u6crash

Woo! Guts are in and working! I ended up rewiring the whole thing with short pots. The regular CTS pots for the volume were fine. The shorter no-load tone pots grab just enough of the bushing to work. This took a handful of tries and I learned a lot of things. I learned that if you use too much flux on your switch, it can run and act as a conductor. So I got to take the switch apart and clean it. I used two different wire colors, but more would have been better. Feeding the pots into place got easier with practice. In the end I only used strings on the two tone pots and the jack (plus the switch) because too many strings often meant something was getting tangled up somewhere. What ended up working best were bamboo skewers. Thin, flexible, rigid, and the point was useful.for moving the knotted ends of strings. I also used the skewers to position the pots I to place. From the top a skewer would center and steady the shaft. A second skewer from the jack cavity would lift it into place. Here is my big oops moment: I accidentally crimped the split shaft and in trying to open it up I broke off half. I'm using knobs with set screws, so I'm going to make a repair with JB Weld or something. Unfortunately, I also put a small scratch into the body. Here it is all mocked up. I can't find the bridge. Still need to put the name.on the headstock. It's 3:30am. I'll worry about these things later.

Well. I have two in. And I feel those shafts are too long. It turns out there are some medium shaft pots out there, but they are hard to come by. The remaining two feel pretty stuck. I'm tempted to take the whole thing out, find new pots (or manually shortening these), and maybe rethink my wiring strategy. Right now I need a break before I lose my cool.

Hopefully I'll have some positive updates soon. I came to another disgusting realization yesterday. The height of the pots with the braided wire soldered on the back is too tall. So I had to break those connections and I'll be moving them to the sides of the pots. New hole for the jack is already drilled (I already had the jack plate on hand) and actually also serves as a nice way to look inside. The pots have to go in through the bridge pickup hole because they are too big to fit anywhere else. If there were such a thing as medium height pots, that would have been ideal. And as I'm sitting here typing this, I wonder if I need a nut on the inside to keep the pot shaft from coming up too much. Partly life has been crazy busy, but also I knew this was going to be the most frustrating part of the process. I did check that the electronics work before I started stuffing them in, so that's one success.

I'm not certain as this is not a 2014 reissue body. But I see no reason why it wouldn't. I'm finally trying to get back to this. This part went pretty okay. I have underestimated the importance of flux in past soldering attempts. My idea for getting things in place was this string going through the bridge cavity and then hot glued to the tops of the pots. This did not quite work and I got things tangled.up a couple times. Here's where I'm stuck now. The jack does not come through enough. And now I wonder if I knew this and forgot it. I have an oval jack cover with a circular depression. If I increase the size of this hole, I should be able to get the jack through the jack plate. Other complications: The height of the long shaft pots is such that they have to tilt them under the binding, which is thicker than the actual top. I'm going to try and work on it a little more tonight, but this has taken up a surprising amount of my day already.

Well, I haven't died, but also have made little progress. Took a job at a local warehouse where OT is scheduled too often, while continuing to search and network for a full time job in UX or service design. Had a little bleed through under the tape. I think I can scrape this clean with a razor, but open to suggestions. Holes are marked for tuner screws, but not drilled. Pickguard has one coat on it. I might have to modify the shape more to my liking, but it's a pickguard. I don't need it to play. It can change later. That's all I've got. Life is crazy busy right now.

It took a few iterations because it was challenging to keep the top curve below the cutaway. I also wondered if there is any change of catching the point on the back of my hand as I'm strumming, but there's no good way to test that until the neck is on the guitar.

Small update. Might not be much this week as I've got to take care of some things. I don't think I'm doing this anymore. The idea was going to be to paint it all black, except the orange registration sticker. The epoxy isn't sticky, but it does seem soft. Maybe it will cure harder still. Maybe not. In the meantime.. I thought about what daddymack said about referencing the headstock. I still have to cut out the pickup cutouts. Had a little bit of tear out, but I'm going to go solid black with it, so I'm not too concerned. I don't have a clue what kind of plywood this is. It came as packing material with some silkscreen frames.

I'm a sucker for guitar that are just a little (or a lot) funky. I feel like Ken Parker must have taken some cues from this when he designed the Fly. Congrats!

The original had rubber spacers under the pickups, so I'm kind of emulating that here. Also, the only #2 screws I could source locally, have a round head. Without the black spacer, the nickel trim has a weird gap as it won't sit flush (which is why you see the divots made with the forstner in any earlier post). Tried it without and it looked fine straight on, but noticable weird gap from many other angles. I could have sketched out more pickguards (and really, that's a thing I can replace any time, but I'm going with a design pretty close to the original. This is a sneak peek. I've seen license plates used on guitars before. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I hate it. I'm going to do something a little different with this one, so reserve judgement until you sit in in the guitar. Here the back has been coated and leveled with clear epoxy. If it just looks awful, I'll do something more traditional.

