Intonation

Setting up the intonation was really easy on this guitar. Every string went to tune with ease except low e. No matter how hard i tried it was under the radar on both sides of the adjustment screw.

With no other option left i took the spring away and also cut a bit away from the screw. I can't say how much i like Knipex tools. With tools there is no way to go cheep.

Without the spring I was able to fine tune the intonation. I actually had to screw it all the way to the bottom.

Putting it all together

Now I have all the parts I ordered and the guitar itself. Plenty of things happen right now but already now I can see that this won't be so easy as I thought.
Pickguard is too small and too big. Neck pickup hole was too small, but it was also too big from the neck pocket part and also from the bridge. Knife is a great tool for this. If this was a telecaster pickguard I'd be pissed, but here it is ok.
One part I missed completely - jack plate. I didn't realise that it was missing. So I need to get one.
Closest place to get one is a really nice place called Uraltone. They have nice boutique amp kits, guitar stuff, tools, tubes and also imported cheeeeeeep guitar parts. Query for a jackplate gives me this kind of options.

Now all is set and everything is soldered. New strings and all. Sound is great. Neck sanding and jack plate is missing. Guitar is good. Tone is nice and all. Only that 5-way switch really bugs me. Its touch is too smooth and it feels like really unreliable.

Look at that beauty! Behind it lies a Fender Pawnshop '72. 102's body is so much more smaller. 

I went with the plastic Les Paul jack plate. Hole in 102s is 25mm and metal  jack was for 7/8inch hole (22.5mm). 

Guitar weighs 3.5kilos and plays really well. Now is time to trim it and record some footage with it.

Nut and switch are the weakest parts here. Guitar is really low noise on high gain and plays well both acustically and electrically. G-string pops out on lower fret bends. 

TomTop parts

This kind of package came today. Looking good. 

So everything else but guitar is here.

Ey parts are here

Got the EyGuitarParts yesterday. Everything ok, quality seems better than ok. One problem rose when tried to fit neck pickup on pickquard. I need to make the hole bigger. Quite a lot actually. New holes are needed too. Nothing drastic but maybe some small washers are needed. 

2nd thing is this 5-way-super-switch. It is also quite wide. Will it fit in to the cavity?

Sanding the neck

I like the feel of un lacquered neck. Whether it is polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer they tend to feel quite sticky to me. Sanded and oiled wood is just perfect. You kinda bond more to the vibrating neck when there is nothing between hand and wood.

I bought some sandpaper from hardware store.

There are plenty of different methods how to do it.

1st one is more traditional. You sand the lacquer away. It is done here (and in many other places).

Other option is to smooth the sticky lacquer with really fine grit. Galeazzo Frudua does it here in his video tutorial. I've actually done this to my Eric Johnson strat. It made way better and faster too.

Then again - I don't know the status of the 102s. Is it already sanded? Fretboard at least is über shitty.
Plenty of tutorials and ways to get over this issue, but old toothbrush and lemon oil are key tools here. You might even use very light mix of some detergent and toothbrush in the beginning if shit is tight.

Shielding and foam (something while waiting)

Guitar is coming next Thursday 19th of June, so I have some more time here to prepare myself. I decided to cover a bit the idea of shielding.
It is a way to minimize all the unwanted buzz and interference coming out from the electrical parts.

You can google all day and there are plenty of tutorials how to do it, but the easiest way is to do it with aluminium tape and cover all cavities and pickguard (from the backside). It all roots back to Faraday cage. Copper tape would work too but it is not cheep at all.

3M has different versions of it but any harware store has it on different brands. As long as it is adhesive it will work. Then again - does it help at all - is a question to be asked. Tone guru (and guitar too) Eric Johnson does not have any shielding inside his signature strat.

Any way. There are many magic or voodoo things to do with your guitars. Some of them are really cheep too. Nice article on that on premierguitar.com

This is a nice one too. Jol Dantzig puts some foam underneath the pickups. I guess that's what we're gonna do too. Article is here.

Costs and progress

Got the pickguard today. Looks awesome. I was also happy to receive credit card bill in snail mail.
TomTop 8,47€
GuitarsElectric 21,75€
EyParts 42,87€
Together that is 73.09€ + Guitar 70€, so we are now in total sum 143.09€.

Let see whether it is worth the work and money.