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AsRx, here we are, back on the bench again for more fiddling and i dotting and t crossing.



You can't really see how off the nut filing is, but it's enough to make it feel just a bit ... Not quite right.
Put a new battery in my tuner too. Forgot how useful this little thing is - I usually only use it for the acoustic. Given there's no amp or anything in the shed and bringing the whole pedalboard seems a bit silly, this worked.



Oddly enough, this proved to be quite a consistent way to get the height right. File (really carefully) until it buzzes on the folded sandpaper, and then stop



Didn't take a hell of a long time, really - Still, I stayed in the shed til topless women talk about their lives was done.



All done



Just a tidbit more work with the truss; lifted the tailpiece so strings weren't sitting on bridge saddles and frame. This brought string tension down quite a bit, but not so much that the 11s are now a sloppy mess like 9s on a duo sonic.
Checked the intonation and marginally adjusted pickup heights again, and had a play of some of my favourite songs.

I don't think I could do anything to improve on the thing, now. Short of a refret with stainless obviously.
I'm really surprised how well the job I managed to do turned out. It's like whatever spiritual entity in charge of guitars is happy with me now ... Or I'll pay for it with karma by picking up the tele and not liking it lol.

Ahh well, guess that's it for my dear old goldtop in the way of mods and silly shit being done.

Feels great to play, looks good just sitting, and sounds like a million bucks. The entwistles have hit the nail on the head in terms of the sound I wanted. Not bad for an impulse buy (thanks slowy, I think - Maybe willow? for mentioning them). The writing on them is a bit naff, but it's not obstructive, so I think I'll be happy repping the dude's stuff.
Gotoh hardware ... Ugh, nuff said. Great stuff. Love it.

So thanks you lot, for standing by through all the sanding and painting, and vague descriptions of things that I couldn't put my finger on at the time of writing.
Now I have a sound card and my mics, maybe I'll even get some sounds up somewhere.

You are freakin' crazy........and I like it.

where was your tele thread? I've opened up guest permissions in all diy forums

"Guitar mods"

Seriously appreciate you doing that from a hospital bed. That is excellent.

I mean it didn't work but good effort lol

Single coil wrote:I mean it didn't work but good effort lol

thats because I didn't know it was in guitar mods, hence the question

Proceed, captain.

Single coil wrote:Proceed, captain.

sorted

Good show. Thanks heaps.

Coming up on today's edition of who's getting FUCKING MOLESTED???



... It's my goldtop, again. Because this is the goldtop thread. Yeeeeeeee
Yeah the pickguard is off - we'll get to that.



No. Stop. What are you doing.



Alright here's the deal.
I found a set of pre cut, pre everything'd (except side filed) frets to suit 12" radius gibbo style guitars. For 20 bucks or whatever they were (think it might've been significantly less than that), why the fuck not?



The real kicker is, they are stainless.
(Or at least, they were advertised as stainless.)



I guess this is what we don't want.



... But who said life was a rose garden.



Ickiness under th-... Where the old frets were.



Let's knock the plastic nut off too - That'll be replaced.





Sawdust from a super light sand to try alleviate some of the chunky goneburger bits made them look heaps worse.

https://i.imgur.com/IBOTgph.jpg?1

Spose I should attempt to cover these bits up.



Here we are after another light, gentle sand with like 800 or so.



Round two: Put them in order from 1 - 22.



... And success was sorta had, once I figured out a way to do it.



Yeah, shit yeah, here we go!



This is when I discovered I would in fact have to nip the ends off and do a bitta filing.



But, I mean ... Not bad aye?



Aaaaaaaaand let's talk about the pickguard!
Camel are one of my favourite groups. Favourite enough for me to go actively hunt for their stuff on vinyl, give up, and settle for a reissue.

Pretty sure they named themselves after camel fags, so what better way t-Oh look it's even sorta the same colour!



Ados'd a bit of a fag box on, then plastic primer'd over the top. Pickguard is plastic, and said primer is clear. Why wouldn't it work?



Sorta looks like it's lifting ... Shouldn't be. I'll empty the last of my clear onto it tomorrow. Should come up pretty good.

Now . . . . I think this is the bit where I started trying to nip the ends off.



Yeah, musta been.



These things are kinda curmudgeonly.



Ok, they're just clunky and a bit unwieldy.



Solution?



Nip nip nip nip please ignore scrape nip nip nip



I don't think I've started filing yet . . .



Nah, surely not.



Oh, nah, here we go - This is after filing and sanding the edges some. They're pretty inconsistent as far as width goes, but I was going for "let's make these not slice my hand open" rather than "let's make them all the same".



Not sure what the trick is to rounding the edges yet.







I noticed my bridge pickup was kinda loose too - Screws weren't doin a great deal. Better sort it out with some ass screws.



They don't match, but man, it's not goin' anywhere now.



A picture with the oldies so the folk amongst us who can actually see colour may be able to see a difference.



This must be after a polish. I don't recall taking pictures of all the green tape and buffing and carrying on.



It's time to ... Oil up. . . . .



Kinda scary how all the colour came back after a dollop of lemon oil.




Now, you'll all know (from going through this thread in its entirety) that I wasn't quite happy with the end result of the headstock.
Tuner holes weren't centred properly, finish was ok, but not ideal; width of the thing was a little ... Eh, and overall, it just ... I just wasn't happy with it.

So I measured up properly, employed some tactful marking techniques, Thought before I did, aaaaaand this is where I'll leave you for the time being.

Oh sweet baby Jesus.

This time around will be a lot less ad hoc, and probably a bunch less entertaining.

Single coil wrote:This time around will be a lot less ad hoc, and probably a bunch less entertaining.

Nah!!! believe me...this is really entertaining!!!!

Fair dues lad. Yep, grinding back flat nosed pliers is the way. Looks like you’ve pulled up short on one or two frets. ,isn’t find that the high E wants to slip off or catch under that one. Any spares ?
Good stuff otherwise tho:)