Thank you! I'm starting to get excited. You have no idea how many false starts I've had in the last 20 years. My one success was assembling a Carving bass kit (I wish they still made kits; those were a great value). Second attempt with black trim rings. This one looks successful. I earlier made the mistake.of not lining them up when I drilled the pilot holes through the plastic. Both were parts I custom ordered through Send Cut Send, and I think I omitted the holes in the plastic because I thought they might have to bend substantially, thus changing the distance between centers. Not sure how much more I'll get done today. Should have mowed the lawn. Should probably eat something. I don't have to make a pickguard, but I'm going to.

I'm getting impatient and sloppy. Deep breaths.... Paper template in place for setting screw holes for pickups. Shown with pickups in place. I used a pen and an awl to make the holes. It's clear by eye that the original pickup routs were not aligned with anything, because they really didn't have to be, but I didn't want to trust the alignment of the original screw holes, either. Eight tiny holes in place. The holes in the corners of the cavity are to allow for the round head of the screws holding the pickups to the face of the body. They aren't perfect, but they don't have to be. These are the black trim pieces that still have the protective paper on them. Tiny failure here. I tried to drill the holes in the black plastic large enough that they didn't need to be a perfect fit. You can see the alignment is a little off with the nickel trim pieces. I have some thoughts on how to fix it, and if all else fails I have four spare black plastic trim pieces. And I could go without them if I really wanted to. Some pre-wiring done. I have dry fitted every piece so it should all fit. I have pulled parts through with string alone, but I think I'll try tubing and string so that the strings don't get tangled. Acquired gold paint pen. Will be practicing my penmanship. The pen has a bit of a chisel tip, which I didn't realize when I bought it. Should be fine.

Checking parts before I wire them up. Wasn't paying attention and got CTS "The Art of Tone" 525k pots. 5% tolerance has them ranging from 518k to 544k. (They could have been between 450-550 with 10% 500k) For a while I thought I'd do special/different wiring (TV Jones tone pot mod, Gibson 50s wiring, etc) but not everything has to be so complicated. Going to use .0033uf caps on the tone pots because that's what I have closest to .0022uf. Might do a treble bleed on one of the volume knobs with a .0001uf cap (measures at 860pf). The only part I am still waiting on is the jack plate I ended up ordering. And I am going to grab a gold paint pen for the headstock tonight or tomorrow.

I have knobs. I lucked out in that the original knobs were some off the shelf variety that is still being made today. At one point I was going to get fancy and make wooden knobs with buffalo nickels inlaid in the top. But I'm running out of patience. I kind of hate to put more holes in the guitar, but you have a good point about old wood. I'll look around. I might even have a spare plate.

Hrm. I found this sold listing for an original Rowe wiring harness. It used 1 meg pots for volume and 250k for tone. And maybe no capacitors? Wild. Edit: No, there are caps. I found another one for sale and I'm trying to look at it and figure out how it all connects. I don't know that I'd wire it this way, but I'm fairly open minded. Found some Gretsch folks who swear by the 1 meg pot setup, with a caveat that it doesn't play well with dirty pedals. I'm probably going to do a lot more reading. Not sure this is the best use of my time today.

Well, phooey. Doing a test run/dry fitting and inventory before wiring anything. Learnings: My four 500k pots are short shaft. They get through and I can get the nut started, but just barely. Ordering long shaft pots soon. (One pictured is a long shaft 250k) Have two 0.047uf and 0.033uf paper in oil capacitors. I'd kind of had it in my head to use 0.022uf and a 0.015 (just to be different). I'll do more reading. Maybe I'll be different by going with 0.033. Neck and bridge are 7.8k and 11.8k respectively. Might even mod my pots to be no load at 10. Standard Switchcraft Jack is too short. Deep panel jack is too wide. I could widen the hole for the deep panel jack, but I feel the way it mounts is not meant for this application. Have not made a pickguard, but I will. Hollow top bracket in my cart now. Pickup selector switch is good. Straplock buttons on hand, although I have black pads instead of white. I'm tempted to go to the shops in town and see if they'd trade parts for parts just so I don't have to spend any more money. Pre-slotted nut, trapeze tailpiece, and bridge ready to go. Vintage cloth wire with braided shield. What am I missing?