Finished!

In total this build has taken just a smidgen over a month to go from bare kit to fully complete guitar that is ready for it's new home, which is a good job as its Andy's birthday in only a few weeks.

Anyway, here she is all finished.

And with the Lils Paul from my last build, not a bad looking pair even if I do say so myself!

Nearly there...

Well it's nearly there, we've come along way in quite a short time.  I got pick up and wiring cavities painted with conductive shielding paint.

Because the controls match the Les Paul project we did last time, I did the majority of wiring outside using a wiring template made out of some off cut ply.  This picture is from the Les Paul project, the components used in this build are more basic and don't have push/pull switches.

 All done and strung up, it just needs the action setting up and it'll be good to go!

I did make one little booboo in that I forgot to put the earth wire in before I hammered in the bridge/anchor bushings.  So I carefully drilled a hole through to the anchor post hole, then stripped about 2cm of wire bare which was stuffed in to the newly drilled hole till it touched the bushing and made a good connection. The other end was soldered to the back of one of the pots.  Because the earth is normally fed through and held in place when the post is fitted I then put a small drop of glue in the wire hole to prevent it from falling out.

Whilst the guitar would have worked without it, there are two reasons to fit the earth -

1 Safety, if for any reason the strings became live they would earth through the player, electrocuting them in the process.

2 The earth reduces unwanted annoying humming noises.

Gluing the neck

The lovely shiny shellac finish has now hardened so I can get the neck attached.  With a liberal coating of wood glue I carefully lined up the marks I made right at the beginning and clamped it down to the body.

Then, using a block of wood with fret grooves carved out, I added another clamp this allows for firm clamping against the fret board without applying pressure to the frets.

And here it is ready for some hardware and wires...