More fretwork

So progress is being made... albeit slowly. I've leveled the frets, which made the guitar playable (win!) but many frets were awkwardly flat (lose!). I had to take a small flat edge file, and give each fret more of a contour. It didn't take too long, but it was tedious. I also polished the frets with 1500 grit sandpaper, and the rubbing compound to make them smoother.

Then I strung up the guitar with heavy-bottom 10's and the guitar played great!



The real excitement is that I've bought the paint that I need for the guitar (it's on the way), and the rest of the electronics, including pickup covers, and pickup rings. I should have all of these things in the next week, and then I'll fully disassemble and start painting the guitar.

frets...

Phew. Long delay - but I've been hard at work. I've been spending a lot of time working on the frets on this guitar, and I've fashioned 320, 500, and 1000 grit straightedges to attempt and get some backbow.

Without going into an insane amount of detail, the guitar doesn't naturally have relief in the neck. It's always straight. To make all the notes not just buzz out, I'm leveling the frets while the guitar is held in a backbow. Then, when the neck is released, the guitar go back to being straight, but with the slightest amount of upbow. It's been pretty cool to see the guitar go from not play well, to being pretty good.

I still need to work on my fret crowning, but I don't have the tool for that. I might need to fabricate something.

More to follow.... Including pictures.

Frets...

So I spent some time leveling the frets, and it's going pretty well. I'm using the truss rod to pull the neck into a backbow, and then sanding the frets level. When I release the tension, there more of an upbow than there was before, which allows me to actually play the guitar. I've decided that I'm going to finish the guitar myself, in a honeyburst finish. Once I get the guitar playing well, I'll pull the trigger on the electronics and the paint.

Some new challenges

So as I've been trying to figure out the next steps for this guitar, I let a guitar tech friend take a look. Turns out there's some funkiness on the fretboard. It's a bit warped, and doesn't have the upbow needed to give the guitar neck much relief. That being said, I'll have some more work to do than thought.

No worries though... I was able to get the guitar strung up, and it does sound great unplugged (although it doesn't play great... yet).