Learning how to build an electric guitar

[xoxoxoBruce]

Cold hands are bad, they make mistakes, and worse they get hurt.

[lumberjim]

This morning I got back after the fret ends. Filed each end of the 22 frets very carefully with the file, then sanded along the side of the neck using the 80 grit then 120 affixed to my leveling bar.

That's the blue thing in the background

Looks and feels much much better


Then I recrowned the ends. That little arrow shape is what I'm after.

Next I need to make sure the neck is flat.


This little LED light helps. These things are awesome. $10 for a six pack. They stick in anywhere. I've got 2 mounted under the head of the drill press, and keep one handy fit things like this.




Not flat :



Twist the truss rod nut :



Now it's flat


Next part is fun

[PhatPix]

Gotta shelter yer Putt.
Beginning to see some of why they get $325 and up for fret replacement.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by PhatPix

Gotta shelter yer Putt.

...the hell?

[lumberjim]

He's refering to my Harley. It's covered in saw dust.

Next thing was leveling frets.


Take a sharpie and color each fret. The metal thing is just me being careful.



Now the leveling beam comes out. This is its intended use. It's one of the first tools I bought for this hobby, and I've misused it several times before now. To good results each.



First couple passes are just to identify low frets.

I had 3 particularly low frets.


These 3. #'s 8, 11 and 12.


These two were borderline replacement low. In hindsight, it would have saved me a lot of time if I had just pulled them and replaced them.

[lumberjim]

But I did eventually reach them. Left me with some wide flat frets in other places.



After the beam, I went with 220 grit on a 12" radius block, then 320 on a 16.





The 12th was, at the end, left a C hair low.

But they're 99.4% level.


That light line test went better.



Not perfect, but there's more to do yet.

Similar technique to the leveling job here. Red marker on the fret... You can see how flat it got.



I used the same files to shave the sides of the frets back and round them back to make the red line thin and in the middle.

[lumberjim]

Just to give you an idea of how long that took, here's one of the 22.



It's a fret rocker, not a thread rocker



There were 3 left.

Then I polished them

These are fret rubbers.


Basically erasers with grit. 200 to 8000



After sanding lightly with 320 and 400 paper, I went through each with half a dozen or so strokes.

My belly will explain




After they are nice and shiny, I applied a very modest amount of this stuff :



Immediate improvement in appearance







And the light test?


Laser straight

[Griff]

I admire the precision man.

[glatt]

It's really looking sweet.

[Happy Monkey]

Very nice. I'd comment more, but I know absolutely nothing about guitars, except the big part is usually at the bottom.

[xoxoxoBruce]

When you show it to people just accept the hosannas and accolades, don't try to explain the coulda, shoulda, wouldas, unless they've built one.

[Undertoad]

It makes me think of all the shortcuts the manufacturers are taking. I could see automating some of this but certainly not all of it.

[lumberjim]

Thanks! I need to poke the tuner peg holes in that and figure out the nut, then it's done!


Weds I'm going to get more into the body and hardware installation. Then figure out finish. This full time job shit is getting inconvenient.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Very inconvenient.

[Gravdigr]

Jobs are work.