Solid Body PRS: Shielding and Pickups

Well the PRS is in the home straight now. I have gotten all the cavities shielded with copper shielding tape and soldered wires between them to make them electrically conductive. With the ground wire from the bridge post now soldered to the wall of the bridge pickup cavity, this means all my shielding will be nicely grounded. All I will need to do to ground the rest of the circuit come wiring time is to run a wire from the control cavity wall to the back of the tone pot. Simple, easy.

The GFS Surf-90s were next to be installed. I put a slight bend in the thin (but tough!) chrome humbucker rings using just my fingers, and it was enough to allow the screws to pull the corners of each surround all the way down to the body.

As usual, the wire conduit hole drilled from the bridge pickup into the control cavity was directly under one of the pickup mounting screws. When will kit manufacturers realise that the bottom right corner is the worst place for this conduit? I had a few stressful minutes wondering whether the pickup screw would break the wires from either the ground or the 2 humbuckers (it was getting pretty crowded in there), but a quick tap-test on the pickups after screwing down the surround seemed to suggest that everything is OK. Seems like I was able to keep the pickup wires more or less out of the way as the screw went in.

With the pickups in and the neck strung up, this baby is really starting to look like something special. I must say I wasn't that fond of the black headstock when I first did the paint job, but it really does suit ths body shape. In spite of the trapeze tailpiece (I do love a trapeze tailpiece!!) she is looking like a real shredder. With just a simple set-up I was able to achieve quite a comfortable and low action, so I can't wait to get the rest of the wiring in there and take her for a spin.

I'm waiting on CTS 500k pots and an orange drop cap before I can finish the wiring, but that should be here in the next day or so. Hopefully she'll be screaming by the end of the week!

Solid Body PRS: Surf-90s are Here!

My GFS Surf-90 Pickups with white surrounds arrived today for the PRS and they look awesome! Finally I get to see what this funky axe is going to look like all put together! What do you think? I reckon it's going to look killer..

Just a few more coats of Tru-Oil for the body and a last coat of Wudtone top-coat for the neck and I can start to think about the headstock. I'm really digging the vintage yellow neck with the greenish body!

Currently I'm considering just spraying the headstock black. The thought of matching the Colortone dye from the body and then applying all those coats of Tru-Oil really doesn't excite me much. The black will provide a great contrast for my headstock decal anyway. Onward!

12 String 335 - It's a Thing of Beauty!

The 335 is finally finished. All agree that the Colortone Amber stain + Tru-oil looks spectacular, as does my choice of tailpiece and GFS Surf-90 pickups. You be the judge!

12 String 335 - Polishing and Shielding

Great progress today - i *finally* got the polishing finished on my 335 12 string, and I also managed to shield the pickup cavities ready to receive their glorious GFS Surf 90s!

I started the polishing process after having wet-sanding with 1500 grit paper and applying a final coat of tru-oil thinned to 50% with turps. Polishing proceeded in 4 stages, with the first stage being a wet-sand with 2000 grit wet-and-dry using boiled linseed oil as the lubricant. I wet-sanded until the surface felt smooth and sanding marks covered the majority of the surface. The surface wasn't as dull as it probably should have been, but this wasn't unexpected given that I didn't leave all my wet-sanding until the last coat of Tru-oil was applied.

After the 2000 grade wet-sand, I then applied sucessive Stewmac polishing compounds - starting with Medium, then moving to Fine and Swirl Remover to remove the sanding scratches and bring out the shine.

I applied each successive compound using my electric drill and some small (3cm) foam polishing pads I purchased from Aussie site polish-up.com.au.  The shine that resulted was surprising, with the Tru-oil displaying a satisfyingly reflective gloss finish, and a deep translucency that unfortunately shows up every little mistake I made when applying each layer of oil. The flame maple has really popped, and the 3d or "chatoyance" effect as you move around the guitar is fantastic. In short, I'm very happy with how the finish has turned out!

With polishing complete, it was time to turn my attention to preparing the guitar for wiring - notably, shielding the pickup cavities with some dual-sided conductive copper foil. This stuff is great - it comes with stickum on the back and simply lays down like tape (if a little harder to handle). Each strip lays over the strip next to it and the whole thing forms a wonderfully conductive sheet (resistance is effectively negligable).

"chatoyance"

You can even solder onto it! I was able to easily solder wire from the neck cavity to the bridge cavity without any trouble at all. When the bridge is finally installed, i will be able to solder the bridge ground wire to the shielding around the bridge pickup,  and then run another wire from the shielding out to the wiring harness. Exciting times ahead!

12 String 335 - The Hardware has Arrived!

My hardware arrived for the 335 build today; pickups, solid metal humbucker mounting rings, and a trapeze tailpiece all in beautiful shiny chromey goodness.

The pickups are Surf 90's from Guitarfetish (GFS). These have received rave reviews from all quarters, and I'm expecting them to really bring the jangle. These pickups were specifically recommended for a 12 string application by the guys at GFS. Suffice to say I have high hopes for the sound. The humbucker mounting rings are also from GFS, and will require some bending to fit the archtop of the guitar. I love the low profile look to them much better than the bulk of the regular humbucker rings, and it's always better to have real metal rather than chrome plated plastic. I'm going to use them on all my builds in the future!

The 12 string trapeze tailpiece is from Allparts and completes the setup. It's not the flashiest tailpiece around, but it was really hard to find any 12 string tailpieces at all! I do like the simple lines it provides however - it compliments the lines of the flamed maple finish. It's going to look awesome with the strings on.

Once I complete the True-Oil finish (only a final wet sand and a polish to go now!), I have only to drill the holes for the bridge posts, and then all these badboys will find themselves installed. I have ordered a set of Brad-Point drill bits from StewMac, so hopefully they will arrive soon. This build is really nearing the finishing line now, and excitement is growing!