My First Electric Guitar Build

Back in the spring, as I had time on my hands (unwanted time - so it goes) I decided to try building my first guitar and I thought it would be pragmatic to build from a kit where the body and neck were done, and the core components came in the box. About 45 minutes from where I live is a shop called Solo Musical Instruments, a store that supplies real luthiers and hacks like me. They offered a kit that was like an old BC Rich Mockingbird, a guitar whose appearance I had loved since seeing Rick Derringer playing one live opening for Boston in the mid to late seventies. So I drove down there and was met by Chase and Dave who were incredibly friendly and helpful. There were no kits of the one that I wanted so I hummed and hawed and bought some tools and went home. Two days later I went back having decided to try my hand at building a JEM clone. I do not claim to be a huge Steve Vai fan, although I respect his incredible work and talent. However, the JEM had a Floyd Rose, and while I already own guitars with Floyds, I never really understood them, so thought that this kit would be a nice effort.

We checked the box content, as I think that you should, and as Solo recommends and found that the neck while straight had a bad twist. The guys went through a few kits and found a neck that was straight and had no twist from a neck only kit. They swapped out the chromed nut for the gold one in my kit as all the hardware was gold and I wanted things to match up. The guys were really upfront and honest with me saying that the included pickups and electronics were decent enough, but I might want to consider something different for better tones and better quality. Since the entire kit was under $240 CAD, I thought that this was worth considering.

Dry Fit

I took the kit home and did a dry fit on the neck and it was pretty good. Only a bit of sanding in the pocket would be needed and that could be done by hand. I had to decide what finish I was going to use, and as I looked at the gold hardware, I thought of a Shoreline Gold option. I also used my multimeter on the included pickups and found them a bit low for what I thought would be a higher gain instrument. I did not care for the supplied pots as they were pretty stiff and the included five way switch was also grinding a bit. They had told me in advance so I was not surprised.

I had also been warned that the tuning machines were going to be of generic quality and while the guitar kit uses a locking nut, I am a fan of locking tuners and the ones in the box were not of that type and just did not feel great.

Colour Selection

I drove back to the store a couple of weeks later and examined a demo body done in the Shoreline Gold lacquer that I had bought. Something was not right, and the fellow assisting me, Padraig, suggested perhaps a metallic British Racing Green would look good with the gold hardware and that the nicely inlaid fingerboard. He showed me a body that he had just completed and I liked the look. Having done some auto work decades ago as well as having built furniture in the past, I figured out that I could handle the finishing myself so long as I took my time.

Electroncs and Other Fittings

I also had made the costly decision to replace most of the components in the kit. So I went with Hipshot Gold Locking Tuners. Then I bought a full set of DiMarzio PIA pickups in the gold finish as used in Steve Vai’s PIA guitar. I presumed that they would be better sounding, hotter and well suited to this style of guitar. I replaced the supplied pots with new CTS pots and the 5 way switch with one from Fender. An unfortunate helpful cleanup had tossed all the pickguard and jackplate screws so I had to replace those along with D’Addario winged strap lugs. I stopped using strap locks a few years ago because I hold the guitar when sitting more like a classical guitar due to joint issues and the bottom locks kept digging into my legs. The box strings went straight to the bin and for this instrument I pulled a set of Ernie Ball Titanium 10-52 strings as I wanted a bit more tension with the Floyd Rose and as the guitar has a 25.5 inch scale length, I thought that I could be ok with 10s. The actual Ibanez guitar uses a push pull volume pot for coil splitting, but I didn’t want to bother as I have lots of guitars with coil split or coil tap and mostly don’t use this function. I did want the 5 way option though. I also bought a Mallory capacitor instead of what came in the kit. I really don’t know that I can hear a difference once you take into the full signal path into account and would probably not do so again. Electronic components are not magic, no matter what the marketers and YouTube influencers say.

The Body

The guitar had come rough sanded, claimed to be with 240 grit, but I am skeptical about that as a quick rough over with 240 grit in a block made for a much smoother finish. I tried a clear pore sealer / filler to level out the body as whatever wood it was made of was not great in terms of consistent level. When that did not work out so well, I went to get my lacquer, sanding sealer, primer and gloss paint kit and it came with a can of Oxford filler. The Oxford stuff is made here in Canada, and it is a really high quality product when used properly. So I filled the pores, and sanded and refilled and sanded until I got to what I thought was suitable. I then diverted from proper practice and went up in sanding grades trying different papers, sanding pads and mesh. I then realized that I had made a mistake as the primer and the lacquer wanted a rougher surface for better adhesion, so I took everything back to a 320. Not stopping at 320 in the first place was a big mistake on my part that I have had to address later on, especially when using lacquers.

