Saturday, March 5, 2011

The Assembled Guitar

The guitar is now completely assembled and fully playable.


The assembly when fairly smoothly. The only exception is the screw holes on the pick guard did not line up with the guitar very well. The following photos show how things don't line up. The first is of the hole on the top side, closest to the neck strap button.


The second is the hole next to one of the switches. The hole you see in the body through the pick guard hole is actually the component cavity, not the screw hole. Yikes!


I have the volume knob, but I chose to pay homage to Eddie Van Halen and use the tone knob on the volume control.

Blocking the Tremolo

The screws that hold the bridge/tremolo in place are slightly stripped on this guitar. It also seems the springs that hold the entire system in place are weak. The mounting screws for the springs could be not screwed in enough as well.

Since I'm more interested in a hard tail design on the guitar, I figured I'd block out the tremolo action. Here is the back side with the block in place.


The block is just a solid round closet hanger bar cut to size (the only scrap I had at the time). I put a slight bevel on the piece so I didn't have to worry about thickness. The slight wedge shape would tighten up as it was placed in the slot. The block was then sliced on to top to make sure the cover can be put back on the guitar. Here is a profile shot of the block.


With the block in place, the tuning and sustain problems I was running into are largely solved.