Prototype 1 Mayfield Ave
Maintenance
Strings
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standard E tuning and balanced .011 to .052. Standard 0.011 should work too.
These strings are cheap. Please keep them in stock. The string gauge shall be matched by the truss-rod and the bridge springs; thus please refrain from switching to a different tuning or a different string gauge.
Relief and intonation
4mm (5/32 inch) trust-rod adjustment allen wrench
0.050 inch allen wrench
Specification
The guitar is constructed from parts. Bill of materials: BOM.
Neck
Original neck from Warmoth.
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10in to 16in variable radius.
The neck feels more like an Ibanez than a Fender as a consequence; curse or blessing, I am not so sure. My next build will be classical 9.5in for sure.
Aftermarket modifications:
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Lightly scalopped fretboard;
This is very lightly scalopped (1/16in) comparing to usual scalloped guitars. I measured the depth according to the shape of my own finger tips.
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Semi-gloss finishing;
because gloss is gross, and satin is dull.
Pickups
Neck: Dimarzio Vintage Blues
Middle: Dimarzio Virtual Vintage 54 Pro
Bridge: Dimarzio Injector Bridge
I did not quite like the combination of the pick-ups. The guitar sounded a bit too heavy. It is all messed up due to the Injector. I will not use a Injector Bridge in my next build. The vintage Blues could worked better on the Bridge, and the Vintage 54 on the neck. The middle could used an Area 61-ish.
Known defects
This is the first guitar that I built from raw components. Lessons-learned:
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misaligned tuning machines
I used a hand drill + eyeballing to locate and drill the alignment holes for the tuning machines. This was bad: the tuning machines would not fit in and I had to enlarge some of the holes to 1/8 inches.
I should have used a drill press, and should have printed blueprints for the location of the alignment holes.
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neck pocket and bridge aligment
Warmoth body seems to be incompatible to 6-screw vintage (vintage narrow) bridges.
The bridge tends to sit too low relative the neck after the neck is installed to the pocket. I had to raise the saddle screws to a ridiculous amount to get a reasonable string action, and this caused all sorts of instability on the bridge side (e.g. when tuning the intonation).
As a solution I routed the neck pocket down by about 1/16 inches. This fixed the alignment of the bridge, but as a side-effect the pick-guard plate is now locked by the 22th-fret board extension. To reinstall the pick-guard place, one needs to remove the neck.
I did not use a mill, but used a plunge tool that ran out of support. As a result the neck pocket is slightly unlevel, and I had to insert a piece of paper next to the inner edge of the pocket to compensate for the unlevelness. You can see both defects here.