So after spraying the first coat of primer, I waited a day, then inspected and was not surprised to find that there were more areas needing some filler levelling. This went well, except in the cavity for the Floyd Rose and inside the Monkey grip. Learning experience for me in both cases, like don’t go that way again.

While the documentation said to let the primer set up for 24 hours, I let it sit three days before putting on the first coat of lacquer. It had been suggested that three coats would do it. Not in my experience. Leaving a full day between coats, I ended up with five coats of the British Racing Green Lacquer, then a gentle wet sand, wipe and then five coats of gloss clear. I then wet sanded to 3000 grit and this is where my mistake of missing a couple of spots where I had sanded too smooth early on. I had a few areas, usually on a bend, where I had not roughed up the wood enough and the wet sanding went right down to the wood, even though I was using paper on a rubber sanding block. Touch up time with a fine brush in most areas, and a couple of spray coats in one spot. Live and learn of course. In retrospect, I should have done more test work on scraps before doing the actual body, and maybe even gone with a British Racing Green in polyurethane instead of lacquer for my first go round. All the errors are mine, no issue with the finishing materials whatsoever.

In reality, I should have taken the whole body down to the sealer coat from the beginning and never gone past 320 grit before priming. I will do a better job on the next guitar. It’s done now and I used the Oxford polishing compound to bring a good shine to it after the final wet sand. From a foot away it looks great, but I know where every flaw is and before I shoot the photos, I am going to take another run at it by hand with some Jescar products specifically to enhance a final finish before waxing it with a good carnauba wax.

The Neck

Once we found the neck that would be used, I brought it home and did the Phil McKnight nylons test on the fret ends. They were, let me be clear, horrible. Fortunately I have built some skill in dealing with sprouted frets and have a proper block with angled file to get them tight and then used a Stewmac fret end file to finish the ends the way I prefer. I learned this method entirely from Phil McKnight and have thanked him profusely for his videos on this subject. He’s a pro and I am not.

Then I polished the frets using a series of fret polishing blocks and a final polish using a felt wheel on a Dremel. There are fret polishes, but in my days of working on competition pistols I already had a method for polishing and smoothing feed ramps, and chamber throats and I used the same methods here. The frets are now very smooth, and very playable. I then used some fingerboard oils without any citrus (which dries wood) laying it on, letting it sit, then buffing out. I repeated this once a day for three days and the some kind of rosewood fretboard now looked and felt good. Some 0000 steel wool for a final buff, then three coats of Monty’s Instrument Food on the fingerboard.

I then took a series of 3m sanding abrasive pads to wear the finish off the back of the neck and smooth it out. It is definitely a tedious process, but I am thrilled how the maple neck turned out and feels now. I masked off everything but the face of the headstock, primed it and then put on three coats of the green lacquer followed by five coats of clear. The face of the headstock had come from the factory smoothed and again I got bit on the edges. It looks fine, but I know where I touched it up.

I was not surprised to discover that while the Hipshot Tuners dropped into the tuning peg holes, that I needed to drill holes for the mounting screws. When I was building furniture I had a set of nice small locking drill stops from Lee Valley Tools and used those to get the hole depth exactly right, The tuners then mounted straight up and they work a charm, although if I were doing this kind of instrument again, I would go with smaller bean shaped tuner buttons instead of the small petal shapes that I did use.

Getting the Neck On

I expected that even though I had masked most of the neck pocket that the wood would move a bit during the spraying and drying as well as accumulate some build up. So sandpaper on a block and away I went. There was no template for the neck holes and as the neck that I have is not the kit neck, I had to drill the holes for the neck mounting screws. Only one screw up that no one can see and the neck fits snugly in the pocket and the alignment is perfect. I used the gold finished screws and mount rings as that is what was in the kit but I think that the next one I do, I will sink bolt receivers in the neck and use bolts instead of screws. I’ve used these on tables and while they are more work and have to be done in the drill press, I like the methodology better.

