Now that the body is finished, it is time to finish the assembly of the guitar. First things first, adding the tuning pegs. You would think that a guitar that came as a kit would have all of the holes lined up correctly. But you would be wrong. The tuning pegs have a small screw to hold them in position and the neck came predrilled to accept the screw. Well, someone forgot to line the screw holes with the tuning pegs. I had to fill all six and redrill new holes to accomodate the screws. Minor setback but quickly overcome. With the tuning pegs in place, I attached the neck to the body, added the strings, and, voila, I have a new guitar.
After spending some time tuning the guitar (about 5 times) I finally got it to stay in tune. Now to test it out. I hooked it up to the amp and got nothing. Maybe it was the cheap cable that came with the guitar. Swapped it out with a cable I know works, same result. Tried the other electric guitar and everything works. Back to the bench. I took out the cable jack and found out that the shielding in the jack cavity was touching the end of the cable and grounding it out. I read afterwards that shielding the jack cavity is not necessary, but it was already done. A few layers of electrical tape (yeah, yeah, I will fix this later) to stop the grounding, and the guitar now works. I still need to fine tune the neck and the bridge and the strings to make the guitar sound good, (AND learn how to play) but that is a work in progress as I wait for tools ordered online to arrive. I will be tinkering with this for a while until I am happy with the sound.
Once I am happy with the sound, I will find someone who can really put the guitar through its paces and post a video.
Last thing – I will be changing out the pickups, the tuner pegs, the electronics and more than likely, the tremelo bridge. I will then start a new series of posts to document that process. All part of my self taught training to become a luthier or at least, a guitar builder.
Until then, I hope you enjoyed my journey of building my first guitar.
