It is currently Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:30 pm

All times are UTC - 7 hours



Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 482 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33  Next
Go to page Previous  1 ... 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33  Next
Author Message
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 12:27 am
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2009 10:27 pm
Posts: 3355
Location: Houston, Texas
The_Nutter wrote:
Gooooood stuff TGS! Can't wait to see the next installments!

Remind me: which pickups had you chosen to put in there? I am sure they will feel comfy in their new home! ;-)

Cheers -

Nutter


I have a set of American Standards sent by Ceri, I'm definitely going to use those. I toyed with the idea of transplanting my Texas Specials from my Squier, but when I tried putting them into my Highway One they sounded way different. More twangy, almost Tele sounding. So I think I'm going to keep them in the Squier permanently, for reason it works well that way.

_________________
Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalairdmusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beckslaird
Instagram: http://instagram.com/beckslaird


Top
Profile
Fender Play Winter Sale 2020
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 2:55 am
Offline
Professional Musician
Professional Musician
User avatar

Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2010 11:07 am
Posts: 1530
Location: On a pebbly beach, UK
That makes absolute sense. Way to go! :)

Nutter


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 1:21 pm
Offline
Professional Musician
Professional Musician
User avatar

Joined: Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:42 am
Posts: 2546
Location: Scotland
It's taking shape now Tex, I love the headstock :D


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2012 8:44 pm
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2009 10:27 pm
Posts: 3355
Location: Houston, Texas
Well, I have an early gig tomorrow so it looks like assembly Day 2 will be this Thursday. You know, it wasn't too bad a wait while nothing was assembled yet. But now that things are coming together it's gotten much harder. It's like what Christmas Eve felt like when I was little. :lol:

_________________
Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalairdmusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beckslaird
Instagram: http://instagram.com/beckslaird


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 6:58 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:13 pm
Posts: 19026
Location: Illinois, USA
a little off topic for a minute. Texas, the singer in your band, Cari Quoyeser was just voted off American Idol. I didn't realize she was on the show. Did she do well up to that point? Just curious.

_________________
you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 12:56 am
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2009 10:27 pm
Posts: 3355
Location: Houston, Texas
Solid Body Love Songs wrote:
a little off topic for a minute. Texas, the singer in your band, Cari Quoyeser was just voted off American Idol. I didn't realize she was on the show. Did she do well up to that point? Just curious.


Yes, she actually did fantastic up until that point. :D There were three cuts before she even made it to the main judges and before she went to Hollywood. She made the top 50, and had she survived one more cut we would have been able to vote for her in the top 24.

Honestly, I think who goes through is more predetermined than it's made out to be. They probably have people singled out from the first auditions. But that's just my theory, I don't really know anything about the inner workings of American Idol.

I would've said something about it earlier, as I've known for a little while now. But we were all sworn to secrecy. lol

_________________
Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalairdmusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beckslaird
Instagram: http://instagram.com/beckslaird


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:09 am
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2009 10:27 pm
Posts: 3355
Location: Houston, Texas
I didn't want to leave you guys in further suspense, but since these photos are taking longer to upload than I expected and I have to get up early for work tomorrow it looks like I'm going to have to. :(

In short, Day Two of the build was yesterday. It's not totally finished yet, but it's playable! I was planning on my Day Two post being last night, but I was up until 4:30 a.m. playing it. Then I had to work all day today, and the photos are taking longer than I thought. I have to work again tomorrow, but by this time tomorrow I should have over 20 photos up and detailed commentary so hopefully it'll be worth the wait! :D

Again, sorry guys. I would've started earlier if I had known I'd have tech problems.

_________________
Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalairdmusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beckslaird
Instagram: http://instagram.com/beckslaird


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 9:37 pm
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2009 10:27 pm
Posts: 3355
Location: Houston, Texas
OK! Finally, here's Day Two of the build. :D

The first thing we had to do was place the pickguard. But rather than just put it on the guitar and start drilling holes, we added two scrap strings for the e strings and installed the pickups to find out where to place it so that the pole pieces aligned.

Image

This is what we were after, perfectly aligned pole pieces.

Image

When we had it we liked, we taped it down and my tech used the dremel tool to drill the holes for the pickguard and jack plate.

Image

But there was only one problem. We had to push the pickguard more towards the edge of the body to get the pole pieces aligned right. So we ended up with it looking like this at the bridge. See how the pickguard is touching the bridge on the right?

Image

To make it look right, it would have to have part of it removed. So we masked off the part that need to be taken out with tape.

Image

My tech used the dremel tool again for this job. He had to keep an extremely steady hand for this.

Image

And here's the problem solved! You could never tell it was even any different.

Image

The next step was to work on the electronics. Here's the pickups, pots and switch installed, but not yet hooked up.

Image

Ceri had given me a head's up about this, but it turned out the leads for the neck and middle pickup were a little bit too short. And the grounds were just barely long enough, so we decided to replace both. Here's a shot of the neck pickup before we switched out the wires.

Image

...And after they were removed.

Image

...And with the new lead and ground. Ground is black, and the lead (which was blue), is white.

Image

Here's the pickups installed to the switch.

Image

And here's everything the way it looked when it was ready to drop into the guitar! I wired the neck and middle pickups to the first tone pot, and the bridge pickup to the second tone pot. I usually like to roll off the tone a bit more on the bridge. It gets rid of some of the really high end bite.

Image

Here's the finished pickguard from the front.

