So far I sanded the neck and body, did some prep work on the neck pocket (which was probably unnecessary) and masked and painted the guitar.
Before assembly, I would recommend drilling the hole for the input jack to connect to the volume pot if it's not there. On mine this wasn't drilled at the factory, so I had to drill it out much later in the process. I would even do this before painting as I mentioned in an earlier post.
The first step for assembly is to add the tuning keys. It's pretty self explanatory, but you just slide the tuner in from the back, add the washer to the top and tighten down the nut. Then you go back and add the little screw to the back of the tuner. There are already pilot holes so it's not too big of a deal. Next, I added the locking nut. Fortunately, the pre-drilled holes lined the nut up properly on the neck, but I would have preferred to fit this on myself. If all of the necks are 100% accurate (and maybe they are) then I don't have a problem with this, but if the pre-drilled holes for the nut are off at all, then your inside and outside strings will be too close or to far from the edge of the fingerboard. With all that said, I got the nut screwed in and everything looks great.
Next I added the two shafts for the Floyd Rose. Take a dowel rod and use that to tap them in with a hammer. I didn't need to use too much pressure to make them go in straight. Use a beach towel under your guitar to pad the body. Make sure if you're using Lacquer that it's completely dry - that type of paint can stay soft for a long time. Tap them in until they're flush with the body, then screw in the bridge posts.
I dry fit the bridge with the outside two strings installed in the bridge (high and low E), dry fit the neck, and checked the string alignment relative the the outside of the fretboard. Again, this was a step that wasn't necessary because the neck holes are pre-drilled, but I've done this on other builds where you have to do a little more of the alignment than this one. Everything lined up very well! The high E and low E both had correct distance from the edge of the fretboard.
Next I removed the bridge and the bridge screws and I flipped the guitar over and attached the spring claw. Just place the claw in the middle of the back of the cavity and mark the holes with a sharpie. Next I pushed the screw in just a little to start pilot holes. Since the screws are going into end grain, I didn't need to drill pilot holes and the screws went right in.
Now's a good time to dry fit the pickup. After I had the guitar assembled, I found that I had to dig out a little on the sides of the cavity to allow the pickup to raise and lower. I was able to just carve out some extra wood with an exacto knife.
Okay, time to get the neck attached to the body. Put the neck plate on with the black rubber side toward the guitar (if it has one - some are just metal without a rubber side) and screw the four bolts in. I like to go in a rotating pattern, tightening one a little, then the next, then the next one, until they are all the way in. This way you know that one screw isn't pulling the neck in a certain direction more than another and that they are all equally tight. I don't like to use a drill driver for this because I never want to risk stripping the screws or over tightening.
Next I added the pickup to the body, routing the pickup wire through the hole to the control cavity. Just slide everything into place and screw the pickup ring to the body.
Here comes one of the tricky parts - adding the springs to the bridge. I slid the bridge into place and I went ahead and strung the guitar up without the springs attached. I would add some chapstick to the knife edge of the tremelo - the point where the bridge touches the poles. With this being a lower end Floyd Rose, I found that I had to go back later and do this to help the bridge return back to zero after using it for a divebomb...which I like to do (who doesn't?. The bridge was sticking and wouldn't return. It's working pretty well now, although I'm still giving this one a road test. It seems to hold tune, but definitely doesn't seem as stable as my Kramer Pacer Classic. That guitar is rock solid in the tuning department. There may be some string slippage at either the nut or the bridge clamps...more to come as I continue to evaluate. Okay, with everything connected - bridge in place, strings lightly strung up (not all the way to pitch but not completely loose) I flipped the guitar over and attached the three springs. This can be a little tricky but you can loosen the claw to bring it close enough to the springs to get them on. I forgot to take a picture in progress, so here are the springs after wiring:
Now you can tune your strings up to pitch. I screwed the claw in a little to make it centered on the cavity. It may take a few times tuning up to get the strings to stay in tune. Once they are, screw the spring claw in until the bottom of the bridge sits parallel with the body. You have to go back and forth tuning and adjusting the claw like this until you have the right balance. Once I had the strings relatively tight though, I held the trem bar down so the bridge was close to parallel and tuned the strings up. Then I fine tuned with the claw. It seemed to get me there faster. If your strings are flat against the neck, just raise the two post screws up until they're off the neck. This will give you rough action that you can adjust later, after you get things wired up. You may want to add a little neck relief by turning the allen nut at the top of the neck just a bit. There are a ton of tutorials out there about adjusting action and string height so I won't go into that. Suffice to say that I added a little relief to the neck and raised the strings up off of the fretboard until they stopped buzzing too much and I have a nice low but playable action.
At this point the guitar is ready to play. We just need to add electricity so we can disturb the neighbors properly...and that's what we'll cover in the next installment!
Rock on!
-Cutter Savage
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