Finished

My only complaint is the the neckplate had a logo when i thought i was getting a blank one.  Divebombs o plenty now.

Ukulele upgrade

Bought these gear tuners on ebay for a about $4.  Had to make the holes a little bigger, but that was about it.  Much easier to tune now.

Tuners!

I really like the look of the black hardware on this dark stained wood.

Still waiting on the neck plate and string trees.  Then finally assembly and setup can occur.

Assorted wiring more pics

Assorted wiring

The connectors you see are to help make the electronics interchangeable.
I grounded the tremolo to the shielding.  The shielding connects to itself top and bottom.
Passive guard i ready to go.  The stereo jack is still on the way before completing the active pickguard.

Tremolo cover

The one thing I don't like, but I had to adjust for the loger steel trem block.

Clear coats

I think i am happy with the look, but not satisfied with my application of the clear coat.  It's got globs in a couple places on the back.

Custom tremolo cavity cover.

There's a place for the tremolo cavity cover, but i ran into a problem with parts and realized too late on the body's design.  The tremolo block is longer than the guitar body's thickness, so the block and springs are going to run into and scrap the trem cover.  Instead of buying pickguard material, i bought a 2-in-1 clipboard/folder document holder thingy from walmart for a few bucks less.  It is essentially two 9x12 sheets of plain 3 ply black pickguard material.  I cut a big hole in the bigger sheet for the bottom and smaller one for the top.  The two together should create a dome for block and spring clearance.

Bad tape or oily

I didn't get that straight line i was looking for, so i had to get my file set out and scrape the straight line where needed.  The tape was peeling in places and i got paint in there of course.  It definitely looks amateur, but i can't really afford the tools and don't have the space for them anyway.  Well, that and i don't like to redo things and i am impatient.

Staind

I guess i forgot to point out I stained the front side of the body.

More shields

Shielding done on the inside. 

Front side of sticks

Just some crazy glue.

Popsicle sticks!

The body was missing that thin piece of wood, so this is what i came up with this solution so i can shield the pickup cavity.

To stain or to paint

I finished sanding.  It's dedinitely still got problems that i couldn't just sand away.
Going to try to stain the top and then paint the rest black.  If it sucks, i will go back to my original grey plan.

Hours later

Finally got the paint and poly off.
I think I might use a natural finish after i sand it.  I am not 100% sure though.

Ouch

Heat gun burn

Pots needed

The pots are still needed before I begin soldering wires, but it is looking pretty good.  The nick is partially covered.  I am no expert, so I am not too worried about it.  I would rather not redo that paint job.

Cut out for box

Drilled holes and put the scrolling saw in it to cut by hand, so I don't screw up the paint and clear coated pick guard.  However, I still ended up nicking it.

Put in pickups and traced battery box for active pickups.

Shields up

The control cavity has some aluminum already.  I put some copper around the pickups.  I thought my orange jazzmaster copy sounded pretty good with all of the shielding, so i am going forthe same thing here.

Finished!

Works great.  I now have all of my pedals  available and room for a couple more, like an EQ pedal.  Possible adjustments I may make later and forget to post, one patch cable won't be long enough if I get a new pedal, and one patch cable I had to use is really cheap and extra long.  I also may create input and output jacks, so I am not plugging directly into a pedal from the guitar.

Rollin'

Mounted a surge protector and starting to run power cables through it.  I didn't take a pick, but i have put a strip of velcro on each board on top and laid out pedals.

Almost finished

I still need to insert more screws, but otherwise it is ready to go.

Expansion pack

I didn't account for the extra real estate i was going to gain with the overlap.

One at a time

Putting one screw in at a time to be able to adjust as i go and laying it on the floor to test it's flat in between screw insertions.

Paint

Well that was a lot of spray paint.  I probably should have bought a can and a brush, but too late, it is done and my finger hurts from holding done the spray button for so long.  Hopefully, putting it together and putting pedals on it tomorrow.

Per usual

It cracked after I drilled my handle hole.  It should be fine because wood glue.

Cut dem

Cut 8 inches off of the 1x4s and cut my angled pieces on the 2x4.

omg lulz

Oops, apparently I took those pics upside down originally.

Pedalboard plans.

My old Boss pedalboard has been at maximum capacity for quite awhile now.  I have a tremolo pedal and plans to add an EQ pedal at some point, so here are the plans I started with.  I am actually only going to make it two rows of 1x6.  Otherwise, this is still the plan.  My trip to Lowe's hardware store cost about $50 for everything, but I am probably using $30 of the material using less than half of the 2x4 and velcro.

Pickguards

I used the sanding block shown in the previous pickguard picture to dull it for painting.  Then sprayed black and put on a clear coat so the paint will hopefully not chip or flake.  We will revisit this when I wire them up.

Long time no see

It's been awhile friends.  I sold the First Act guitar on ebay, so I could make one that plays a bit better.  I decided for this one to make two (maybe a third later) interchangable wired pickguards for a strat build, because I have two and a half sets of pickups I want to use.  The current plan is to make either a natural woood finish or dark grey strat with all black hardware.  The choice depends on what the body looks like after I strip, but waiting on a heat gun to find out. I purchased a beat up body and dual humbucker pickguards.