Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Strat Step 02

Hello guitar-pickers,



The next step was to fill in the pre-existing tremolo hole in the body. I will be fitting a Schaller hard-tail (non-tremolo) bridge. Full of promise, the saddles are adjustable sideways - in addition to the usual up/down and back/forward. By that means, the string spread will be made perfect and then locked in place with the built-in cam screw.



So, I'll be needing to fill the big tremolo hole where the bridge fixing screws will go.



I had some Yaupon Holly stacked for burning, dried about two years. Yaupon is much like oak - very hard and tough with a fine grain. It grows on my place like weeds. So I cut this piece to go in from underneath (the trem hole has a lip which, in retrospect, I should have removed).



Glued it in with carpenter's white glue.



Then I made another piece to fill in the top.



Now I'm full of admiration for people who can "dutch" holes in furniture.



A bit of wood filler fixed my rough edges!



A lick of black enamel - looks horrible. I'll try some better stuff tomorrow.


P.S. I did try some other enamel but the thinner I used blistered the existing paint. I'm not going to try and fix that - it makes no difference to the sound. So I just sanded it level with 220 grit paper.


Best Regards,

Ted

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