My First Build - Advice Please

dean2371

I've made a few partscasters, so when my son suggested we built a guitar together from scratch i thought "why not". I managed to forget that my last experience of woodworking was 40 years ago, and that didnt go very well. So my son disappeared to his room to design a guitar (at least that what I think he was doing), and a couple of weeks later presented me with a full size scale drawing including fret positioning measured to precision. I was committed. Luckily I was buying or selling something from/to JookyChap, who kindly presented me with loads of guitar making stuff including wood, clamps, router and so on. I bought a few more bits like a bandsaw, chisels and all the rest and we were off in the middle of August.

This is where I've got to (I seem to be doing all the work now!). Nowhere near finished and far from perfect, but I'm quite pleased with myself so far. As I said to JookyChap, I set my expectations low and I'm in danger of meeting them.

Now my question. When measuring the neck, my son forgot about the end of the neck past the 24th fret. As I'm learning as I go, I realised that I'd cut the pickup pockets too early in the process. Having corrected the length of the neck, the bridge pickup is very close to the position the bridge saddles need to be in. If I position the scale length to allow movement of the saddles either side of it, I have only a very small gap between the end of the bridge and the pickup ring. Clearly this puts the coils closer to the bridge than desirable (see below).

I think that I have a choice between sticking with this positioning, or alternatively I've started making a fill-in piece for the pickup cavity which would allow me to re-rout it and gain about 10mm gap. I was thinking about filling in the gaps at the edges with a sawdust/glue mix.



My son doesn't want a scratchplate but does want a Tru-oil finish, and I know there will be clear evidence of a bodge-up however hard I try to get an in-fill right. It is highly unlikely that this guitar will win any prizes however!!

So my question is, fill and re-rout, or leave it as it is? What would you do?

Andyjr1515

For a first attempt it looks pretty good and I like the overall shape  

If it was me, I would re-rout as you've suggested and turn the U gap between the filler block and the body into a feature.  I would make sure it was even and then fill the gap with black epoxy or similar... 

WezV

it will work as it is.  you won't have structural issues like you would with a bridge on studs that would be putting pressure on the edge of the cavity

tonally i am not so sure. you will probably get quite an ice picky tone from it being that close.  it will certainly sound better moved slightly.  if anyone wants to know why simply pluck the string right next to the bridge then repeat slightly further away.  you can usually hear where it becomes much more musical and that to me is the closest you want a pickup

dean2371

Thanks for the advice chaps, re-rout it is