Finished one!

We finished the Rick kit over the weekend by reattaching all the hardware including the stock tailpiece that came with the guitar and screwing down the tailpiece and truss rod cover.

The truss rod cover in the kit in no way lined up with the screw holes on the headstock and was cut unevely at the bottom. We sliced a millimetre or so of the bottom off with a craft knife to get it to fit properly and drilled new screw holes for it. Fortunately all of the poorly alligned holes were still hidden by the cover.

The kit did not come with any risers to make the top of the scratchplate higher, so armed with some small white plastic tubing from B&Q we set about cutting 1cm lengths off with a dremel. We then placed the 1cm tubes over the existing screw holes on the lower scratchplate and placed the upper scratchplate on top of the screws. We used longer screws than those supplied with the scratchplate to screw down through the whole assembly and hold both scratchplates firmly on the guitar body.

Because the tailpiece we had bought from http://www.axesrus.com/ wasn't really intended for this type of guitar (it's for an archtop jazz guitar) we needed to cut its mounting plate down with a dremel and drill new screw holes for it, both in the metal mounting plate and in the guitar body. However because there were pre-existing screw holes for the stock tailpiece we decided to screw it on and string and tune the guitar to see what it would look like - and to get a photo to send to http://www.themusicking.co.uk/, the vendors of the kit. (They ask for photos of completed kits to put on their website). The following pictures show the guitar with the stock tailpiece:



We then set about attaching the new tailpiece from http://www.axesrus.com/. removed the stock tailpiece and drilled new holes in the guitar body for the new tailpiece having previously reshaped its mounting plate with a dremel to fit this guitar. We also removed some of the metal from the hinge around the pin to allow the tailpiece to have a little more 'play' so we could adjust its postition with string tension a bit.

Finally we screwed the tailpiece in place - it covers the existing screw holes nicely and is nice and straight when under tension. The pictures below show the finished guitar:

By adjusting the bridge height we achieved a pretty good action and apart from that the guitar was actually set up pretty well out of the box. The only problem is that the truss rod is fully loose and the bass strings still buzz slightly on the first few frets. This is because the tension from the strings of a guitar are supposed to bend the neck up slightly, and the truss rod should be adjusted to counter this bend. However, when the truss rod is not tightened at all and the neck is still too flat (as is the case with this guitar) that presents a problem.

I have only put Fender XL strings on at the moment (.009 to .040) so hopefully this can be corrected with some heavier gauge strings.

Sanding and Polishing

I spent some time yesterday polishing up the Rick body to try and make it as shiny as I could. I used the instructions on the Manchester Guitar Tech site as a guideline having bought all the bits and pieces I'd need in Halfords.

I treated the the back and front as two separate jobs and did the back first. I used a sanding block and sanded down with Halfords P800 wet and dry paper, using plenty of water. I then sanded down with Halfords P1200 paper, again with water. This left the surface of the guitar fairly smooth but matt.

I then rubbed down the guitar with Tetrosyl rubbing compound by applying the compound firmly with a cotton cloth and rubbing it off when dry with a clean cloth. I did this twice to achieve a very smooth but still matt finish.

Next, I used Safe Cut scratch remover to start to buff up the shine, applying like the rubbing compound - firmly with a damp cloth and polishing it off when dry. I kept on doing this until I could see no noticible difference in the reflections of the ceiling lights on the guitar body. It took about eight passes to achieve this.

Finally I applied two coats of Autoglym Super Resin Polish to really bring out the shine.

It all took quite a lot of hard work, but I think it was worth it. The surfaces of the guitar are now shiny and mirror like as shown in the pictures below. (The marks in the finish are where the hardware was previously applied and removed. They will be covered up by the hardware again when it is reinstalled)