Image

But we still had one more problem to deal with before we could install the pickguard. When we aligned the pole pieces earlier we had to really scoot the pickguard to one side. Which is why the pickguard needed to be dremelled by the bridge. But it also made it so that when we put the pickguard in with electronics, one of the tone pots hit the wall. And you really don't want any of the electronics touching the body on the inside of the guitar. So we had to dremel again. Here's a before picture.

Image

...And an after. Do you see the slight bulge where the second tone pot should go?

Image

And then we could finally install the pickguard! Note the mismatched neck screws. We had to improvise with the contoured neck heel. We ground the ends off of a couple of them so that they would be long enough to hold the neck securely, but not go through the fretboard.

Image

Here's the jack soldered, but not installed yet. Jack replacement is the one guitar repair that involves soldering that I'm actually comfortable doing myself.

Image

Next came getting the strings on and figuring out the string spacing. Of course, this was before the strings were placed correctly and the slots filed. I only got this picture because I was on the clock for a little bit while my tech was doing this.

Image

Nearing the home stretch, the string tree installation was next. I only added one. You can't get that cool high note that plucked behind the nut on Riviera Paradise with two string trees. Yes, I made the decision to have just one based on one note of one song...

Image

Babies cry when they're born, but a healthy Stratocaster's first noise is 60 cycle hum. :lol:

Image

The last thing we did was to install the strap buttons. Schaller strap locks.

Image

One of the guitar teachers there that afternoon was kind enough to bring some coffee from Starbucks, and since I'm not yet 21 I thought I'd go ahead and mention it since choice of drinks are usually included in build threads. That, and the fact that I just plain love coffee. :)

Image

My tech did a quick setup on it when everything was together. We matched the way I had my Highway One and Squier done, so it feels great.

And finally... The finished Forum Caster!!! :D

Image

And a closeup.

Image

It's nice having a tremolo that actually still has that little spring that makes the bar stay in place. Up until this point, every Strat I ever had was used and it was long missing by the time I got a hold of it. I actually have this trem floating, another first for me. I really like it, but I still have to get used to bending with it. It has .10's right now, but I'm thinking that if I keep if floating I'll need to go with .11's. With the big frets and the tremolo not so tight the .10's feel like nothing.

It's not quite 100% finished yet. The frets are a little rough at points and the board has been shrinking over the past couple of months that it's been in existence and the result is that the frets need a slight fret level now. My tech said to play it like it is for a couple of weeks to let the neck settle now that it has string tension.

I've been playing it every second of free time I've had since it came together Thursday evening. It's just fantastic. Thank you guys so much! This definitely wouldn't have happened if it weren't for ya'll. I don't think I could have even imagined having a custom guitar this nice a couple of years ago. :D

_________________
Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccalairdmusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beckslaird
Instagram: http://instagram.com/beckslaird


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 10:13 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:13 pm
Posts: 19026
Location: Illinois, USA
Your new guitar is magnificent Texas! "Becks" on the headstock is the best. :D

_________________
you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 2:25 am
Offline
Professional Musician
Professional Musician
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jan 07, 2010 3:31 am
Posts: 1398
Location: scotland
that strat looks fantastic 8) and i bet it sounds as good as it looks , nice work TGS 8)

_________________
Image


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 2:49 am
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star
User avatar

Joined: Fri Mar 06, 2009 12:01 pm
Posts: 3261
Location: Halls of ikea
Congrats Becks, great pics, great looking Strat, hope you have lots and lots of enjoyment playing your new Forumcaster, all you got to do now is go and make it sing.
8) 8) 8) 8) 8) Becks Forumcaster 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 3:16 am
Offline
Professional Musician
Professional Musician
User avatar

Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2010 11:07 am
Posts: 1530
Location: On a pebbly beach, UK
Rock and Roll, TGS! That looks a mighty fine instrument! Well done! I'm very happy for you! :-)

And welcome to planet Earth and the Forum, Forumcaster!

Nutter


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:17 am
Offline
Professional Musician
Professional Musician
User avatar

Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2008 4:27 am
Posts: 1513
Location: Southeast USA
:shock: 8) Awesome! Now we just need a video/soundclip of the next performance...

Being a nitpick for details I couldn't help noticing the appearance of a Red Solo cup in the finishing pics which implies ya'll were having a party in spite of the Starbuck's cup thrown in to distract the less attentive of us. :P The appearance of the Ronsol squirt bottle conjured up nightmare images of Nikininja's firestarter thread. :wink:
PS every good build thread has to have a cat picture...

It's good to see all the parts of this journey come together in such a great way. Kudos to your tech for being so attentive to the details of the final assembly. This guitar will aways be special to you and those who helped or just watched it's progress. Thankyou Beck :D


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 6:35 pm
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star
User avatar

Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:53 am
Posts: 5189
Location: Magnolia, Texas (just north of Houston)
TGS,

The new guitar looks awesome. Once everything settles and the final touches are done, I would love to hear a sample with it.

_________________
RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Somebody talk some sense into me... (Assembly begins pg.
Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:21 am
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2007 12:56 pm
Posts: 4033
Location: 16 Miles North Of The Red River
Spectacular!

A gorgeous, creative instrument...now we're waiting for a sound clip! Please post one soon...

Great job, Becks. Ya done good...

_________________
Good Vibes To Y'all!

Image

Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals


Top
Profile
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 482 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33  Next
Go to page Previous  1 ... 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33  Next

All times are UTC - 7 hours

Fender Play Winter Sale 2020

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: