#archtop project

This was a real hit and hope job.  A long while ago I sold my Epiphone Dot to pay for a baritone guitar.  Although I still have, love, and use the baritone I couldn't help but feel love for my Epi...  I decided to do something about it.

The first port of call was to decide - fully done or project.  The latter obvs.  Then where from?  It struck me that with all the positivity I've been producing about Chinese made guitars, well, I'd better get it from China.  I opted for Aliexpress and started looking.  Eventually I found this:

Now - I'm not a big fan of gold hardware, I KNEW the varitone knob would be useless and I definitely didn't want G***on on the headstock (it isn't one, so why pretend?).  A quick message later and all is confirmed - 'silver' hardware and no logo.

Fuerk it.  Have a punt.

I placed the order and waited.  After a week or so (I was in regular contact to make sure things were progressing) I got some pretty cool pictures of the guitar being made (you don't get that from many guitar suppliers!)

Now if you look carefully - you can see a certain-company's logo on the last photo.

After a few more days I received pre-shipping confirmation photos.  A neat idea really as at least we both knew that the guitar *looked* as expected:

"Look Ma, no logo".

The day of shipment coincided with me leaving for a holiday, so at least I had something to tame the holiday-blues!

Anyway, it arrived - big yellow-wrapped parcel:

In all fairness it was packed excellently. Arrived quickly and was *almost* exactly as expected.  It played nicely out of the box, was pretty well set up and the finish was EXCELLENT - oh also, the seller kindly subbed in a bone nut at no extra cost as I forgot to ask initially.  The problem, as anticipated, was the electronics and hardware.  I'm not going to beat around the bush - they were CRAP.  The wiring was not functioning as it should (I have subsequently tried to make sense of the wiring but I cannot), the tuners were terrible (they had loads of play in them meaning you could turn the tuner without it affecting the string pitch) and the bridge rattles.  LOL?  Probably not if I hadn't expected it.

So the list of jobs:

Replace tuners

Remove hardware

Remove electronics

Level and dress frets

Create new wiring harness

Install new pickups

Install new harness

Temp-fix bridge (waiting on replacement)

Quick setup

File nut

Full setup

Reshape nut

Replacing the tuners is pretty simple, get rid of the old rubbish ones, remove the bushing, re-drill the hole for the new bushing add the new tuner:

To remove the old bushings I used an appropriately sized drill (would fit in the hole, but not pass the bushing) with a scrap of wood on top to protect the mallet:

The replacement bushing were then pushed home with a clamp, using the same scrap of wood on the back to protect the finish (top doesn't need it as clamp shouldn't come into contact):

Half of the tuners replaced:

Removing hardware:

I didn't want a 6-way switch there so I removed that, and the helpfully sticky label that accompanied it:

All taped up for fret levelling - I would normally cover the pickups to do this as the metal shavings from levelling can cause havoc with a pickup, as I was replacing them anyway I just removed the old ones:

First couple of passes, please note the blue marker that remains on the upper register frets - this is because they are low.  

The idea is to get them all perfectly level so the higher ones need to be reduced to this level.  A few more passes - reduces the amount of blue marker left:

Keep levelling ALL of the frets when keeping any eye on these, there were also other high/low spots that needed doing so it wasn't just these.  Repeat process until all frets show the blue marker is being removed:

Vacuum up the mess and begin re-crown, dressing and polishing until it feels and plays as desired!

Next up - create the wiring harness.  Using a transparency I created a template and then a jig out of a shoe box:

I then wire up the harness as it would be installed in the guitar, note the lines to show where the wires should go so that they are not visible through the f-hole. For comparison - here is the old harness (left!) compared to the new harness (right!).  I used screened cable (only ground the screen at ONE end!) and a neat trick I saw where a thick cable tie is used to reinforce the harness and its shape.  All the wires were then neatly cable tied together:

Things to note.  Working on archtops/semis is a real pain.  Everything must fit through the f-holes (and not damage the finish) and fit from behind.  Make sure you adjust the potentiometer stop nuts to the correct depth BEFORE you feed all the harness in!  Use grip-lock to stop nuts coming undone - you will never want to work on the electronics again once you've installed them!  And finally make some bespoke tools:

A bit of wire with a bag-tie-cable super glued to one end...  Works wonders to help feed pot-shafts through holes.  And a coat hanger top (I don't seem to have any wire-only coat hangers any more, have they stopped making them!?), straightened and with a slight hook on one end - invaluable for retrieving the jack socket!

  Hurrah!

Then a quick setup was done, the nut slots filed down (note: always keep a WORKING prototype, you never know when you'll be stoopid and lose a later revision!) using the *new* nut slot gauge (old photo below).  It worked a dream and I knew exactly when to stop.  Honestly - I LOVE this thing!

The guitar set up done it was time to have a play.  

It plays WONDERFULLY.  I'm so happy!  

The action is great and the new guitar sound is just how I hoped!  The coil tap is also quite useful, but the humbucker sound is just lovely!  There is a slight issue in that the crap bridge, as well as buzzing, also has quite a limited range of saddle movement.  I had to re-reverse a couple and even then they are at their limit where I'd ideally like to have another tweak left.  I do have another bridge on the way which should hopefully resolve this anyway.  To help alleviate the rattle I looped a bit of tape around the bridge posts - seems to have done the trick.

With all that done it was the final step of reshaping the nut, I tend to do this with the strings still on for the majority of the time so I can listen out for a sound-change when the file begins to brush the strings, then I can remove them and take the height of the nut around the 3 wound strings down a little more so that they sit halfway in.  With the strings off it is also a good opportunity to lubricate the nut with some 'pencil shavings in vaseline' sauce:

All in all I knew this would be hard work, but to be honest it was a pleasure to work on and the end result is amazing, I'm so happy with it I'm kinda smug.

The things I've learnt:

The QC applied by big companies getting stuff produced in China pays off.

If you know how to make a guitar play and sound great, this is a good way to get a 'custom-built' donor body for your project

The guitar finishing on these sorts of purchases is what makes it worth it, NOT the hardware and electronics. Expect to replace those.

The purchase process was simple and although it took a while to get here, it was not unreasonable. How quick do you want a 'custom' guitar to be made!?

So there you have it.  If you're comfortable doing the above work then I'd say go for it!  If not, I'd say steer well clear from direct purchases and go via a brand that will do the QC for you...

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