Completed Masterpiece

I think it's safe to say that not many people either my age, at the Bay, or anyone in general have not taken the time to build an electric guitar from the ground up. Now that it is all finished I have an extreme sense of accomplishment. When I plugged it in to my vintage amp for the first time, there was no sweeter sound than to hear the magnificent tone bursting into my ears. The experience was truly amazing and without a doubt something I will never forget. This is my most prized possession and I hope that everyone can one day have that same feeling.

Laying On the Strings

After much patience, time, and effort it is finally ready for the strings. I start out with a set of #9 strings which is one of the thinnest because the neck and the body have not had a chance to get used to any pressure yet so I needed to be as gentle as possible. This scared me at first because when you fully tune a guitar to E it's an insane amount of pressure on the neck that most people don't notice. If my guitar neck wasn't securely fashioned then there would be the possibility of it folding up and breaking the neck.

---

gibson les paul junior wallpaper MySpace Layouts Gallery!
Create Your Own Layout Here!

---

Pickups and Knob Preparation

     To properly set up an electric guitar so its playable you need to do a set of activities with it to make sure everything works. I began by placing the gold translucent volume and tone knobs on their corresponding pots. I made sure that the numbers 1 through 10 are exactly on the same angle when I look at them while playing. I tightened them just snug enough so they can still slide to adjust the levels of sound or tone. Next are the pickups. For a standard Les Paul set up, the pickups must be on a certain angle and a specific distance away from the strings. The idea with this is you want it as close to the strings as possible without touching. That is why I positioned them 3mm away from the strings for the first pickup and 4mm away for the bottom pickup.

Assembling the Parts





     Now that the guitar is all wired and buffed, I can finally accessorize it with all its flashy parts. First the tuning machines will be screwed on to the head. These tuning machines are what the strings are wound tightly on. They have to be strong because if not the tension from the strings will pull them off. Then the bridge and tailpiece will be installed. The tailpiece is what holds the strings at the base of the guitar. It has to be exactly perpendicular to the neck for it to play well. The bridge is a different story. This part goes right in front of the bridge so the strings can rest on it. The bridge is a tiny chrome bar that must be placed on a 10 degree angle for the strings to properly stay in tune. These steps were very tedious because if one thing was off then the guitar would never truly be in tune.



The bridge and tailpiece are the bottom two bars