Saturday and Sunday I attached the neck using 10-24 steel threaded inserts from McFeely's. The reasoning here is that the basswood is soft and shreds easily: the last thing I need is for the neck screws to tear right out, despite the structure provided by the composite layers. I would use 6 inserts to spread the load even more. The thought of this operation had me sweating and twitching, because I would be drilling 6 large holes in the heel of my neck, the neck that has taken me 9 months to make, and there would be very little chance of going back if I goofed it up.
I drilled through the body into the neck, then widened the holes for the inserts. Driving the inserts in was an imprecise process and it pushed some of the upper-layer basswood around, but nothing fatal. I countersunk the body for the screws, which I alluded to in a previous out-of-order post.
Then I put some of that thin Zap CA around the threaded inserts and into the tuner holes to stabilize the soft basswood - worked fine, though I did have to run a solvent-wet neck bolt into the inserts to clear out some CA/sawdust crust. I also hit the screw holes for the LSR nut, but I tested that process on 1/16" holes drilled in a piece of junk laminate - I didn't want to find out that the CA completely plugged them. I needn't have worried. Thin doesn't even begin to describe that stuff.
So here we are, Monday. After I didn't get the pickups, I sulked for quite a while. My whole day - ruined! Waaaaah!
Then I got to work. Time to string this thing. I had a set of D'Addario 10s around for my S-500. I reinstalled the saddles that I removed from the bridge in order to screw the bridge to the body. I installed the LSR nut with all 8 provided shims, after reaming out the 1/16" screw holes to clear any wayward CA. I installed the tuners after reaming out the holes again with a 3/8" bit to clear out the CA crust. The tuners took me a while to figure out but ended up performing perfectly.
Then I tuned the guitar by ear to my S-500. I tightened up the truss rod to take out the relief put in by the strings (I'm grateful the strings are able to work the neck). Bridge:
Nut and headstock:
Truss rod spoke nut:
Neck bolts:
And...guitar?
How does it sound, without the pickups? Well, it sounds thin. I'm not impressed. But when I push on the body (into the carpet or the top of the work bench) to damp it down, it deepens up nicely. Clearly I gotta put some more heavy wood on this thing. I was toying with the idea of making a Steinberger inspired body, but that clearly is not happening, and not just because of the resonance. I'm not comfortable with how it rested in my hands. So it's going to get more guitarlike. But I do like the face that it's square on bottom, so it doesn't fall over - that's what I've always liked about the Vs.
I was gonna say it looked quite Steinberger-ish but you beat me to it. =)
ReplyDeleteOnce you get the pickups installed, it'll be interesting to hear how it sounds. Then I guess you'll really be able to tell how much that extra body mass affects the resonance.
I'm really dying to hear how it sounds. =)
That's right, that's the plan. I went reading about the correlation between an electric's unplugged sound with its plugged in sound, and there may not be a strict relationship.
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that it sounds thin doesn't mean it won't put enough bass through a set of pickups, it just means the body is not resonating in sympathy with the bass - because the neck and body are relatively non-resonant.
So I'll get the pickups in (at least one) and see how it sounds. Then put some more resonant pieces on, or else some heavy wood. I've got some oak with a nice grain; it's not traditional guitar wood and it's heavy, but I can hollow it out a bit if need be.