easier than the fishing line. The hose didn't fit on the 3-way, but I could JUUUUST fit my meaty hand into the pup route and get it where it needed to be. The threaded part was barely long enough to screw down, if I left everything off but the nut. Also I couldn't for the life of me find the switch tip. Jeez...I got the neck pup where it needs to be, then tried the rest.

The tubing actually works pretty good (doesn't slip off the pots, anyway) but I found out the holes in the guitar top weren't big enough to let the pot shaft thru. No problem, I'll just get out the reamer... OOps, the body is too thin to get it in far enough to open the holes up... Time for plan B...
Next I found out the output jack isn't long enough to stick out of the body, either... Man this isn't going how I planned. So as soon as my "long shaft input jack" shows up, I can finish wiring this thing.

OK now photobucket is being stupid, and I can't add any more photos... This has been a "challenging" couple days-I broke the car coming home from work the other night. THe rear shock mount sheared both the mounting tabs, leaving the shock just banging around inside the wheel well. Of course this was late Friday, and my new mount didn't show up until Monday, after I had to drive to work 3 times... Then I finally get my mount, and all the fasteners are so rusty, I broke 2 sockets trying to get everything apart. Admittedly, my tools suck I (The good ones got stolen) so after F-ing with it for a couple days, I had to take it to a shop to get it done for me. Hooray for air tools, right? So that's all back together finally.
 
Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)






Now I see why on my Gretsch they cut the big hole in the back of the guitar... fishing the wiring thru here kinda stinks.
 
Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)


The car stuff, in case anybody wants to see...
I sprayed PB Blaster all over all the nuts at least twice a day, from Friday to Tuesday, but nothing would budge. Once I got it to the shop, (and expecting to break the shock apart the whole way-even going half the speed limit on the smoothest roads I could find sounded like BANGBANGBANGBANG) the guy busted everything apart in, like, 10 minutes with his air wrench. Hey, maybe I need a compressor and more tools, right?

At least the part was less than $30.
 
Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)

Man, thanks so much for sharing with such a good level of detail!

Loving your posts man!
 
Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)

I'm not much of a drinker, but hooo-leee crap wiring this body made me want a 55-gallon drum of straight Ethanol. Ugh. I started working on this right after the kids got on the bus today (8am) and finished (I hope to god it's finished, I DO NOT want to take it apart...again) 330pm... ggrqbioarlgd;fgjr;oalgclvn;oa

All I gotta do is drill the neck mounting holes (they're in the neck at an angle so I gotta use the body as a drill guide, or the screws won't go in right) and find some screws for the tailpiece and it's done. Oh, and set it up. THere was a pretty good shim in the neck pocket when I dissassembled it, plus I'm not 100% sure I got the bridge base down far enough. But after sanding it for about 8 hours, I decided to be done...
 
Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)

So today I had to enlarge all the pot holes, with sandpaper around a small screwdriver because I didn't have a Dremel attatchment small enough to go thru the holes that it had (or at least not one I wouldn't mess up the top with, anyway...) THe output jack hole needed a BIG washer to keep the nut from falling thru-I don't know why the original one was so different size. So far none of the new components have been the same size as what came out of here. THe 3-way barely stuck out the top enough to screw the nut onto, same as the output. THat was the least of my issues today, though...

What I thought was (semi) neat wiring, became a rat-nest once I tried to put it in the body. The first time I forgot to flip it over before putting it in, and there wasn't enough room to turn it over inside without pulling a couple wires apart... Stupid poor soldering skills... WHY doesn't anybody make pots with a LUG on them, for wiring a ground wire, instead of trying to solder to the smooth back of it... I've tried scratching the pot with sandpaper, using rosin, turning my gun all the way up, and I keep either heating the pot so much I end up burning a dead spot into it, or getting a "cold joint" that comes apart... Ugh.

So round 2, I get it all soldered back together, get it inside the body, and the tubes came off a couple pots. Ugh. Back out it all comes.
Round 3, I put the tubes on the wrong pots, so the wrong pot would end up in the wrong hole-causing a huge rat nest again (and breaking a wire. Again.)


THere's not enough room to maneuver everything around inside, if you don't get the pots in the right place. I kept either putting everything in backwards (so the 2 volumes would be on top, instead of one above the other) or upside-down, so I'd have to flip everything over to get it in the right place.
Round 4, my daughter decided to "help" while I was making lunch...