Pickguard and Pickups

With the neck on, I dry fit the pick guard and it did not fit. The notch for the neck was too narrow and not deep enough. Moreover the holes for the PIA humbuckers were too small as the kit pickups came without covers. In hindsight, I should have bought a humbucker routing template, but I did not and opened up the areas with hand files. That, I assure is a tedious process because of the file, test fit, file, test fit repeat until done method. But I got the pickups mounted and then discovered that the pickup screws in the kit were not the same as the pickup screws that came with the PIA pickups so I had to drill out the mounting holes a bit larger and then put stainless steel nuts on the pickup mounting screws and cut them short and then rethread the ends as the DiMarzio screws were longer than the pickup cavities would accept. I also learned that the springs that go between the pick guard and the pickup mounting plate like to fly and when they do, depart to another dimension never to be seen again. Tip for myself, buy a bunch of pickup mount springs and keep them in a jar that no one will casually throw away.

Mounting the Electronics

By this point I was completely certain that none of the holes in the pickguard would be the right size and I was proven 100% correct. I had to increase the opening for the pot shafts and all the pickguard mounting screws. As I had the drill in hand again, I checked the predrilled holes for the strap lugs and they too were too small for the screws that came with the D’Addario wing lugs. Ok, I can use a drill with some level of competence and got that sorted.

The DiMarzio site had a wiring diagram for the PIA pickup set, but it expected that the volume pot was a push pull, so instead I used the diagram for a Green Meanie, whatever that is. They are different looking but accomplish the same final intent. Soldering up the pickups was pretty straightforward and for the other wiring, I used two different colours of Solo Guitar’s push back wire. That stuff is awesome and I will use it for all my projects. They also have it in a metal braid version if you are doing restoration on older Gibsons, and I will pickup a package for my next project guitar which is a dual hum, four pot arrangement.

I had bought a higher quality jack to replace the one in the kit and discovered after wiring it all up to test, that the wires to the jack could only be fed into the body from the jack hole. Oh well. So desolder, rerun the wires, including a ground that went to the claw for the Floyd Rose and resolder to the pot connections. I’m very picky about my solder work and while everything worked properly right out of the gate, I know that I can do a better and cleaner job on the soldering. I had the temperature at first too low and then too high, until I found that 430 C worked optimally.

Mounting and Setting Up the Floyd Rose

First, let me be clear, the bridge assembly that came with the kit is a clone. It’s a decent clone but I had never done a Floyd Rose install from zero and so it took a fair bit of fiddling to get the base plate properly set to level with the body getting the tension correct between the strings and the springs. Nothing broke and it is playable and sounds decent. I have learned that those EB Titanium strings need a lot more stretching in than my typical coated Curt Mangan strings which are 9.5 - 46 balanced tension and so It took me a while to get them to hold tune long enough and stretch them enough to be able to lock down the nut.

The action is good, but I think it could be a bit lower, and I definitely need to work on the intonation a bit more. The good news is that I now have a much deeper understanding of the Floyd Rose system and while I admire the engineering, the bad news is that any thoughts of getting another one are now zero. Seeing as I don’t use a vibrato excessively, more Jeff Beck than Steve Vai, I will be able to live without another one.

Playability

The guitar plays very well, into either the Friedman Mini or Soldano Mini and really punches hard. I find that the PIAs are not particularly bright and are well suited to the heavier stuff and drop D on the low E string. As I have never played the EB Titanium coated strings before, they too have been a learning experience and while not awful, let me say that I won’t be purchasing or installing another set, so in due course, they will come off and be replaced with a set of my personal selected balanced tension Curt Mangan coated strings. For the short samples, I used my Neural DSP Soldano amp plugin. It sounded awesome to me, and in that scenario, I am really very thrilled with the pickups.

Quick Samples

What’s Next?

While the build took me much longer than I thought it would, that had everything to do with me, and nothing to do with the kit. Given that it’s my first attempt, I’m pretty happy with the results. It’s not going to be my daily player in any way, but it was a great learning experience and despite some challenges it was really fun. As I was finishing up, I received an email from Solo to let me know that the long delayed Mockingbird clone kit had finally arrived. I went down and the kit was really good, and the electronics and accessories are a lot better with the new kit. I have to figure out how I will finish it, but I’m leaning towards a 70’s look Mockingbird with upgrades to allow coil splitting the humbuckers, but with push pulls instead of micro switches. It’s still in the box and I won’t start on it until January 2024.

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