A veneer project. Bolt on LP style.

[Gordon Bellerose]

You're right. That color is nice. I'm generally not a fan of green, but that is very nice.

[Eric Baack]

Wiring ready to go back in

[Dan Smith]

Coolio!

[Eric Baack]

Clear coat redo.......

[Dan Smith]

Dang Eric, that's swell!
Do you know if the body is Genuine or African Mahogany?
I like the look of it, I bet it shimmers.
Dan

[Eric Baack]

I'm guessing it is Luan... I got it at menards. Very porous and kind of soft, but it has a nice tap tone to it.

[Eric Baack]

Polished it today and installed some parts. Managed to break a pickup screw off nearly flush to the wood though so I have that to fix.

[Mark Swanson]

No offense please, but it looks like you are wiring a car, and not a guitar! It would help you a lot if you used the right wire, and got rid of all those connectors.

[Eric Baack]

The connectors didn't come out quite like I had envisioned so I may clean that up. What is wrong with the wires that I used? No offence taken. I'm a rank amateur.

[Dan Smith]

The finish looks great Eric!
Did you use the urethane 2-part stuff?
Dan

[Eric Baack]

Yeah. Spraymax 2k clear. 2 part urethane in a can

[Gordon Bellerose]

If I remember correctly, early in the thread you spoke of using connectors so that the guitar could be re-wired easily in the future.
The connectors are certainly a bit big for what you are trying to accomplish, but I do realize that small plug type connectors are quite limited in availability.
I think the wires that Mark is questioning may be the larger insulated cable that we see in that picture.
You are using that for the switch, I believe.

Once you get better at soldering, switching things up afterward is easy. Plug connectors are terribly unreliable, even if they are all over your vehicle.

[Eric Baack]

The big one from the selector switch is a shielded plus 3 conductor cable to protect against emf. The shield is grounded to the cavity and the switch is grounded to the shield. 24awg wire in it.

[Eric Baack]

A bit less crowded in there now

[Mark Swanson]

That looks much better! Some folks think that you need heavier wire in a guitar, but thin cables work fine. And use shielded wire wherever you can. My first wiring jobs were not as nice as yours! There are a lot of wiring tutorials out on the web, too.

[Eric Baack]

I like working with 22 AWG generally. It is a nice manageable size. I think the wire on the pickups is 28 or smaller. it is kind of a pain. Especially when you have a cheap wire stripper like I do.....

I spliced the 22 gauge wire onto the ends of the pickup cables and heat shrunk it to protect the small wires in there.

[Eric Baack]

Yep, every wire that runs out of the main control cavity is shielded with the shield tied to ground

[Mark Swanson]

I like the #28, also the #24, but #22 is a bit big for me. And really, don't use a wire stripper. With wire that small, it pulls it and can break it inside. Use a razor knife or a blade to score a cut around the wire and then just pull off the insulation from the part you don't need. It's much gentler and once you get it down you can do it easily without cutting any wire inside.

[Eric Baack]

Well, the really thin stuff on the pickups was too small for my stripper so I ended up using my teeth to strip the wire on those.... I hadn't done that in quite some time....

[Eric Baack]

got the neck, bridge, knobs all installed along with a few junk strings to check the wiring and she works! I'll see if I can pick up a decent set of strings and a strap today and maybe do some sound clips once I set up the intonation.

The fretboard REALLY needed to be leveled. I had not done that the first go-around and I had the action up pretty high as a result to avoid buzzing. There were a couple of fairly low frets and it was obvious while sanding on it with the 12" beam. I had to bring the whole thing down a bit to get to the lowest fret.

It should play MUCH better now