She pulled a couple of the tubes off the pots before they were thru the top, and broke a couple wires. Back to square 1... I actually considered seeing if she'd stick her hands inside to move wires around, but I think getting a 3 year old to pull the right ones would have taken longer than me doing it all over... (and no, I didn't yell at her.

Even though she unraveled my 100' spool of wire and knotted it all up.
Round 5, I got 3 of the 4 (plus the output jack) in, and the tube slipped off the pot. Had to take it ALL back out again...

Round 6, same thing. But this time I got smart and did the farthest-away pots first, so I could try to fish it together thru the holes...

Seventh time's the charm!

THe "long" output jack is about 3 threads longer than the one I already had, so there's next to nothing holding it in. If that mofo falls back in (or a wire came off again) I might just chuck this whole thing into the fireplace. Grr.

There's still wires showing thru the F hole, but I REEEEALLLY don't want to take it apart again to fix that. I think wiring this up has cured me of wanting to work on a semi-hollow again. I bought a EB-2 bass copy last year, and it has really cheap electronics in it but I kinda don't want to deal with that at all now...
This body is all done, apart from attatching the ground wire to the tailpiece (assuming I can find the screws my daughter hid on me) so concievably it could be in one piece by this time tomorrow!
 
Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)

If it makes you feel any better the whole 'wiring a semi-hollow' does get easier with practice, though I understand how you feel. The first one I rewired was a Hamer Echotone I did for a friend; I loved it so much I put off doing my 335 for nearly two years. Finding the howto on the SD blog helped a lot, and my 335 ended up being a good deal easier. It's to the point now that I'm seriously thinking about redoing the 335 again to try a WLH set.
 
Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)

OK, well, it's done. Or 99% anyway. All it needs is the truss rod cover attatched and final set-up done. I got it all assembled, took a deep breath, plugged it in, and...
"It's alive! ALIIIVEEE!!!"


Today, I had to drill out the neck mounting holes. I had doweled the original holes because they looked like the neck had been put on and removed enough to strip out the mounting holes. Plus I got new Stainless screws, and didn't know if they'd be the same size...


It was a little nerve wracking because I didn't want to F it up and have to re-plug and re-re-drill...
While I was putting the drill away, my daughter "helped" by putting everything that fit, into the F-holes... Screws, the truss rod cover, beads, a couple toys...

Once I got that straightened out, I drilled out holes for the tailpiece, and found screws to hold it down. Oh, and attatched the ground wire to the strap button screw.

THen it was just stringing it up, and boom, it's done.





It's about the same size as one of those 339's, not as big across as a "real" 335.

It also weighs about 4 pounds. It's REALLY loud acoustically, too.
So right now the action is about 1/2" off the neck. I need to take it back apart (sigh...) and shave the bridge base down some more, and maybe shim the neck pocket. I did crank up the gain, got a bottle and was playing some really drunken, out of tune slide with it, it sounded GREAT! Well, my daughter was yelling "TOO LOUD DADDY! TOO LOUD!"... oops. I'm gonna let it settle for a bit, see if I can just adjust it better (I didn't muck with the intonation at all) Or, maybe I'll try to find somewhere to take it, and have a pro fool with it (although that would probably cost as much as I paid for the guitar)
So it's been a fun (if frustrating at times) project, it turned out how I wanted and will be a fun addition to my gear pile.
Although I'd trade it for the set of nickel WLH's and "Page wiring" harness I found on Ebay...



 
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Re: "My name is Daan, and I'm a GAS-0-holic" (NGD again)

OK so after letting it "settle" and tuning it to pitch, the action is WAAAAY too high. I gotta take it down again and cut the bridge base. I was looking for a new base online, and they just don't appear to come any thinner than the one I have. I can adjust the pups up or down quite a bit, from fully under the pup rings, to almost 1/2" over it, so that won't be an issue. Right now there's what appears to be business card as a shim (2 layers) in the neck pocket. I can use some of the wood veneer I have to make something less ghetto looking in the pocket, and maybe try to actually cut the "feet" off the bridge base. Sanding it on the guitar top literally took me like 6-8 hours of scraping it, so I want something faster this time... but I know I'll have to do that again for the top curvature. It's OK because I had so much fun playing it, this thing's super light and sounds good (if outta tune) thru my amps.
 
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